FALSE: Erias Lukwago and Ssemujju Nganda have not defected from PFF to NUP
A YouTube video claiming that Erias Lukwago and Ssemujju Nganda have defected from the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) to the National Unity Platform (NUP) is FALSE.
The video’s caption translates to, “Just in, Lukwago and Ssemujju have left PFF and joined Bobi Wine in NUP; they’ve spoken.” Lukwago, the Kampala Lord Mayor, is the PFF chairperson while Ssemujju, the Party’s spokesperson, is a member of parliament.
The claim, however, is misleading. A Google search shows that during its August 2025 press conference, PFF announced it will not field a presidential candidate in the 2026 elections. Ssemujju said PFF had signed a cooperation agreement with the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) to back its candidate.
Ssemujju added that the party is also in talks with both ANT and NUP to decide whether to back a single joint candidate or more than one in the upcoming elections.
PesaCheck has looked into a YouTube video claiming that Erias Lukwago and Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda have defected from the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) to the National Unity Platform (NUP) and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
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This fact-check was written by Senior PesaCheck fact-checker Pius Enywaru and edited by PesaCheck copy editor Paul Tajuba. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck chief copy editor, Stephen Ndegwa.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.