During the NTV 2025 Presidential Debate that was held on Sunday, Kyadondo East MP Nkunyingi Muwadda, talkative as always, got the microphone and asked a question he thought would enchant foot soldiers and deepen his appeal in Kyadondo East where he is struggling to secure re-election for second term come 15th January 2026.
Muwadda must also have calculated that his question would enthuse his flattery-craving party leader and Presidential Candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu. To his credit, Kyagulanyi (who is already doing well pulling the largest crowds thus far) was among the five (out of a total of 8) Presidential Candidates who turned up for the debating event.
Muwadda, speaking during the plenary session, demanded that the rest of the Candidates prove their genuine opposition to Gen Museveni by stepping down for Kyagulanyi who he claimed was majority Ugandans’ favourite, going by crowd sizes.
Muwadda read out names of FDC’s Nandala Mafabi, ANT’s Mugisha Muntu and Revolutionary People’s Party’s Frank Bulira Kabinga (his High School OB) demanding that the trio categorically states why they continue being in the race instead of stepping down for Kyagulanyi, who at some point during the debate claimed to be more popular than any of the four fellow Presidential Candidates even in their respective home areas.
Gen Muntu was the first one to respond. He made it clear that he undeniably realizes that Kyagulanyi’s NUP crowd is a big one but he will only consider bowing out for the man from Magere once its satisfactorily demonstrated to him that the NUP Candidate now understands that there is a huge difference between being popular, going on to win elections and the actual taking of power.
The ANT big man, who was the most eloquent and coherent in his answers of all the five Candidates, made it clear that the FDC very strong Candidate Col Kizza Besigye’s 2006-2016 experience (which saw him effectively take on Museveni) had taught him much better than the likes of Muwadda think.
Muntu, who was always the chief mobilizer for Candidate Besigye along with others like Ingrid Turinawe, asserted that the unrepentant political colossus from Rwakabengo in Rukungiri district actually had larger crowds than Kyagulanyi is yet to have but he still didn’t take power.
So, Muntu indicated to Muwadda that he now knows that it would be deceptive for anyone to depict Kyagulanyi as the strongest and the one standing the greatest chance to overcome Gen Museveni come 15th January 2026. He insisted that lessons have to be learned from the experience of Dr. Besigye, his bush war comrade, whose 2006, 2011 and 2016 crowds, he contended, were far larger and more energized and purpose-focussed than Kyagulanyi’s crowds today.
Muntu made it clear that it will take someone demonstrating to him that Kyagulanyi finally understands that there are many other things that have to be done beyond mere crowds to finally deliver Ugandans to the promised land. He said that otherwise he has no problem rallying behind Kyagulanyi or any one else because he isn’t a selfish man in this for self-aggrandizement or to seek personal fame.
Elton Joseph Mabirizi of CP was also present and he deflated Kyagulanyi by veiledly portraying him as a man who believes he reached his political destination and doesn’t value such political partnerships with fellow opposition leaders and other change-seekers for as long they don’t become members of his NUP party.
Saying he is a Mulokole (born again Christian) who can’t publicly lie about such an important matter, Mabirizi revealed how he thrice drove to Magere trying to impress on Kyagulanyi the need to rally and bring all opposition forces together ahead of the 2026 campaigns, only to be contemptuously disregarded by the NUP Principal, many of whose supporters falsely believe that whoever doesn’t come to Kavule to bow before Kyagulanyi is a regime agent working for Museveni.
He turned to face Kyagulanyi, demanding that he contradicts him if he indeed was lying. The NUP leader, who many accuse of chauvinistically wanting to see everyone bow before him as the sole leader for the opposition, merely murmured instead of unequivocally rebutting Mabirizi’s claim.
Nandala Mafabi, who used to be Muwadda’s boss as SG while still in FDC, scoffed at the idea while demanding for proof that Kyagulanyi was the only opposition Candidate all Ugandans want to remain in the race against Gen Museveni.
Nandala dismissed Muwadda as a wishful thinker, out to say things which can’t be scientifically proved. He demanded for proof, beyond mere crowds, that Kyagulanyi indeed is the one with the highest chance.
Nandala, whose ideas on how to fix the economy and put money in people’s pockets had already enchanted and endeared him to many other people following the debate online, asserted that Kyagulanyi was seeming to be having big rallies because many Ugandans come for the singing and musical entertainment he is synonymous with.
He also accused Muwadda’s party of perfectly emulating Gen Museveni’s NRM and resorting to the ferrying of hundreds of supporters from one part of the country to another.
