Sheikh Abdallah Ssemambo was officially sworn in as Uganda’s interim Mufti on Sunday, December 17, 2023. He assumed this position after Sheikh Shaban Mubajje was suspended.

Ssemambo has been serving as the first deputy Mufti of the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council since January 17, 2021.

On December 16, 2023, many Muslim leaders who are members of the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council’s National General Assembly suspended Shiekh Ramadhan Mubajje from the position of Mufti for a specific six-month period while they looked into his possible involvement in the sale of properties to Ugandan Muslims.

The National General Assembly elected Sheikh Abdala Ssemambo as his first deputy and established a six-member committee to investigate Sheikh Ramadan’s business dealings.

Controversy

Meanwhile, the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC) spokesperson Ashiraf Zziwa Muvawala has since urged the Muslim community and members of the public to ignore reports that the Mufti of Uganda Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubaje has been suspended from office.

Muvawala said Mubaje’s contract is still running until 2025. He said those who purport to have suspended Mubaje have no powers to do so and equated their move to comedy.

“First of all, we do not know those people because they are not anywhere in the UMSC structures. They claim to be members of the general assembly but even the genuine UMSC general assembly has no powers to suspend the Mufti under our constitution,” Muvawala said.

Muvawala said any Muslim interested in taking the office of the mufti should wait until 2025 when Mubaje’s contract expires.

On Saturday, a group of about 180 Muslims that described themselves as members of the UMSC general assembly sitting at Gangu School off Busabala road in Wakiso district declared that they had suspended Mubaje from office for six months pending investigations on him over alleged mismanagement of the Muslim affairs.

During what they described as a special general assembly, the members said they had replaced Mubaje with his deputy Sheikh Abdallah Ssemambo.

They said Mubaje should be investigated over the fraudulent sale of Muslim properties and if found guilty be dismissed from office and to the contrary reinstated.