The NRM system doesn’t need reform. It needs rejection. 

The NRM system doesn’t need reform. It needs rejection.

Wilfred Arinda Nshekantebirwe /File

By Wilfred Arinda Nshekantebirwe

What Uganda witnessed last month during NRM Party elections, was not democracy , it was a national embarrassment broadcast in yellow. A crude and chaotic show of thuggery, bribery, and bloodlust. The NRM Party, that once claimed to be a revolutionary force, has fully degenerated into a corruption cartel with the organizational skills of a drunk mob. What was supposed to be a simple party election turned into a money-fueled warzone, where the one with the fattest wallet won, not the one with the best ideas, character, or service record.

This is how primitive the process was: voting involved lining up behind your preferred candidate. A caveman method that was supposed to be concluded in just one hour. That’s all. One hour. Line up, count heads, declare a winner. But two days later, in typical NRM fashion, some districts still hadn’t declared results. Why? Because corruption takes time. Bribery needs negotiation. Violence needs cover-ups. And results have to be “cooked” until the highest bidder is declared winner. If the NRM cannot even organize a one-hour lining-up exercise without descending into chaos, what else can this party ever organize better?

The NRM is not a political party. It is a corruption enterprise. A place where political ambition is no longer about ideas but investments. You must sow money, billions of shillings, into your constituency. Buy loyalty, bribe voters, fund chaos. And for what? Not to serve, but to secure your cut at the national feeding trough.

Why would a man spend two billion shillings to get a job that pays thirty million per month? That is not leadership. That is a business transaction. That is an investment in theft. Because once he’s in, his first duty will be to recoup his billions, with profit. Public service becomes self-service, and the voter becomes a customer long forgotten after purchase.

These elections exposed what the NRM Party has been quietly nurturing for years, not patriotism, not leadership, but a culture of grand, organized corruption.

The normalization of bribery, the glorification of thuggery, and the systematic elimination of integrity from the political equation. A brutal confirmation that the NRM’s internal machinery has been oiled not by ideology, but by money. Not by merit, but by mafia tactics. What took place in these primaries was the natural outcome of years of rot, tolerated and protected at the highest levels.

If billions are being thrown around just to win a party flag, not even a national election, what level of criminality will define the general elections? What kind of “leaders” will emerge from such poisoned soil? What happens when the thieves outnumber the patriots in Parliament, in Cabinet, and in every corner of governance?

You cannot watch billions being poured into vote-buying and pretend it’s “internal party matters.” No , it’s a national crisis. It’s a corruption pipeline being laid to hurt ordinary Ugandans.

This is the NRM standard: Bribe to lead. Kill to win. Loot to survive. The highest bidder takes it all. It’s not about people’s choice, it’s about who has the deepest pockets and the darkest alliances.

Even worse, these so-called winners of these NRM elections are not leaders. They are pawns. They have no real power. None of them will govern. They are not even close to decision-making. All they’re fighting for is access to patronage, crumbs from the table where real power sits. The truth is, power in Uganda doesn’t lie with Parliament. It doesn’t lie with the elected. It lies with one man, and the state machinery he controls. Everything else is theatre. These elections are job interviews for junior partners in a rigged and rotting system.

And then there’s the violence. Always violence. The NRM is addicted to it. From its bloody birth in the bush to its funny elections today, violence is in its DNA. This time, even in its own internal processes, people were beaten, kidnapped, harassed, and in some cases nearly killed. If they can do this to themselves, what won’t they do to the rest of us in a general election?

So what does this say about the party that governs us? If it cannot organize a basic lining-up vote without descending into thuggery, if it cannot count heads without bribery and bullets, if it cannot declare results without weeks of scheming and scripting, what else can this party organize better? Certainly not a functioning economy. Not a working health system. Not free and fair elections. Not a better Uganda.

The NRM is broken. Beyond repair. It is no longer a party of ideas, but a mob of merchants fighting over contracts and influence. Every election under its banner is a market day of corruption. And every candidate is a buyer, not a leader.

Until we stop pretending that the problem is a few “bad apples,” we will continue to rot as a country. This is what the NRM has prepared for years, a system that rewards those who loot and punishes those who dream. And unless something drastic changes, what lies ahead is not just a flawed government. It is a failed state in the making.

The writer is the LC 5 Male Youth Councillor for Rubanda District 

Wilfred Arinda Nshekantebirwe 

wilfredarinda@gmail.com