Hustling Independent presidential candidate Willy Mayambala seems to have thrown in the towel after close to 3 weeks of campaigns.
Mayambala has had a rough time moving across the country to look for votes because of the costs involved.
The presidential candidate has been on record begging his supporters to fundraise for him cash to fuel his car and feed himself while on the road.
He failed to put up campaign posters and has had a hard time being recognized in the few places he went to the campaign.
The final blow for him is when the National Identification and Registration Authority-NIRA have refused to accept his request to provide him with phone contacts to voters for campaign purposes.
Mayambala had resorted to communicating with voters via SMS messages and phone calls ahead of the forthcoming elections.
Mayambala claims this strategy is his contribution to containing the spread of covid 19.
‘’And in that pursuit, I would like to get the phone numbers of Ugandans so that I can be able to communicate to them through SMS as well as phone calls so that I can reduce my contribution to the spread of the pandemic, In this regards, I would like you Ugandans to stay safe, wash hands, sanitize and keep a safe distance,’’ Mayambala said
However, his request hit a snug after NIRA declined to honor his request.
Gilbert Kadilo the NIRA spokesperson says it is impossible for NIRA to release such information to the public because they don’t have the mandate to do that.
He says this is against data privacy issues, and also many people feel inconvenienced by unwanted messages jamming their phones all the time.
“It is not possible, we may not help him, but maybe he can see what the telecom companies say,” says Kadilo.
