Maseruka Robert to NUP Members: “Discipline is our value — whether you get the card or not.”

By Desire Nuwaha

Robert Maseruka did not come to Makerere Kavule on Sunday simply to watch. The Mukono South MP-elect, himself a former Makerere guild president, stood before a crowd of party hopefuls and told them plainly: the National Unity Platform expects discipline, and it expects it whether they win the nomination or not.

The occasion was the NUP internal primaries for the 92nd Makerere University guild presidential race. A contest that, on the surface, belongs entirely to students. But Maseruka’s presence gave Sunday’s proceedings a sharper register. He spoke not as a former officeholder returning to dispense advice but as a soon-to-be sitting legislator reminding a junior rank of precisely where their obligations sit and what the party demands of them.

“As NUP, the values that we have are discipline, and discipline would require you that even when you don’t get the card, you are a member of the National,” he told the candidates.

The caution carried force because it was pointed. In student politics, losing a primary has historically meant defecting to another party, running as an independent, or quietly withdrawing from the race. Maseruka told the room that none of those options were in line with being an NUP member and that the party would be watching what each of them did next.

He then raised the stakes further, challenging the character of those in front of him. “We are yet to see the integrity in our candidates,” he said.

The figures behind Sunday’s exercise help explain why his tone carried weight. NUP has won the Makerere guild presidency in at least four consecutive cycles with Shamim Nambassa in 2021, Lawrence Alionzi in 2022, Maseruka himself in 2023, and Vincent Lubega Nsamba in 2024, and now potentially Kadondi in 2026, making the party’s hold on student leadership at Uganda’s largest public university the most dominant streak in modern campus politics.

Sunday’s primary drew 1,196 votes across five candidates. Gracious Kadondi won with 580, nearly half of all ballots cast, leaving a 294-vote gap between herself and second-placed Mike Mujuzi, who polled 286. Daniel Nyaika was third with 261. The bottom two candidates, John Mubiru and Cohen Atuha, combined for just 69 votes, confirming the race had effectively narrowed to three credible contenders well before polling closed.

Kadondi will now carry the NUP ticket into the main election, where students will choose a successor to outgoing president Churchill Ssentamu, who ran and won as an independent candidate last year. NUP Secretary General Lewis Rubongoya, who attended Sunday’s exercise, described it as a demonstration of internal party democracy and pledged the party’s full support for the campaign ahead.

Kadondi is a third-year Bachelor of Optometry student at the College of Health Sciences and a former Female Guild Representative, a track record the party will lean on heavily as it defends a guild presidency it has now held for four straight years. If she wins, she extends a streak that Maseruka helped build and that he, now from a seat in parliament, clearly intends to protect. Maseruka, now prepares to be sworn in as the Member of Parliament for Mukono South.