By Mulengera Reporters Desire Muhooza is a youth leader of significant repute. And this is so not only because she is Gen Salim Saleh’s daughter but also because of her track record and the personal political capital she has accumulated in her own right.
She is the tested community mobilizer who during the 2020 party primaries had floored Phiona Nyamutoro for the slot of national female youth MP but only to be cajoled out of the race by big people in her family. Her bowing out paved way for Phiona Nyamutoro who eventually became National Female Youth MP and subsequently Minister of State.
Desire Muhooza has been involved in many initiatives aimed at lifting the youths and women out of poverty while turning them into wealth creators. She has deep roots in Kiboga where her maternal great grandparents, uncles and aunties hail from.
It’s against this background that NRM cadres there (feeling orphaned after Dr. Ruth Nankabirwa announced her departure from elective politics) mounted pressure that Desire Muhooza recently bowed to and offered to run for the position of Kiboga Woman MP come 2026.
The true cadres of NRM in Kiboga are hurting to see a district with so much history in NRA liberation war being captured by the opposition NUP. Convinced that none of the NRM babes who had so far come out (Jackie Niyoshaba, Nakitende, Rhoda Nakintu etc) stood any chance, these very ruling party cadres are now enthused that finally NUP is going to become history and be overcome in the ballot box.
“Kiboga was always NRM and the only problem was the intrigue in the party, which Desire is going to effectively neutralize,” says one of the NRM cadres in Kiboga Town Council.
For the last few weeks, since plunging into the Kiboga trenches, the down to earth Desire Muhooza has been reaching out and holding private consultative meetings to understand what needs to be done to re-energize the NRM base and prepare cadres for the big fight that 2026 is going to be.
From such meetings, a lot of feedback has been collected which the top echelons of the ruling party can use to re-organise and avail the necessary resources to get NRM back to its roots in Kiboga. With Desire Muhooza spearheading the mobilisation, there is optimism that many hitherto disgruntled NRMs who had strayed into opposition are going to be reconciled back and resourced to work for the ruling party like never before.
“There was a lot of excitement that was created by the Kyagulanyi wave which remained uncountered largely because the fear for COVID prevented Mzee from freely moving around and this cowed NRM cadres either into silence or into temporarily sheltering under the opposition,” says a Kiboga-based radio journalist.
The way the Desire Muhooza entry has re-energized the NRM base in Kiboga has caused the incumbent Woman MP Christine Kaaya Nakimwero (of NUP) to have sleepless nights and her fears are well founded. For starters, the flamboyant Desire Muhooza (whose base is in Kiboga Town Council where she has her home) is youthful and her easy-going personality has enabled lots of fellow young people to have unlimited access to her which isn’t the case with elderly Nakimwero.
This has given Muhooza a lot of upper hand in Kiboga’s four Town Councils which include Rwamata, Bukomero and Kiboga itself. Ironically, these have same Townships have all along been the NUP strongholds in Kiboga and start up political capital for Christone Kaaya Nakimwero. Overwhelmed by the Desire Muhooza entry, which has hit her political camp like a bombshell, Nakimwero recently turned up at NUP Kavule headquarters and cried to her bosses for help.
A crisis meeting of some sort was immediately convened during which Nakimwero was asked if she was also aware of the impending loss of support even among elected NUP leaders in Kiboga like Councilors. She confirmed this is something she is very much aware of. She was asked about the mitigation measures she was thinking about and Nakimwero confessed that the Kyagulanyi wave is all she is counting on.
The NUP superiors, who were part of the discussion, were left with no option but to add Kiboga on their list of “hard to keep” districts that is being compiled in the context of 2026.
There are well founded fears among NUP strategists both in Kiboga and party headquarters in Kampala that hundreds of influential Boda riders will most likely be defecting back to NRM the day the Desire Muhooza political caravan ends clandestine meetings and commences public political campaigning.
One of the few public engagements Desire Muhooza has had so far include the back to school event of a few days ago in Rwantama Town Council where over 600 single mothers turned up to receive scholastic materials to facilitate the return of their children to school for the new term.
This Rwamata Town Council event alone has thrown the Nakimwero camp into total disarray and has made residents to begin demanding groceries from the incumbent who has seldom shared any material happiness with voters who, in 2021, rejected Dr. Ruth Nankabirwa and put her in the lucrative office where she spent the last four years swinging from like a simple pendulum.(For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
