“The highest office is to serve,” the 4th US President and a Founding Father, often called the ‘Father of the Constitution’ for drafting much of it and the Bill of Rights, James Madison (1751-1836) wrote.
In writing this, James Madison meant that public office is not about status or personal gain but about duty to the people, serving citizens, protecting liberty and the common good.
In Madison’s republican view, the ‘highest’ office is the one exercised with self-restraint and responsibility to constituents, not self-interest.
This is a principle Jinja RCC Richard Gulume Balyainho now leans on as he convenes Jinja’s newly elected leaders meeting next week. Gulume says it’s not about sloganeering “People Power, Our Power”, or “NRM Oyee” but about doing the work Busoga’s ‘sitting room’ demands.
“Next week on Tuesday 3rd March, 2026, I will have a discussion with all the elected leaders from Jinja City where we shall also have an interface with key technical and security heads of department to get to know one another as we wait for the swearing in around May…” he announced.
The city’s January 15 general elections surprise — every MP seat went to NUP, but the mayor’s chair was narrowly snatched by NRM’s “yellow bus,” in the name of Hajji Abdul-Hafidh Nagaya and the party also secured more councilor slots than NUP, leaving the opposition a handful of seats rather than a sweep.
MPs-elect: Hon Dr Timothy Lusala Batuwa (Jinja South West), Hon Paul Mwiru (Jinja South East), Hussein Muyonjoa alias “Swengere” (Jinja North) and Woman MP Sarah Lwasansa) Jinja City Woman MP).
NRM’s Hajji Abdul-Hafidh Nagaya narrowly won Jinja City mayor, while NUP took the divisions: Simon Kasirye (South) and Ayub Wabika (North).
Asked why Jinja City was painted NUP red, Gulume summed it up with an old saying: the people look like their leaders, they get the leaders they deserve. He then listed intrigue, cliques, jealousy and infighting among NRM bosses as the real reasons behind the party’s embarrassing wipe-out.
Gulume says sitting and lamenting will not help, adding it is time to wake up, pick up courage and work closely with the crop of elected leaders to guide the wananchi out of poverty.
Gulume casts the retreat as a service compact: pragmatic overlap with the NRM manifesto and central transfers are necessary because opposition MPs control no budget line.
Gulume’s draft notes eavesdropped by The Exposure Uganda (TEU), a revolutionary digital news platform put education, health and roads at the top of the delivery plan for the tourism-and-trade hub, once the EAC’s industrial town.
He says Jinja city currently facing challenges with its roads, stands to benefit from about 50 km of road renovations this season under different central government interventions.
The most irritating example is the Dunlop-Masese Road which runs past Jinja’s biggest taxpayers, firms like Nile Agro Industries, Sunbelt Textiles Company, Keswhala Group, Madhavani Steel, Tip Top Bread Industry and Giant Uganda Ltd, among others sending billions of shillings a year to the national coffers, yet is riddled with potholes so deep they now look like basins fit for fish ponds.
Residents, especially opposition leaders and supporters have long seized on the road’s sorry state to campaign against the ruling NRM.
Gulume calls Jinja “the sitting room of Busoga”-if the city catches a cough, he says, the whole sub region sneezes. In his framing, Jinja City must model leadership so the flu does not spread.
The RCC uses that metaphor to justify the meeting itself, Jinja’s role as Busoga’s ‘living room’, meaning the technical wing and political leadership need a close healthy working relationship, otherwise the whole sub region feels the chill.
“This is not time for blame games why NRM lost the key slots, who betrayed whom but for work…”, Gulume says.
Some of NUP attendees we talked to say they will come to “protect the mandate, not surrender oversight,” aware of Polish-German Marxist revolutionary theorist Rosa Luxemburg’s warning that “who does not move, does not notice his chains.”
With the NRM mayor and a council majority sharing the table, Gulume’s belief is that Madison’s idea of serving can outweigh party arithmetic a clean and litter-free city, well-lit city and a healthy and prosperous population.
The RCC also thanked the outgoing Jinja City leaders saying they had been cooperative with stakeholders, including his office.
Being in opposition, he counsels, should not be a license to oppose everything or pick fights which only undermines growth. He hopes the incoming leaders will do likewise and work together for the community.
The veteran mobiliser styled as ‘Super RCC/RDC’ having worked, supported, defended and promoted the NRM and President Yoweri Museveni also uses the occasion to congratulate Ugandans for massively voting back President Museveni.
“The more than 71%obtained by our candidate is a clear sign and vote of confidence in NRM and President Museveni to continue steering the nation to greater heights…”, he said.
Conclusion.
The test, then, is not loyalty cards or chants but deliveries: classrooms with teachers present every week, drugs on health-centers shelves with health workers to deliver, roads that drain before dark, streets well-lit, crime-free city with no mountains of foul-smelling garbage and others.
If the Tuesday hand-shake settles into quarterly reviews with data, not flowery speeches and if the opposition and NRM councilors can push without obstructing, Jinja City could reset Busoga’s tone before the real swearing-in begins.