Nandala made it clear that he belongs to FDC, a party he said follows a different approach of reaching people in the small villages where they stay and operate from, and that he wasn’t prepared to bow out of the race for anyone.
FRANK BULIRA TAKES BULL BY ITS HORNS:
On his part, RPP’s Frank Bulira Kabinga (arguably the youngest contestant in the race) took no prisoners as he contradicted many of Kyagulanyi’s points. He sat next to him, immediately to Kyagulanyi’s right, but that didn’t stop him from provocatively targeting the man from Magere.
In response to Muwadda’s question, Buliira said its Kyagulanyi who should bow out of the race for him and not the other way round.
The young man, who wowed audiences with his insightful grasp of international relations between Uganda and others countries (and on how to fix the problem of the Kadamas/Ugandans working abroad), said there is no way a serious power seeker like himself can be required to bow out for Kyagulanyi who he claimed has no plan beyond waking up on the morning after 15th January to tell Ugandans “byebyo ebivuddeyo banange buli omu agumye munne.”
It loosely translates to mean “that’s how voting has gone, please let each one of us encourage the other.” Frank Buliira, whose mentor and predecessor the late Dr. Aggrey Kiyingi, believed in extra-judicial means to terminate Museveni’s rule, asserted that: “There is no way a serious person like myself can issue such a statement that can clearly demoralise change-seeking Ugandans. We have many alternative plans to end Mr. Museveni’s rule and telling people buli omu agumye munne on the morning after polling day doesn’t exist in my vocabulary.”
Frank Buliira said he respects only Kiyingi and Dr. Kizza Besigye because, in his view, the duo realized that there is need to do many other things to get power beyond just having big crowds.
He called out pro-Kyagulanyi chauvinists like Muwadda for deluding themselves into believing that Kyagulanyi has monopoly over big crowds.
He added onto what his immediate neighbour Gen Muntu had just said to illustrate how crowds have never been a problem for the opposition in the last 40 years.
He made reference to PK Semogerere of 1996 and Nasser Ssebaggala of years later, both of whom he said had even bigger crowds than Kyagulanyi of 2017-to- date. He spoke of the estimated 1m man procession which twice went to Entebbe Airport to receive Nasser Ssebaggala in 1998 and 2004 as he heroically and respectively returned from US Boston prison and UK where he claimed to have enrolled and studied at Ruskin University College.
In the subsequent years, this UK course caused problems for Seya. Many of his former supporters felt betrayed and deserted him when it eventually turned out that Gen Museveni had used the State House scholarship scheme to fund his adult education in the UK.
By referring to all these past happenings, Buliira (who says has been in active opposition to Museveni since his childhood) demonstrated how knowledgeable he is about Uganda’s political history.
He also plunged into the 2001-2021 period, the 20 years during which Dr. Besigye ruled the opposition. He made it clear that KB in all those years always had big crowds but unfortunately never succeeded in leading millions of his supporters to State House.
He said what all these illustrations demonstrate is the fact that mere having crowds alone, even when its important for political optics and mobilisation, can’t be sufficient to lead Kyagulanyi to victory, as Hon Muwadda seemed to think.
Buliira wasn’t yet done. He later on, while making his closing comments, told Kyagulanyi point blank that he doesn’t take him seriously because he resigned long time ago and gave up on the possibility of ever succeeding in removing Museveni.
He added that the too much effort the NUP big man is putting in ousting longer-serving and elected senior opposition politicians from their seats is clear evidence of a party leader who is now pre-occupied with increasing his party’s MPs number so as to qualify for more IPOD billions going into the Kavule coffers.
He also faulted the NUP President and his top executive members (many of whom were in the audience seated and uneasily turned in their seats as other panelists took on Kyagulanyi) for not being devoted to genuinely helping the Kadamas (Ugandans doing odd jobs abroad) yet they have always been a key pillar of the man from Magere’s political base. He accused Kyagulanyi of just travelling there for concerts which enable him line his tummy while taking selfies with the Kadamas.
He wondered why NUP can’t use its platform in Parliament to, for instance, insist on having the Bakadamas’ welfare concerns and maltreatment while on kyeyo, discussed and exhaustively inquired into.
He also wondered why NUP can’t leverage the relevant provisions of the Constitution to demand that Diaspora Ugandans (who are in hundreds of thousands) begin to vote, since the same had already been proclaimed by the Courts of Uganda in a 2020 ruling against which the AG or even EC didn’t bother appealing.
