By Mulengera Reporters
The 92nd guild president for Makerere, Gracious Kadondi was this Wednesday inaugurated at a pompous ceremony that was held at CTF2’s Conference Hall near COBAMS college. Besides her and her cabinet, all the other newly elected guild officials took oath too.
Outgoing guild president Church hill Sentamu was also present and in his speech cautioned Kadondi, who was his vice president under the 91st guild, to quickly transform and learn to balance between politics which is about telling students what they want to hear and leadership which is about making the most prudent decisions, which sometimes can be unpopular.
Some of the students tried to heckle those things of ‘gwe walya [meaning you were compromised]’ but Ssentamu prevailed because he remained focused in his eloquent farewell speech. He ran through his accomplishments and challenges and crowned it all by wishing his successor well.
On her part, Kadondi, who was buoyed by the presence of a powerful delegation from NUP party that was led by Ag Party President Lina Zedriga and her both parents, thanked the students for the 6,800 votes she won with and demanded for unity regardless of who voted who. She said the political season was now over and this is time for real work, in which she said she will need everybody’s input to succeed.
Students showed her a lot of love and expressed optimism she will serve in a manner that will make even those who didn’t vote for her regret their decision and see that she was indeed the best for the job. The crowd also seemed pleased with her choice of cabinet ministers.
However, there was a fringe group from Mitchel Hall of about 40 well-dressed gentlemen who made it clear they had only come to demonstrate their rejection and resentment towards her win. They are renowned for influencing guild election outcomes at Makerere and they had endorsed ex-Miss Uganda Hanna Karema Tumukunde who narrowly lost to Kadondi in what was the clearly most women-led guild race in Makerere’s history. You had the winner and first runner up both of them being ladies.
The group from Mitchel Hall, who early morning had majestically matched to the inauguration hall, tried to create disruption and chaos but a few senior police officers present restrained them and enforced order. They made it clear their candidate was Hana Karema and promised never to recognize Kadondi. They stood up moments before her inauguration and speech and matched out saying to hell with her. The vacuum the vibe-filled Mitchel group’s exit created was easily neutralized and filled up by similarly swaggerific groups of well-dressed gentlemen from Northcotte and Livingstone who demonstrated readiness to accept the majority decision and render their full support.
The function went on and ended well amidst tight security that was manned and provided by uniformed and plain clothed policemen present. The Vice Chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe was absent and was represented by Dean of Students Winifred Namuwonge Kabumbuli. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com). 
