When the storm rages at Parliament, many are misled into thinking that elsewhere in the country the skies are calm. Yet if one dares to walk down Kyadondo Road, to the leafy headquarters of the National Resistance Movement, they will find not a sanctuary of order but a den of vampires.
The Secretariat and the Electoral Commission of the party in power, institutions meant to nurture democracy and discipline, have instead become the epicenter of rot. And unless President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, in his capacity as NRM Chairperson, casts his net wider and decisively cleans house, the party risks collapsing under the weight of its own corruption.
I write not as a distant observer but as a former contestant for the NRM flag in Gomba East Constituency, a witness to the grotesque theatre that unfolded during last year’s primaries. What I saw, what I heard, and what I endured would make even the most hardened revolutionary faint.
Bribery was not whispered in corners; it was demanded openly, brazenly, as though extortion were the official language of the Secretariat. EC officials called candidates, demanding hundreds of millions in exchange for victory. “Even if you are voted by everybody,” one official sneered over the phone, “you will not get the flag unless you pay.”
The will of the people was reduced to a bargaining chip, auctioned to the highest bidder. The crooks who ran the show did not even bother to hide their contempt for democracy. They told candidates to their faces: you will not win, no matter what, unless you speak our evil language.
This was not an isolated incident. It was systemic, orchestrated, and defended by those at the helm, Richard Todwong, the Secretary General, and Dr. Tanga Odoi, the Electoral Commission boss. Their offices became auction houses where flags were sold like cattle at a market. Ministers were bullied, seasoned mobilisers humiliated, and lives lost to sustain their greed.
In Namutumba, Hon. Persis Namuganza and others who dared to reason with sanity were sacrificed in favor of less popular candidates. The voters, disgusted, rejected the imposed flag bearers and instead chose competent independents.
It was a vote of no confidence, a thunderous rebuke of the party’s own machinery. In other constituencies, big shots simply phoned Tanga Odoi to declare they did not want to be challenged, and by the next day, every opponent was disqualified. That kind of impunity is not just shameful, it is suicidal.
President Museveni himself has warned against electoral malpractice. In 2020, he declared: “Rigging is treason against the people. It is a betrayal of the revolution.” Yet the betrayal festers at the very heart of the party he leads. The Secretariat, instead of being a nursery for future leaders, has become a graveyard of ambition.
Mobilisers, who sacrificed sweat and blood, were tossed aside like used rags. I spoke to one online media coordinator who had mobilised over fifty journalists to digest the party manifesto for ordinary citizens. For ninety months, they worked without pay, seeking facilitation from Emmanuel Dombo, the media boss. He dodged them until the very last day, and after the elections, he vanished into merriment.
These journalists, betrayed, now curse the party they once served. Pressure groups live in shame before those they mobilised, unable to explain why promises turned into dust. And yet, the same leaders will shamelessly return in 2031, liquor in hand, to demand the same volunteers toil for them again. What foundation are they laying for the party’s future? None but sand.
Statistics tell the story more starkly than words. In last year’s primaries, over 40 constituencies saw NRM flag bearers rejected by voters in favor of independents. In districts like Namutumba, Kayunga, and Bukedea, the party’s own candidates were humiliated at the polls, a direct consequence of the corruption at Kyadondo Road.
The numbers are not just figures; they are a mirror reflecting the decay. Each rejected flag is a coffin nail hammered into the credibility of the NRM. Each independent victory is a protest vote against the vampires who run the Secretariat.
The imagery is painful but necessary. Picture sacks of cash stashed in lonely mansions, guarded not by conscience but by greed. Picture mobilisers walking barefoot, betrayed, while the thieves race up and down to ensure the cleanup does not reach them. Picture candidates, honest and popular, being told they will never win unless they pay tribute to the gods of corruption. This is not democracy. It is vampirism, sucking the lifeblood of the party and the nation.
And yet, amid the darkness, there remains a flicker of hope. The President has shown before that he can act decisively. He has cleaned up Parliament, disciplined local government, and spoken against corruption with the authority of a revolutionary.
But the Secretariat has remained untouched, a sacred cow grazing on the party’s future. It is time to slaughter that cow. It is time to overhaul the Secretariat and the Electoral Commission, to remove Todwong, Odoi, Dombo, and all who have turned Kyadondo Road into a marketplace of betrayal. It is time to replace them with men and women of integrity, who understand that leadership is service, not theft.
The call is not just mine. It echoes from every mobiliser who worked without pay, every candidate who was extorted, every voter who rejected imposed flags. It echoes from the graves of those who lost their lives in the madness of the primaries.
It echoes from the President’s own words: “Rigging is treason.” If treason is being committed at Kyadondo Road, then it is the duty of the Chairperson to act. Silence is complicity. Delay is endorsement. Action is salvation.
Let us dramatize the urgency. Imagine a house on fire. Parliament may be doused, local government may be cooled, but if the Secretariat burns, the whole party collapses. The flames are already licking the walls.
The independents who triumphed last year are the smoke signals warning of disaster. If nothing is done, 2031 will not be a contest of ideas but a funeral of the NRM. The party will be buried under the rubble of its own corruption, mourned not by its members but mocked by its opponents.
President Museveni, the revolution you led was built on discipline, sacrifice, and the will of the people. Do not let vampires at Kyadondo Road undo that legacy. Cast the net wider. Clean the Secretariat. Overhaul the Electoral Commission. Restore the faith of mobilisers, candidates, and voters. Show that the party is not a den of thieves but a movement of patriots. The time is now. Delay is death. Action is life.
We love this party. We love this country. It is all we have, all we know. Do not let it be devoured by vampires. Save it, Mr. President. Save it before it is too late.
The author is a former MP aspirant for Gomba East and former Deputy RCC Nyendo Mukungwe in Masaka.
Phone: 0756841440
English 