The National Resistance Movement (NRM) wants John Baptist Nambeshe, the National Unity Platform’s vice president for Eastern Uganda, to rejoin its ranks, five years after he ditched the ruling party.
Impeccable sources within the NRM told Bbeg Media that the party has been “sweet-talking” Nambeshe over the last several months to have him recommit to the NRM.
We have been told that NRM wants to thwart NUP’s progress in Bugisu, and getting the Manjiya County MP on board will be a big move.
“We have made all kinds of offers, but I think he has not made up his mind,” our source, knowledgeable about the talks, said.
The talks to have Nambeshe back in NRM, sources said, were sanctioned at the highest level.
Some of the people charged with bringing Nambeshe back into the NRM fold include: Mike Mukula, the NRM vice chairman for Eastern Uganda; Lydia Wanyoto, the head of NRM Women’s League and Emmanuel Dombo, the director of Communication at the party secretariat.
So far, sources said, Nambeshe appears receptive to the idea, but sources said he is at a crossroads.
“It seems he is weighing his options, maybe he is afraid about how this move could be perceived, especially by his party,” our sources said.
We have been told that during the talks, Nambeshe has expressed frustration with the party, notably the fact that he was overlooked for the leader of the opposition role in 2023 in preference for Joel Ssenyonyi, the Nakawa West MP.
“He said that since he had served in Parliament longer than Ssenyonyi and that since he had managed to mobilize for NUP support in a difficult area like Bugisu, he should have been made leader of the opposition,” the source said.
Should he accept to rejoin the NRM, sources said, his campaigns will be well funded and would not get any trouble getting the party ticket.
Yet it would set him at odds with his party.
Nambeshe is the first MP to represent Manjiya on a ticket other than NRM since multi-party politics were restored in 2006.
In the 2021 election, he garnered 9,994 votes while his rival NRM’s Moses Khaukha scored 5,032 votes. Nambeshe had been elected on the NRM ticket in 2016.
However, in the same general election, Museveni defeated Robert Kyagulanyi in Bududa district (where Manjiya is located) with a margin of 14,556 votes.
Since this year begun, Nambeshe has not been a regular at NUP events like he used to. His last sighting at the party office was in January this year when the party paid its respects to the late Muhammad Ssegirinya.
In an earlier interview with Bbeg Media, Nambeshe had dismissed reports of his crossing to NRM as the handiwork of his political rivals. He told us that he was nursing his sick mother at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, which is why his presence at NUP events was irregular.
