Nambeshe speaks out on deployment to Parliament Commission

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On May 28, 2026, the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) unveiled its shadow cabinet that will lead its charge in the 12th Parliament.

Like the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), which had released its own line-up two days earlier, NUP’s list was not without a few surprises.

For instance, Jinja South East MP Paul Mwiru, whose political fortunes appeared to have faltered a week earlier after he fell short by 381 votes in the race for Speaker of Parliament, was appointed Opposition Chief Whip.

Meanwhile, first-term Kiira Municipality legislator George Musisi was named deputy chairperson of the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).

However, it was the redeployment of NUP deputy president for eastern Uganda, John Baptist Nambeshe (Manjiya County), that attracted the most attention. A prominent figure who served as Opposition Chief Whip in the last Parliament and is still considered in some circles a potential Leader of Opposition, Nambeshe was instead assigned to the Parliamentary Commission.

NUP deputy president for eastern Uganda, John Baptist Nambeshe (Manjiya County). (File photo)

The very body that came under scrutiny during the last term, after commissioners Mathias Mpuuga, Solomon Silwany, Prossy Akampurira and Esther Afoyochan allegedly awarded themselves a controversial sh1.7 billion service award in May 2022.

Some political observers were quick to interpret the move as a demotion, arguing that a politician of his stature would have been better suited to a frontline role in the opposition’s parliamentary leadership rather than being reduced to a backbencher.

Others pointed out that, for a man who has managed to fly NUP’s flag high in the predominantly NRM-leaning Bududa District for two consecutive terms against the odds, such treatment could only be viewed as humiliating.

Nambeshe says new posting is a promotion

However, while speaking to New Vision on June 1, 2026, the Manjiya County legislator said he did not view his appointment to the Parliamentary Commission as a demotion.

“The position I was holding of Chief Opposition Whip in the hierarchy is much lower, because it is about whipping my members of the opposition only. But as a commissioner, it is a wider responsibility,” Nambeshe said.

Before emphasising that he is not a political careerist and that personal advancement has never been his motivation for joining the opposition.

“I don’t want to appear like I joined the forces of change just because of a burning desire to get positions. You remember when the first very Leader of the Opposition after we became the official opposition was picked from central; most people thought that I would be disgruntled and bought out. I did not. Even when issues came up with my then superior, the Hon. Mathias Mpuuga and a reshuffle was made for him to become commissioner, and the new LOP also emerged from the same region, I didn’t complain,” Nambeshe explained.

“Much as complaints are awash, and not only in the East. It’s also in the West and North because of the desire to have a national outlook. It is not for me to pass judgment whether these are genuine concerns,” he added.

Allure of temptations

Asked whether he is strong enough to resist the allure of the temptations and perks that come with the office to which he has been posted, Nambeshe was quick to point to his record of integrity while serving as Bududa district LC5 chairperson between 2011 and 2016.

“If you want, you could do digging or, rather, investigative journalism. I declined to take a bribe of sh1 billion in the Bududa District Local Government. Yes, this is a fact. Go there and find out. Then come back with a tape measure and measure me. What happened is that they wanted to compromise me, my council and the chief administrative officer. They brought sh1 billion in cash in a box to my office. I think it could have been sh50,000 notes. It was huge and heavy. I chased them in the open and broad daylight,” Nambeshe boasted.

"What they wanted us (Bududa District Local Government) to do was to compromise the people to take them to where they had procured land, which was actually waterlogged, in a place in Bulambuli," he narrated.

"I had spoken my voice hoarse on all local FM radio talk shows against that location. So, they wanted to arm-twist me and change me, and I persuasively engaged the people to be shifted. That was a huge multi-billion-dollar project," he further alluded.

The other time, he said, was in 2016 when his voters openly expressed reservations about his decision to join Parliament, which to them appeared tainted. However, three terms later, he says he remains as clean as a whistle.

“I don’t think I can easily be corrupted by this Commission, and the truth of the matter is what you have just said is what they said to me when I was joining Parliament. They said, ‘Ha, you, Nambeshe, we know you as a presiding apostle, you have joined that House where people cut shoddy deals. Ah, you are gone.’ I am not,” he alluded.

Adding: “I am still surviving, and the truth of the matter is that even if I have not been considered for the top slot, this Commission would be a good responsibility for me to learn the ropes of taking care of the welfare and well-being of staff and Members of Parliament. And issues to do with the Commission being a dumping ground I will not agree with you.”