By Mulengera Reporters
Even when he accepted the position of opposition chief whip and being the NUP Deputy President for eastern region, big man JB Nambeshe never fully integrated inside Kyagulanyi’s NUP because he always felt stigmatized and not fully accepted by colleagues and fellow decision-makers in the top echelons of the party.
He has always privately grumbled to close confidants about feeling alienated and never adequately feeling at home inside NUP, a party he believes needed and still needs him in Bududa and the entire Bugisu more than he does need it himself. To be fair to him, Nambeshe hails from NRM-dominated Bududa where he can’t be said to have won his 2021 race simply because of the Kyagulanyi wave.
His victory, like all the other earlier ones for Bududa LC5 and the MP seat initially in 2016, were largely because of his political pedigree as a person.
Yet when he won one of NUP’s only two MP seats outside of its Buganda stronghold, Nambeshe (who has always been lukewarm inside the Kavule party) felt he deserved to be made LoP so that he uses that platform and the attendant resources to win more seats for NUP in Bugisu.
However, the LoP thing went to his fellow Deputy President Mathias Mpuuga as Kyagulanyi prioritized consolidation of his base in Buganda, something that made Nambeshe to feel deflated. He grumblingly accepted the whip role.
Fast forward to now and Nambeshe says, it has already been impressed on him by NRM diehards, led by deal-maker Mike Mukula, that it makes much more sense for him to return to NRM where he came from as opposed to wasting his time and energy in NUP, which he is convinced won’t be coming to government anytime soon. The Mukula group are rightly telling Nambeshe that there is no way the quality of public infrastructure and other social services will improve in his Manjiya County unless he rejoins NRM.
According to state-owned New Vision, Nambeshe recently told his voters as the Shs700m small scale irrigation scheme was being handed over at a place called Namaitsu about how he has been and continues to negotiate with leaders in his former party NRM regarding the modalities on how he can return to his original political home.
The Vision report indicates talks are in advanced stages and that the only Bambeshe condition Gen Museveni has to fulfill before the deal is sealed, is delivering the tarmacking and grading of a key road in his area and then he will be promptly back home and dry.
The newspaper quotes Nambeshe to have narrated to his voters at the Namaitsu event how Gen Museveni was recently in Mbale (during the PDM tour) waiting for him to be delivered by Capt Mukula to go and finalise the deal of his return to NRM, only for him to chicken out at the last minute-preferring to postpone that very important game-changing meeting until the veteran leader from Raakitura demonstrates visible commitment to promptly work on the road.
The newspaper report, authored by Bugisu correspondent Paul Watala, further indicates that Nambeshe will be back home the moment his key demands are met and that this is something Mike Mukula and his Party Chairman Gen YK Museveni are very much excited about.
The ruling party chief spokesperson the Hon. Emmanuel Ddombo says that he is fully aware of all the negotiations feeding into Nambeshe’s impending return home to NRM, and that he isn’t the only big fish they are expecting from NUP between now and the next elections of 2026. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
