By Mulengera Reporters
In her entire political life, Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze has been renowned for taking no prisoners. She has always been so unpredictable anyone anywhere and at any time can find themselves at the receiving end of her verbal artillery.
Even her NUP President Bobi Wine one time said during a media interview that he fears to offend Nambooze given that she is the type who can give anyone their ‘food’ anytime anywhere. He made it clear she is one politician whose path he wouldn’t want to cross given the lethality of her verbal artillery.
Indeed, she is one politician who will use her demagoguery gifts to effectively destroy and demonize anyone including the President and his family members, including the much-feared CDF Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Nambooze often doesn’t spare even people who are supposed to be her political allies. Those who over the years have suffered her wrath include Mukasa Mbidde, Mathias Mpuuga, Abed Bwanika, Lubega Mukaku, Norbert Mao, Nasser Ntege Sebaggala, Nabillah Nagayi, Beti Kamya (quarreled and undressed her during a live TV show on NBS), Abubaker Kawalya, Bakaluba Mukasa, Ronald Kibule, Jacob Oulanyah, Bebe Cool, ex-Kalungu Woman MP Florence Kintu, Singh Katongole, Rapheal Magyezi when he still chaired the Public Service Committee of Parliament, KCCA Zahara Luyirika when she was still a smaller political actor at war with Nambooze’s mentor Erias Lukwago, Mike Mabikke and Minister Balaam just to mention a few.
THE AMONG EXCEPTION:
However, the Bukedea Woman MP (former her fellow opposition activist who unexpectedly rose through the ranks and became Speaker within just 10 years of arriving at Parliament) has always been an exception.
Even when her NUP party officially maintains that she is a key Museveni enabler who has to repeatedly been harangued and contradicted (which is also why ex-LoP Mathias Mpuuga got into problems after Mr. Wine concluded that he had no appetite to antagonize her), the long-serving Mukono MP (having served in the 8th, 9th, 10th & 11th Parliament) has either been too cautious or fearful to overtly call out Anita Among on anything.
Knowledgeable sources say this was because Nambooze knew that Anita Among can be very vicious when she chooses to push back against any foe. She has all along known that as Speaker of Parliament, which is her place of work, there is a lot of personal information Among has access to and which can effectively be used to politically destroy her.
It’s a symbiotic relationship that worked for both because even Among (even if offended by her attacks on her allies Mpuuga) wouldn’t like to have open media war with a very destructive demagogue like Betty Nambooze. She is an eloquent Luganda speaker who can decisively isolate and destroy any target though she lacks the stamina to withstand the tidal waves, should such a formidable adversary push back.
Moses Kasibante Class Monitor, who closely worked with her for such a long time on Kabaka’s CBS radio (where she can no longer be invited/hosted anymore because Katikkiro Mayiga considers her not good enough) says that Nambooze can say anything to destroy the image of anyone, including telling deliberate lies.
THE NAMBOOZE FAILED STRATEGY:
However, Anita Among (who we all along knew was the only person capable of effectively corroborating Abed Bwanika’s claims that Nambooze had been a beneficiary of Gen Museveni’s regime financial benevolence) on Friday felt this honeymoon and symbiotic relationship of some sort had to come to an end.
While addressing Museveni’s campaigning rally Friday in Nambooze’s Mukono backyard, Anita Among (who now feels she is in a position to step on the toes of anyone except first family members’ and get away with it) felt it was time to feel comfortable enough to bring the Nambooze honeymoon to an end.
Ending the honeymoon is exactly what she did when she told the huge rally, including people from Nambooze’s own Mukono Municipality, that their legislator is among those opposition sophists who excel at bashing Gen Museveni during the day yet benefit from his magnanimity under the cover of darkness, once the sun sets.
