By Aggrey Baba
For more than a decade, there was hardly a serious political TV or radio programme in Uganda where Ofwono Opondo could not be found arguing the government’s case, challenging its critics and defending President YK Museveni’s administration with the confidence of a man who knew exactly where he stood.
Whether it was The Frontline, Capital Gang or another political talk show, Opondo was rarely the quiet man in the room. He was one of those government figures whose presence alone guaranteed a spirited discussion. He was not merely a government spokesman in title. He became, for many Ugandans, the public face and voice of the government.
So when he eventually crossed Parliament, there were plenty of people who expected the same Ofwono Opondo to walk into the August House.
Many probably imagined that Parliament would gain another highly vocal government defender and legislator, a man capable of taking on the Opposition and articulate issues from the Floor with the same confidence with which he used to take them on television.
Given his long association with President Museveni, others went even further, arguing that with his seniority within the Museveni universe and his years spent defending the government, there was a widespread expectation that Ofwono would eventually find himself somewhere in Museveni’s cabinet.
After all, he was not a political newcomer trying to introduce himself to the President. He had been part of the NRM establishment for decades, working in the party’s information structures from the early 2000s, served as NRM spokesperson and later became Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre, a position he held from 2013 until his departure to pursue the MP seat for Older Persons in Eastern Uganda. He himself described the transition as a move after about 26 years in government and party communication roles.
His entry into the 12th Parliament therefore carried a certain expectation.
But when President Museveni unveiled his Cabinet for the 2026–2031 term in May, Opondo was not on the list. And that was perhaps the first surprise.
The bigger surprise, however, has been what happened after he entered Parliament.
Where is the old Ofwono Opondo?
Where is the man who used to speak almost instinctively whenever the government needed someone to explain, justify or defend a controversial position?
Where is the man who could sit opposite some of the government’s fiercest critics on TV and spend an entire evening debating them without appearing to run out of arguments?
The question is not that OO has disappeared from public life altogether. He hasn’t.
He has participated in parliamentary work, including serving on a committee established to verify candidates for Uganda’s EALA seats. More recently, he led the Uganda Parliament’s delegation to Australia as chairperson of the Australia-Uganda Parliamentary Friendship Group, where Ugandan lawmakers discussed parliamentary systems, digital transformation, records management and institutional cooperation with their Australian counterparts.
But that is precisely where the curiosity becomes stronger.
For someone whose brand was built around being heard, Opondo has so far not produced the kind of parliamentary visibility that many expected from him, because his most visible political interventions have sometimes been outside the chamber.
In August, for instance, political commentator Moses Khisa wrote in Daily Monitor that Opondo had appeared on a radio talk show and spoken about what he described as a “deafening silence” over excesses by security actors.
And in September, Opondo was back in the political conversation after commenting on NRM politics in Kazo, telling Woman MP Molly Kamukama that she might have reason to “tremble” following the election of Ann Lumumba Ruyondo to a senior NRM position.
The old Opondo, therefore, has not completely disappeared.
He is still capable of making political noise, but the question is why that voice has not been heard with the same consistency and force inside the August House.
This is where the experience of other MPs in the 12th Parliament becomes instructive. Parliament has already demonstrated that being underestimated before entering the House does not necessarily translate into being quiet once one gets there.
Take Jamal Ayagalaki Mukuve, the youthful NUP MP for Bukooli North. There were people who initially viewed him as just another young opposition politician from Busoga.
But Ayagalaki has quickly made himself difficult to ignore, having, on various occasions spoken in Parliament.
In July, he rose on a matter of national importance to challenge Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja over the government’s continued failure to find a lasting solution to the dangerous flooding at Kibimba Swamp in Bugiri District.
The intervention was significant not simply because of the subject, but because it showed an MP willing to use the Floor to put a senior member of government under pressure over a problem affecting his constituents. Mulengera News described him as one of the more active lawmakers from Busoga in the new Parliament.
Ayagalaki is therefore an interesting contrast to Opondo.
The former has entered Parliament with relatively little of the national political machinery that surrounded the latter, yet he is already developing a reputation for speaking.
