By Kassim Sematimba
Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a big-name Professor at Makerere University, who is also renowned for being anti-Museveni, has called on opposition leaders and their supporters to prepare for the worst in the coming days, weeks and months as the country counts down to polling day 15th January 2026.
Speaking at Uganda Law Society’s weekly baraza at ULS offices in Kololo on Thursday, the history Professor said the reason Gen Museveni has lately been pardoning many convicted prisoners, besides his DPP dropping criminal charges against those who had earlier on been indicted for things like corruption, isn’t because he has all of a sudden become magnanimous because Christmas is around the corner.
He says it’s all because the prisons facilities are filled up to beyond what they were designed to hold. Ndebesa says that the prison system is currently holding over 72,000 inmates yet the designated capacity is less than half that number.
He told an audience at the ULS baraza that Gen Museveni intends to become more ruthless in the coming days and that a lot of young people are going to be arrested and locked up at Luzira and other prison facilities simply because they support his opponent Robert Kyagulanyi.
Ndebesa says that as the voting day 15th January draws nearer, the state will be arresting and having hundreds of young Kyagulanyi supporters remanded at Luzira, which has to now be decongested to create room for those about to be brought in.
He predicts that this is why the President is and will continue giving amnesty to many more convicted inmates so as to create space for what is coming.
At the same session, Ndebesa predicted that thousands of young people will be out protesting election rigging from 15th January onwards and many of them will be getting arrested hence the need to create more space at Luzira and other prison facilities.
The day’s theme was “UNEB, NCHE & Electoral Commission: Guardians of Democracy or Enablers of Privilege?” Ndebesa castigated the three institutions for accepting to be manipulated to cover up for powerful incumbents who still want to hold MP positions yet they are too terrified to face the voters who are increasingly getting angry and hungry.
To their credit, the organizers of the Baraza invited some of the actors directly engaged with the ongoing electoral process, during which many previously-nominated candidates have ended up being disqualified by the EC ostensibly in service of the paranoid incumbents who keep getting UNEB and NCHE to write letters to the EC disputing the circumstances under which they were nominated.
One of these was civil society leader Charity Ahimbisibwe who had no kind words for both UNEB and NCHE. The other was Mawogola North MP Candidate Jet Tumwebaze (Independent) who is standing with President Museveni’s brother Kaguta Aine Sodo who is also the NRM flag bearer.
Tumwebaze, who is also a senior ULS member and an employee at leading law firm Kampala Associated Advocates (which often represents the President), claimed that his opponent lacks the minimum academic qualifications to stand for the MP position.
He claimed that his opponent got 9 in both history and CRE which means he didn’t qualify to offer a combination which has history and divinity as some of his subjects at A’level. Yet ironically, Sodo’s academic credentials indicate this exactly is what happened.
Tumwebaze said he had raised the red flag and petitioned the concerned authorities but to his shock, bosses at both UNEB and NCHE plus EC had become too timid to act. At some point choking on anger, Tumwebaze said he was so angry he didn’t even know what to say.
“Colleagues when you are there practicing law, things seem to be very okay and you can’t know the extent of rot at these other government institutions until you join politics. That’s when you will realize the extent of institutional decay,” he said to a shocked audience. Because he was far, he spoke via telephone link but members were able to hear him loud and clear. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