He also reflected on the hundreds of billions of shillings which the Bakadamas and the rest of the Ugandan diaspora keep sending to Uganda as remittances. He suggested that the Kadamas get their well-structured voice and representation on the Ugandan decision-making table.
Bulira also overtly belittled Kyagulanyi when he said Museveni only fears adversaries who over the years have demonstrated capacity to threaten his grip on power through other means as opposed to merely relying on pulling large crowds.
He veiledly made it clear that this is why Museveni was more scared of his late boss and mentor Dr. Aggrey Kiyingi who lived and physically operated from Australia, which is continents away, than he will ever fear Kyagulanyi who lives on the outskirts of Kampala at Magere, which is in Wakiso district.
To a lot of viewers, the vehemency with which the opposition trio of Buliira, Muntu and Nandala spoke shooting down Muwadda’s proposal indicated the extent to which some of these were up to no good beyond just ganging up to humiliate the NUP Presidential Candidate.
Some online users have predicted that, even when he was treated very well by his NMG hosts, Kyagulanyi may never return for the debate’s second edition within a month’s time. Many of his supporters felt that the NTV moderators should have restrained the trio and prevented them from humiliating Kyagulanyi like that.
Being one not used to being contradicted, Kyagulanyi also felt uncomfortable when the moderators and debate organizers deflated him by allowing tourism enthusiast Amos Wekesa to ask what many NUP foot soldiers following online considered to be a very embarrassing question.
Speaking during the plenary session, Wekesa singled out his fellow Mugishu Nandala Mafabi and Muntu and commended them for being spot on in their submissions on what needs to be done to mitigate challenges constraining Uganda’s full tourism potential from being realized.
On Kyagulanyi, Wekesa thanked NUP for writing nice proposals inside their manifesto under the chapter on tourism. However, he demanded to know why the NUP Presidential Candidate wasn’t using the ongoing campaigns to popularize those very nice views on tourism.
He implied that once such information is deliberately disseminated to deliberately incite Ugandans to keep demanding for answers, in the end it bears fruit because the government gets to sufficiently feel pressurized to quickly invest more in tourism so that more money gets to be collected as tourism fees plus more NTR and more jobs getting created.
In his closing remarks, Kyagulanyi (who cleverly omitted responding to the very discomforting criticisms his colleagues had just made) asked Ugandans to keep around and overwhelmingly vote for him on 15th January 2026 because his grass-to-grace story shows how God can lift anyone from obscurity to greatness, the same way He can use him to permanently change Uganda’s story forever.
He also talked about political prisoners and also invited Wesaka to realize (and tell others who think like him) that there is no amount of positive publicity that will turn Uganda into majority tourists’ most favourable travel destination for as long as the governance question (relating to human rights violations, Gen Museveni seeking to be President for life, untamed corruption etc) remains unresolved.
He made it clear that there is nothing his NUP party can do, put in its manifesto or explain to the people of Uganda and succeed in changing that reality (of the regime’s brutal actions creating bad and demonizing publicity for Uganda).
MUNTU REBUKES ANT MAN:
In a related development, Gen Mugisha Muntu rebuked his own ANT party official who used the plenary session to ask Kyagulanyi a question that wasn’t only controversial but also embarrassing as well.
The young man, who is the Kampala Central MP candidate for Gen Muntu’s ANT party, demanded that Kyagulanyi distances himself from the very unhelpful media reports which portrayed him to have incited his party supporters during a last week rally in Kawempe to assume the rebel status and always act and behave like real rebels, becuse contemporary Uganda’s political times require them to behave that way.
He argued that this statement, if not retracted, will justify brutality by state agents from Police and other security agencies. Before Kyagulanyi could even get the chance to respond, Gen Muntu got the microphone and discouraged such hostility.
He asserted that in most cases, such antagonism among opposition forces is what Gen Museveni and his other cronies in power like because it enables them to accelerate and deepen divisions among fellow opposition members who are supposed to be working together and scoring in the same net.
When his time to speak came, Kyagulanyi thanked the ANT young man for the question which he said had given him an opportunity to confirm he still stands by what he said at the Kawempe rally.
He said he himself is a rebel out to fight and struggle for a better-governed Uganda except that he his reasons are legitimate and that his form of struggle is non-violent and a very peaceful one unlike Gen Museveni who opted to pick the gun to go into a blood war when he got aggrieved while during in his youthful years. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
