NRM leaders from Buganda should speak with one voice

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OPINION

By Ssalongo Muwada Namwanja

As Uganda enters full political campaigns that will lead us to choosing our leaders in the 2026 elections, we, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) supporters, must congratulate our candidate, Yoweri Museveni, for creating this party.

In January next year, we will be celebrating 40 years of the NRM in power. This will go on record that the NRM is the longest and first political party to last this long in power. It has structures right from the village to the Central Executive Committee (CEC).

The party has encountered several challenges along the way, including some of its historical members dropping off to form their own parties or join others, but along the way, many have finally decided to return home. Good enough, our chairman, Gen. Museveni, has always welcomed all those who return home. He has also attracted several politicians from other parties, and many of these are now serving in the Government.

Let me now focus on the Central region, where I belong. Many of our leaders are elected, right from the villages to Parliament. We also have leaders who serve the Government in non-elective positions like government technocrats, such as Chief Administrative Officers, Permanent Secretaries or heads of government institutions, mainly hailing from the Central region.

However, many of these have let us down. They kept quiet during the 2021 elections when the NRM needed them to explain critical issues following numerous falsehoods and propaganda that were spreading in the region, which led to the party’s poor performance.

Now, as we enter into another campaign period, we must this time come out boldly and speak with one voice.

Why should we look on as the opposition tells lies about institutions which some of us head? This often impacts the party’s support.

I also appeal to the NRM party flagbearers that this time, in addition to looking for their votes, emphasis should be put on ensuring that candidate Museveni wins the Buganda region with a big margin.

The challenge is that NRM is lacking a calibre of leaders from the Central region who can ably articulate issues and represent the interests of the areas they represent. Many of these have failed to create an impact at the national level.

Historically, people from the Central region were admired by the rest for championing major causes. Right from the 18th century, when the Kabaka of Buganda, Mutesa I, wrote a letter inviting the whites to bring education and civilisation to his people. We lack such wise and courageous leaders.

We also had great people like Semei Kakungulu, who helped the colonialists to pacify Busoga, Bugisu and the entire Eastern region.

But unfortunately, today, people, including leaders from the Central region, are sleeping on the job. They have let people from outside come here to educate us about the achievements of the NRM government.

It is this silence that led to the NRM’s poor performance in the 2021 election in this region.

During the 2021 election, opposition supporters spread false information about President Museveni and the NRM government, but surprisingly, none of our leaders, including technocrats in charge of government programmes, countered these lies with the truth. This is a big weakness.

Why should a CAO or a PS, for example, just keep silent when opposition is telling the public lies about a critical government programme?

Our leaders have been too weak to effectively defend the NRM at a critical time.

They have also failed to give people feedback on critical issues affecting them. They simply choose to remain quiet.

President Museveni is such a leader who listens to every detail. He would be willing to listen and probably act. He has often acted when people explain and insist on an issue. But on issues about land grabbing in the Buganda region, for example, he picks them from the media when Resident District Commissioners, MPs, CAOs and others behave as if they don’t exist.

I, therefore, appeal to our leaders to speak out. Regularly inform the President of the truth of what affects the people.

At the beginning of the 1981 liberation war, Buganda was so receptive to the NRA fighters, and the support they gave to the fighters contributed greatly to its success.

Considering the love our people gave to the NRA/M, one would have expected Luwero, the epicentre of the war, not to live in shortage. But what happened?

Currently, there is nothing much to show on the ground, just because our leaders have decided to keep quiet. In several places, you go one might be tempted to think the war just ended yesterday.

But this time, let us pull up our socks and get our people out of poverty and uplift the NRM as a party and promote development.

For example, in his manifesto, the President has been pledging a lot of things for the Central region, but little has been implemented, not because of a lack of funds, but I believe it is because our leaders are not united to monitor his pledges.

We need the leaders to also explain why some of the pledges in the manifesto have not been implemented so that people can understand and appreciate.

I admire leaders from other regions who have fronted one voice to support the NRM, which is why the President got a big margin in these regions. But they have also used the same voice to lobby for development programmes.

I should remind our leaders that the Kabaka of Buganda, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II contributed to the bush war when he joined the fighters to mobilise support from his people. But when the Mengo administration starts reminding the NRM government of its unfulfilled pledges to return their property, our leaders’ voice is often lacking. They often think that whoever supports the Mengo government is an enemy of the NRM, which is wrong. Even some of these leaders have publicly criticised Mengo, which creates a rift between the two, which the opposition often exploits to gain more support.

We should exploit the return of President Museveni on the ballot paper in 2026 because he can still listen to us. Let us work on issues that made us lose support.

I commend Hajji Yunus Kakande, the longest serving civil servant in the NRM government and Secretary Office of the President, for using his resources to help the war veterans and their children in Wakiso. Other leaders should take a leaf from his character.

He is working for people, which indirectly earns support for the government he is serving.

The writer is NRM supporter, Masuliita