Opondo entered with a national profile that many MPs would spend years trying to build.
That makes the question about Opondo even more legitimate.
Then there is the young man from Mukono South, Robert Maseruka.
When Maseruka first announced his intention to contest the seat, some people dismissed him as too young and inexperienced for a constituency where older and more established politicians had dominated the political space.
Daily Monitor reported that some of his rivals described him as inexperienced and hardly known in the constituency.
But the 25-year-old former Makerere University Guild President went ahead and won. And, importantly, he did not enter Parliament and disappear into the back benches. Maseruka has already spoken strongly on youth unemployment and government priorities, while in July his concerns about a deadly train-bus collision in Mukono helped trigger a directive by Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa for Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee to investigate the accident.
Whether one agrees with Maseruka’s politics or not, the young MP is demonstrating something important: parliamentary visibility is not necessarily a function of age, political seniority or proximity to power. Sometimes it is simply a question of deciding to speak.
The same Parliament has also produced several other MPs who were not necessarily household political names before the 2026 elections but have quickly begun making themselves heard through debates, motions, committees and constituency issues.
That is perhaps the lesson the 12th Parliament is already offering.
The loudest people outside Parliament do not automatically become the loudest inside it.
And some of those who appeared least likely to command attention before entering the House can suddenly become among its more visible voices.
This is why Opondo’s case is particularly fascinating.
For long, he occupied the opposite position.
He was the man journalists called when they wanted a government explanation. He was the man who would defend Museveni’s position when Opposition politicians attacked it. He was the government communicator who seemed comfortable under the glare of cameras.
Indeed, his career became so closely associated with public argument that his televised confrontations became part of his political identity. His appearance on NBS Television’s Frontline in 2022, for example, where he allegedly assaulted the lord mayor, later became the subject of a court case brought by former Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago; the High Court eventually dismissed Lukwago’s application, finding insufficient evidence to establish the alleged violations.
That is the Ofwono Opondo many Ugandans remember. The man who rarely needed to be invited twice into an argument. The man who seemed to thrive when the cameras came on.
The man whose political personality was built around defending, explaining and confronting.
So perhaps the real story is not that Ofwono Opondo has gone silent. It is that Parliament has not yet seen the full version of Ofwono Opondo that Ugandans became accustomed to seeing on TV.
There could be perfectly ordinary explanations.
A new MP has to learn the procedures of the House, find his committee responsibilities, understand parliamentary strategy and determine where his voice can have the greatest impact. Opondo is also a first-term MP despite his decades of political experience, and his current parliamentary responsibilities have included diplomacy and committee assignments outside the theatrical environment of plenary debates. His leadership of the Australia parliamentary delegation is evidence that he is being given institutional responsibilities.
But Parliament is ultimately a political theatre of its own. And in that theatre, the public expects its representatives to be seen and heard. This is particularly true of someone who spent years telling the public what government was doing and why it was doing it.
There is also another irony, that Opondo entered Parliament representing Older Persons in Eastern Uganda, a constituency he had already begun speaking about during his campaign.
Before the election, he called for a substantial increase in the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment and argued for stronger healthcare support for older citizens, giving him a potentially powerful constituency agenda.
He does not have to fight every political battle in the country. He simply has to make the concerns of millions of older Ugandans impossible to ignore.
And perhaps that is where his parliamentary voice will eventually settle.
The 12th Parliament is still young.
It would therefore be premature to write Opondo off simply because he has not yet become the parliamentary personality many expected.
After all, some MPs who entered Parliament with little public expectation have surprised their critics, while some who arrived with enormous reputations have struggled to translate their outside profiles into parliamentary influence.
The House is already providing examples in both directions.
Ayagalaki is speaking.
Maseruka is speaking.
Several other young and first-term MPs are discovering that they can command the Floor.
Opondo, meanwhile, remains one of the most experienced political communicators sitting in the chamber.
That makes the question unavoidable, not whether Ofwono Opondo can speak, because Ugandans already know that he can.
The question is whether the man who spent years speaking for government will now find his strongest voice speaking from Parliament, and, more importantly, speaking for the older Ugandans who sent him there. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
