Iganga, (UG):- A section of leaders in the Busoga sub-region have asked the National Resistance Movement (NRM) mobilization team from the secretariat to advise President Museveni to work on the challenges of people in Busoga if the party is to regain its glory in the 2026 general elections.
Some of the challenges cited were associated with the fishing community, the sugarcane business, wetland management and conservation, and service delivery concerns, among others. Others were in line with the implementation of the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga programmes.
The leaders were on Tuesday speaking during a mobilization meeting by the ruling NRM party at Mum Resort Hotel in Iganga district and attended by among others, the district LCV Chairpersons, NRM Members of Parliament, NRM Party Leaders, Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs), security leadership and representatives from various government ministries.
“Sugarcane crisis, challenges of the fishing communities and wetland management made the president underscore in this area but we used to tell them but instead turned a deaf ear. We ask the mobilization team from the secretariat to sit with the president and devise alternative means before deciding to chase people from the wetland,” Namutumba Woman MP Hon Mariam Naigaga said.
The Jinja southeast MP Hon Igeme Nabeta asked the president to fulfill the pledges made to the people in Busoga mostly the sugar factories to enable sugarcane growers to have their standard prices rather than being exploited by other factories which continue to decide on the prices of cane.
Bunya West, Henry Aggrey Bagiire criticized the Fisheries Protection Unit operating along the shores of Lake Victoria for frequent arrests and alleged torture of fishermen, warning that such actions could jeopardize the ruling NRM party’s chances of garnering votes in the forthcoming 2026 general elections.
The NRM Deputy Secretary General, Mrs Rose Namayanja Nsereko noted that the party has initiated countrywide mobilization meetings, especially in areas where they missed out on majority votes during the 2021 presidential elections, starting with the Busoga sub-region.
Mrs Namayanja announced plans to hold public forums (Baraza) across the Busoga sub-region to gather insights from local communities at the grassroots level.
The Director for Mobilization in NRM Hon Rosemary Seninde Nansubuga asked leaders to always agree and avoid fighting one another. She also beseeched them to draw closer to youths and ask them to be involved in government programmes, citing that it is one of the methods to attract party support from youths.
“It is now time to bring youths closer because they thought we had forsaken them. We should mobilize them to embrace government programmes and they will easily support the NRM candidate because they will have benefitted already,” Hon Seninde said.
It should be remembered that President Museveni scored unsatisfactorily in the Busoga sub-region in the 2021 general elections which saw National Unity Platform (NUP) party president Kyagulanyi Sentamu Robert alias Bobi Wine leading the area in presidential polls.
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