While national attention fixates on who will wield the gavel in the 12th Parliament, quiet maneuvers are shaping Jinja City Council’s next leadership. Bernard Mbayo’s speakership expires with the outgoing term, and veterans are already positioning themselves for the chamber’s top job.
Among them, Sozi Juma—councilor for Persons With Disabilities (PWD)—has stepped forward. Fresh from re-election for another five years, Juma says experience and continuity put him in the frame. “I’ve sat through budgets, bylaws and heated debates; the Council needs a speaker who knows the Act and respects members,” he told reporters this week.
Sozi Juma’s pitch: consultation, not backroom deals.
Sozi Juma’s speakership bid rests on a résumé few in the incoming chamber can match. He cut his teeth at Bugembe Town Council for two terms before joining Jinja City Council in 2021; re-election this year makes him one of Jinja’s longest-serving voices.
He went to Masese Co-Educational Primary, then Jinja Secondary—the mighty school, locals still call it—for O and A levels. He holds a diploma in social sciences and a bachelor’s in counselling from Kampala University. Colleagues say the training shows: he listens before he gavels.
If elected speaker, Juma’s first promise is plain-spoken in the best way: bridge politicians and the technical wing.
The mayor’s team drafts plans; engineers, education officials led by Paul Baliraine Mugajjo and health officers led by Dr Frederick Isabirye, among others implement them.
Too often councilors and technocrats talk past each other, and services stall. “A chamber is not a workshop nor a deal room, consult, clarify, then decide—that’s how PDM and Emyooga and other services will reach parishes without drama”, he says.
On fights, Sozi Juma says he prefers dialogue to confrontation and backroom arithmetic. He says he is explicit about what he calls the chamber’s disease: councilors who must be paid to pass budgets or approve projects.
“We will not run a deal-making house,” Juma told supporters after Tuesday’s Gulume briefing. “Argue with files, not envelopes.”
None of this is abstract for him. Husband to one wife, father to four, and a believer who names God as Allah, Sozi Juma describes fairness as habit, not slogan—learned in Bugembe, tested in Jinja, shaped by counselling.
Veterans like the line; first-timers hear a rulebook. In a council under pressure to deliver drains, stalls and order, he’s betting that procedure plus patience will beat charisma and cash.
Sozi Juma would likely have faced stiff competition from councilor-elect Julius Kayira—known as “Nabambula”—whose grassroots following and dimes makes him a natural chamber operator.
But Kayira, who subscribes to the opposition NUP is currently on remand at Kirinya Prison over alleged criminal trespass, a case pursued by business figure Patel Magan that has muted his speakership prospects.
Kayira’s absence recalibrates the race; Juma’s bid, endorsed quietly by some veterans, is the first public flag in what could be Jinja’s most consequential speakership race in years.
The contest matters because RCC Richard Gulume’s Tuesday reset leaned heavily on order under Cap 243, joint oversight of PDM and Emyooga, and bylaws over banners.
Whoever succeeds Bernard Mbayo will referee exactly that: a chamber with first-time, mayors-elect and councilors-elect, to be sworn in late May, under pressure to turn trillions in parish funds into visible services.
Names of other contenders have not been formally declared, but councilors expect lobbying in division caucuses before nominations.
For Sozi Juma, the disability constituency he represents sharpens his pitch: “service delivery is not a slogan—it is ramps, clinics, lights,” he said. Supporters point to his calm mediation during the 2022 market fees standoff as proof of temperament.
Mbayo, who held the speakership through fractious terms, leaves a mixed record—praised for tightening order papers, criticized when plenary spilled into trivia.
The next speaker must memorize Gulume’s brief: keep councilors-elect inside the room, bind council to the Local Governments Act and measure leadership by drains, not decibels.
Roles of A Council Speaker.
Under Uganda’s Local Governments Act (Cap 243), a city council speaker’s core functions are: preside at all council meetings and maintain order, enforcing rules of procedure much like the Speaker of Parliament.
He convenes meetings when needed; no business is transacted before the speaker is elected.
Also oversees, on council’s behalf—the performance of government officers delivering services in the city and monitor implementation of projects.
He acts as communication channel between government, the council, and residents.
Generally, monitor administration in the city and report to council (state of affairs at least once in six months).
He also monitors projects and activities by government, local government, and NGOs in the area and steps in to perform the chairperson’s (Mayor’s) functions if both chairperson and vice chairperson are unable, after taking oath.
The speaker presides over election/removal of the deputy speaker; protect impartiality—speaker is full-time, barred from offices of profit.
How Speaker Is Elected.
Councilors nominate candidates at the first council meeting, then vote—often by secret ballot. The winner needs a simple majority; one vote per member and no debate before the poll.
That person takes oath, becomes a full-time presiding officer, and can’t hold other offices of profit.
Commentators say the speakership is not decided in a vacuum. In Jinja City, stakeholders like Mayor Al Hajji Abdulhafid Nagaya, brother to the Deputy RCC in charge of Jinja Northern Division Amis Nagaya Kiganira, the Town Clerk Geoffrey Kisseka and department heads will have to care whether the incoming Speaker is the type who will help technocrats implement rather than ambush or arm-twist them.
Jinja RCC, the security team and the business community as well as investors also have clear interest in the person going to preside over council business. So Sozi Juma must be in a position to read the map by converting his nice words into a coalition that holds when ballots open.
