How Kabanda outsmarted Mbabazi, Kadaga, Among

Ask Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi what he thinks about the Kasambya County legislator, Mr Daudi Kabanda, and he will tell you that “Kabanda is one of the most intellectually ungifted Ugandans, with low levels of education”. The legislator lays no claim to having attained much in terms of an education. He holds a Senior Six certificate and a certificate in Journalism. He, however, sat for both his Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations in unusual circumstances. Having dropped out of school in Senior Two, he returned to write his UCE exams without having stepped in class for two years. Still, he managed to get four credits.

“After the results came out, I asked whether they would permit me to go to A-Level. I was told I could proceed. So, I celebrated. I did not envisage a situation where people would laugh at my results because even those with whom I had done exams and who had been attending class, failed,” Mr Kabanda said. Mr Kabanda again did not step in class for what should have been his Senior Five, but still managed to get two principal passes. He may not be a highly educated person, but it is clear that he learnt at an early stage to correctly anticipate the winds of change and manoeuvre and set his sails correctly.

Camps in Sembabule

The politics of Sembabule District had until very recently been heavily factionalised, with one faction aligned to the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Mawogola County and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Sam Kuteesa, and another aligned to the former Lwemiyaga County MP, Mr Theodore Ssekikubo. Mr Kabanda was initially aligned to Mr Ssekikubo’s faction, but “crossed” to the Kutesa faction in the run-up to the January 2009 by-election in which Ms Anifa Kawooya beat Ms Joy Kabatsi to the District Woman Representative (DWR) seat. The switch came with dividends in the form of a job at Mr Kuteesa’s Radio Mbabule, close proximity to Mr Kuteesa and support that enabled Mr Kabanda to get elected to the office of chairman of the Sembabule Youth Council and secretary for Publicity of the NRM’s Youth League in 2011.

By the third quarter of 2012, it was apparent that Mr Amama Mbabazi, then a political heavyweight, had made inroads into the youth league. Pro-Mbabazi youth were making headlines, and Mr Kabanda suspected the Premier at the time had his eye on the presidency. He told his benefactor, Mr Kutesa, about his suspicions. “The media is reporting about pro-Mbabazi youth. Can't we also have the pro-Museveni youth? But we first find out whether he wants to stand or not,” he told Mr Kuteesa. Mr Mbabazi had at the time earned himself the moniker “super-minister”. Mr Kuteesa did not believe that he would give Mr Kabanda an audience. Mr Kabanda placed the call to Mr Mbabazi’s known mobile phone number, but he did not pick. He then sent a text message. Two hours later, a response came.

“Hello, Comrade Kabanda. It is now late. Let us talk when we are all awake,” Mr Mbabazi wrote. The following day, Mr Mbabazi gave him an appointment for a meeting. The meeting took place on December 5, 2012, a day before Mr Mbabazi flew to the Vatican. “I found ministers waiting for him. He had lined up ministers. They ushered me in immediately, and he saw me at before the ministers. If you are a Prime Minister, you are coordinating government programmes with the ministers. How would you leave ministers and meet a youth chairman of Sembabule District? It was enough to know that this man is going to stand [for president],” Mr Kabanda said. He posed the question, but Mr Mbabazi neither confirmed nor denied. “The man is going to stand,” he told his unbelieving benefactor.

That marked the beginning of a series of clandestine meetings aimed at stopping Mr Mbabazi’s group. Still, it was not until 2014 that Mr Kabanda and his group announced that they were convening a conference for purposes of firing the Chairman of the League, Mr Dennis Namara; Mr Adam Ruzindana, who represented Central region; Mr Willy Omodo Omodo, who was from Northern Uganda; Mr William Seluyinda; and Ms Nora Akwi.

Museveni intervenes

Like the guerrilla that he is, Mr Museveni did not seem to trust Mr Kabanda and his allies—Mr Ibrahim Kitata, Mr Samuel Kiwanuka and Mr Moses Kiwanuka. He directed the then Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, to investigate. Gen Kayihura, in turn, assigned Andrew Felix Kaweesi to do the legwork. That culminated in a call from President Museveni. “The newspapers have been portraying a picture that all the youth in Uganda support Mr Mbabazi, but for us, we have called fellow youth leaders across the country for a Delegates Conference to suspend these people,” Mr Kitata told Mr Museveni.