Nambooze is someone who Gen Museveni (Among’s sole source of power and money) had publicly complained against days earlier when he accused her of consistently misrepresenting his views on land-related justice and thereby generally making him misunderstood through her frequent media broadcasts both on radio and TV across Buganda and parts of Busoga. He contemptuously referred to her as “Kano akakazi ke Mukono.”
Anita Among told the Friday rally that Nambooze had received close to Shs1bn under the 4-year span of the 11th Parliament as contribution towards her very expensive medical treatment in the US and other countries. That generous offer by the GoU was also used to create an opportunity for her Nambooze’s engineer husband Henry Bakireke to travel and spend some good time in the US.
This exactly is the claim DF party’s Dr. Abed Bwanika made during the NBS TV’s Barometer program sometime back, prompting a defenseless Nambooze to walk out in protest. Here was Anita Among (who ought to know all MPs’ personal information more than anyone else) personally spilling the beans and moreover on a public rally that was attended by thousands of Mukono residents.
Nothing could ordinarily have been more damaging to Nambooze who so far has remained silent and is yet to issue any public response. Because she knows the consequences of pushing back against such a powerful person (who she fears more than anyone else in the world), its very unlikely Nambooze will be pushing back at all. Pushing back could only prompt Anita Among to spill even more damaging beans, since she too is renowned for taking no prisoners.
SHE KNEW THIS WAS M7’S MONEY:
The Speaker made it clear that Nambooze requested for and took out the money well knowing that its release to her was preceded with the obtaining of express permission or authorization by Gen YK Museveni whose no objection Anita Among had to first obtain.
“She was taken to New York in the United States for treatment, accompanied by her husband and a caretaker. All the expenses were fully covered by the government,” Among declared.
She criticized Nambooze for continuing to publicly attack President Museveni while accusing him of being an opulent President yet herself too had personally benefited from the public purse. She described Nambooze as ungrateful because she ought to have reflected on how Gen Museveni was personally there for her at her worst sickness-induced vulnerability moment.
Nambooze says that her medical challenges began in December 2017 when she sustained serious back injuries during the Togikwatako scuffle in Parliament as MPs debated the controversial constitutional amendment to remove the presidential age limit. She was later flown to India for surgery and returned to Uganda the same year.
In 2018, she was scheduled for a follow-up procedure in India, but approval for overseas treatment was initially delayed by the Ugandan Medical Board. Her condition once again escalated in June 2022 after she suffered multiple falls at her Mukono Ntawo residence, leading to a two-week hospitalization at Lubaga Hospital.
Following intervention by Speaker Among, ostensibly cleared and authorized by the President, the Medical Board fast-tracked approval for urgent overseas treatment due to the seriousness of her condition. Nambooze subsequently traveled to the US with her husband and a caretaker, with the government meeting all associated costs. The exact medical bill was not publicly disclosed.
Besides appeasing Museveni, Speaker Among’s lethal attack on Nambooze must have been calculated to politically weaken the NUP iron lady while increasing chances for the NRM Parliamentary Candidate for Mukono Municipality Dr. Daisy Nabatanzi to move closer to victory during the 15th January 2026 elections.
At the same political rally, Speaker Among also generally raised concerns about Mukono District’s political representation in government observing that changes in parliamentary leadership following the exit of former State Minister for Water and also former Mukono North MP Ronald Kibuule and former Nakifuuma County MP Robert Kafeero Ssekitoleko had greatly weakened the district’s access to government services, leaving many constituents underserved during the current ending term.
She then rallied people of Mukono district to vote for the NRM candidate for President, Gen YK Museveni, in order to benefit more in the next political term of 2026-2031. But one thing is clear; Anita Among’s attack may not immediately have delivered the desired political outcomes.
This is seemingly so, because going by the subsequent debate on social media, majority online users who happen to be NUP-dominated were evidently not compelled to look less favorably at Nambooze, now a leading Kyagulanyi sycophant inside NUP. Instead, they defended her as entitled to such money since she is a Ugandan and moreover an effective legislator, in their view.
