By Mulengera Reporters
Former Water Affairs Minister Ronald Kibule is back to the active political trenches and has implored Mukono North residents to consider voting him back to office to serve as their area MP in 2026 because he is so well connected to the extent that be can see the President of Uganda without anyone requiring him to first go through his Principal Private Secretary (PPS) or Chief of Staff to make an appointment.
Kibule says that, that way, he will be able to quickly and very easily lobby for social services and delivery of public goods for the rapidly-urbanising Mukono North unlike the current MP Abdullah Kiwanuka aka Mulimamayuni of NUP who stands no chance to ever get such direct audience with the President even in 100 years.
He says that he is hurting to see that all the grand service delivery projects he had lobbied and delivered in Mukono in areas like water, health services, roads and other infrastructure all became stalled in 2021 the moment he ceased to be the area MP. He says that there is need for increased direct involvement of the central government in people’s live for the socio-economic transformation agenda of Mukono North constituency to once again be accelerated.
Mulimamayuni remains defiant too making it clear that as a politician, Ronald Kibule (in whose name lots of torture and brutality acts were committed by security agents during the 2021 campaigns) is past his sale by date. His advice is that Kibule becomes an RDC or Deputy Ambassador somewhere because, in his case, the Mukono North political train left the station long time ago.
Mulimamayuni says that as the NUP flag bearer, he is so popular to the extent that even if Kibule convinced his godfather Gen YK Museveni to lock him up immediately after the EC nominations, the Mukono North residents will re-elect him and ensure that he gets a landslide victory even without campaigning anywhere. “I can beat him hands down in the ballot box even if I’m in prison and unable to campaign anywhere for as long as I’m nominated,” Mulimamayuni recently bragged on CBS radio.
But besides Mulimamayuni, there are other contenders for Ronald Kibule (who first became MP in 2011 and served up to 2021) to be very much worried about. One of these is the late legendary Museveni information Minister Basoga Nshadu’s daughter Harriet Mutibwa who is determined to compete and deny the former Water Minister the chance to even carry the NRM flag.
The NRM primaries are to be held in July and Mutibwa is already out to damage and demonize Kibule even among fellow NRM cadres. She asserts that she stands higher chances to beat NUP and reclaim the Seat for the NRM than Kibule who many claim is now a spent force having already lived out his time in the political limelight.
Kibule became Mukono North MP in 2011 after an intrigued Gen Museveni feared Betty Nambooze, who had just become Mukono North MP beating Bakaluba Mukasa, and split away Mukono Municipality; curving out Nama, Kyampisi and other sub couties which were still remote and rural enough as of that time to be able to buy the NRM propaganda. Nambooze took the Municipality and Kibule took the rural Mukono North where NRM and Museveni still had significant support.
Yet as of today, 15 years later, Mukono North has rapidly urbanized making the ruling NRM Musevenist anti-opposition propaganda harder to sell to residents there.
Unlike 15 years, today the number of young voters born post-early 2000s and don’t want to hear those things of twebaka ku tulo (at least we these days sleep at night) by far outnumber the older generation (the 60+) who always considered Museveni to be God-sent. All these factors combine to make things real hard for Ronald Kibule whoever will have the task of carrying the NRM burden.
BIGGER PROBLEM FOR NRM:
Instructively, the Observer newspaper on Wednesday carried a lead story in which Gen Museveni was quoted to have tasked his NRM CEC members recently to explain why a growing number of ruling party supporters and cadres are these too cowed to the extent that many of them are reluctant to openly declare themselves to be his supporters and willingly defend his governance record at public functions.
The bitter truth is that already, there are several serving Ministers not only in Buganda but in other parts of especially Bantu-speaking regions who feel more comfortable turning up for weekend functions in private number-plated vehicles than their official posh vehicles with government number plates.
“The young people are too angry, hostile and unwilling to listen to us and they keep saying mwe mutusibyeko omusajja [Museveni is still here because of you],” one senior Minister was recently overheard confiding in a colleague Member of Parliament in the corridors of the Legislative building.
This is something the Observer story paints Gen Museveni to have referred to during a recent CEC meeting as members reflected on the Kawempe North defeat.
That the President told CEC members that he authorised heavy military deployment after one of the Police Directors indicated to him that many NRM supporters in Kawempe North were fearing to even wear Faridah Nambi’s T-shirts because the disgruntled youths would identify them and begin taunting them with “mwe mutusibyeko omusajja.” That the heavy deployment was meant to embolden such timid and cowed NRM supporters to turn up and vote for Nambi.
The Observer indicated that the H.E autorised the release of Shs2bn to be used in mobilisation activities to amplify support for Nambi in order to motivate and embolden such cowed ruling party supporters to turn up and vote for her. In the end, Nambi lost badly; leaving the big man from Rwakitura angry, sad and politically devastated. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