Mr Museveni urged them to postpone the meeting pending a meeting between himself and Mr Mbabazi. The delegates, who had arrived in Kampala, were facilitated to return to their bases. In a typical case of the hunter turning hunted, Mr Kabanda and his group were suspended for allegedly “drawing a wedge between Mr Museveni and Mr Mbabazi by plotting an illegal delegates conference” Mr Museveni invited the rival groups for a meeting at State House. The meeting took place on May 12, 2014. No sooner had the meeting commenced than one of the youth told Mr Museveni: ‘Your Excellency, we want you to leave that seat so that someone else sits in it.”

Mr Kabanda exploded.

“I am going to beat you up. You are not going to shout from here. How can you come here and insult the President? This is not your father's home. Even when we address ourselves to Mr Mbabazi, we do so with respect,” he said. Mr Museveni’s response was a masterclass. “Now that I also have my group, which is ready to fight for me, let me get out. I will come back,” he said before leaving the meeting room. It is not clear whether he left for purposes of watching on camera to see whether the young people's fight was genuine or some kind of comedy show, but the verbal exchange continued until he returned and invited Mr Kabanda to speak.

“Your Excellency, our Constitution is very clear. It does not allow cliques, but these people have been forming cliques to fight you. That is why we had organised ourselves to fight them,” he said. “Maybe from their positions, not from the party,” Mr Museveni said. “Yes, they can no longer hold positions in our party when they are hobnobbing with our opponents and enemies,” Mr Kabanda said. Mr Museveni calmed the rivals down. The following day, Mr Namara addressed a press conference at which he declared that the “small differences” had been resolved.

“We want to remove the propaganda that the NRM Youth League does not support Mr Museveni. The Youth League supports him as the supreme leader, revolutionary president, and sole party presidential candidate come 2016,” Mr Namara declared. However, a quiet but simmering contest continued to rage. That culminated in the sacking of Mr Mbabazi on September 18, 2014. “There were a lot of complaints about the activities of Mbabazi mobilising and meeting different people at his Kololo home. I had to move in and stop the confusion,” Mr Museveni told a meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC), the top decision-making organ of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party on October 16, 2024.

Mr Mbabazi was, however, still the NRM secretary general, and he was still very powerful. It was possible that he could convince delegates to retain him. That was a threat. Mr Kabanda proposed to his benefactor that the party’s rules be changed to allow the NRM chairman to appoint all officials of the party. Whether it was on his advice that the President acted remains unknown, but on December 14, 2014, the party’s National Conference adopted and approved constitutional amendments by which Mr Mbabazi fell.

Kadaga, Among ousters

In 2021, following his election as Kasambya County MP, Mr Kabanda soon joined other MP-elects in fighting on the side of Jacob Oulanyah, who was slugging it out with his former boss, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, for the Speaker position. The complication, though, was that Ruhinda North MP Thomas Tayebwa had initially lined up as Ms Kadaga’s running mate. “I was supporting Tayebwa as Deputy Speaker and not Anita Among because Tayebwa is the godfather of one of my sons. We had been interacting before I became an MP, but Justine Lumumba Kasule changed [persuaded] me. She said I could not support two men.

Kadaga had already declared her intention to run as an Independent. If Tayebwa went through as a flag bearer, he was going to team up with Ms Kadaga. If Oulanyah lost, there would be two men in that office. So, I changed,” he said. Mr Kabanda then joined a team that included Ms Margaret Muhanga, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, Mr Godfrey Kiwanda Suubi, and Mr Ofwono Opondo in openly campaigning against Ms Kadaga. On May 24, 2021, Oulanyah [now deceased] was elected Speaker of the 11th Parliament, having garnered 310 votes against Ms Kadaga’s 197 and the then Forum for Democratic Change’s Ibrahim Ssemujju, who got 15 votes.

Until May 11, 2026, it had been expected that Ms Anita Among would be the Speaker of the 12th Parliament. She and her Deputy Tayebwa, had been the beneficiaries of a January 27, 2026 endorsement by CEC, the NRM’s top decision-making organ. That endorsement was followed by another by the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), which came on March 11, 2026. PLU, associated with First Son and Chief of Defence Forces Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, directed its members to support the return of Ms Among and Mr Tayebwa, but in a dramatic turn of events, on May 12, the organisation revoked the earlier endorsement. Mr Kabanda was on hand to read the revocation to the press.

Little wonder, Ms Among was two days later advised not to contest in the Speaker’s race. With the fall of Ms Among, the total of major political scalps that have fallen as a result of Mr Kabanda’s political battles came to three in a period of less than 15 years.

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