2026 polls: Mukono leaders urge calm, warn against violence

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Several Mukono district-based politicians and leaders at various levels have urged players, including voters and security personnel, to refrain from acts likely to culminate in violence and possible bloodletting.

Mukono District National Resistance Movement (NRM) chairperson Haji Haruna Ssemakula says it has been categorised as an offence to point a finger at a political opponent during elections, and disclosed that whoever does so will be doing it at their own peril.

Without mentioning names, Ssemakula says they have mobilised security teams to contain any situation that threatens to get out of hand.

Addressing the media at his office on January 12, 2026, Ssemakula urged voters whose national identity cards are still held by moneylenders as collateral for loans to immediately report to his office to enable him to effect their release.

He advised voters to massively vote for President Museveni, saying, “We cannot afford to let go of Museveni as yet; so even if you do not subscribe to the NRM, feel duty-bound to vote for Museveni if only for the good we still expect from him”.

As Mukono Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Hajat Fatuma Ndisaba Nabitaka commissioned Katoogo Health Centre IV in Nama sub-county, has also cautioned people planning to cause havoc that there is a security system in place to deal with such people and to ensure law and order prevail during the January 15th and subsequent election levels.

Mukono Resident District Commissioner Hajat Fatuma Ndisaba Nabitaka addressing the people of Katoogo in Nama sub-county on Monday. Looking on, Abdallah Kiwanuka Mulimamayuuni, Mukono North MP (left) and Ronald Kibuule, former MP Mukono North (right). (Credit: Henry Nsubuga)

“It’s a right of every Ugandan to vote, and it’s a secret ballot; therefore, no one should intimidate you for the support you have for your own candidate. Anyone who threatens your life because of the elections, let us know, we pick him from the community and keep him somewhere,” the RDC said.

“There are some fellows we are following up for having made threatening messages, circulated them via TikTok, WhatsApp and Facebook. If you do not refrain from such, don’t be surprised if we come for you. So, for wives, parents, warn your husbands and children instead of coming to my office pleading after their arrest!”

Elsewhere, the head of Greater Mukono Inter Religious Forum, Bishop Samuel Lwandasa, appealed to Ugandans to take the shining example of the multitude of industries in Namanve and at Mbalala-Mukono, which he said have sprung up owing to prevailing peace.

“Certainly, we cannot afford to succumb to chaos and violence that place such investments at stake; these investments are for the benefit of us Ugandans, and we are under an obligation to keep them for posterity to benefit our children and great-grandchildren”, Lwandasa observed.

He advised that each Ugandan should look forward to having a leader of their choice and accept whichever leader comes into office, whether they voted for them or not, because, he noted, it is the dictate of democracy.

Mukono municipality's head of the National Fellowship of Born-Again Churches (NAFBAC), Bishop Stephen Kyamaggwa, said that peace is the gateway to all forms of development and urged Ugandans to be mindful that, after elections, the nation must continue, regardless of who wins.

Kyamaggwa said that as voters maintain security where they are, security agents must exercise restraint from overreacting in otherwise simple matters that call for a little explanation.

Andrew Ssenyonga, who aspires to become the next Mukono Municipality MP, currently occupied by Betty Nambooze Bakireke for over two decades, blamed the lack of civic education, which he termed a cancerous disease that haunted Uganda’s electoral process for long, and sometimes breeds undue chaos at election time.