How well will Nabbanja walk in the shoes of her predecessors?

Technocrats in government, from line ministers to the lowest units, would have been scratching their heads to try and figure out what the appointing authority was aiming at.

But those days indeed appear to be long past. Instead, it is Mr Museveni who appears to have been taken aback by his own appointment, on Monday, of Uganda’s first woman prime minister.

“When Jesus started his movement, there were intellectuals such as the Pharisees. But Jesus went for the fishermen. So, when you see my [Cabinet] list, know that I am in the path of Jesus Christ,” the President said on Thursday at the Budget reading at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala, in an apparent attempt to explain his decision.

Public reaction to the appointments has been over the top, especially since Mr Museveni had pushed aside his ‘Pharisees’ like Dr Ruhakana Rugunda -- who Nabbanja will succeed – Mr Sam Kuteesa, Ms Rebecca Kadaga and Mr Amama Mbabazi.

Mr Mathias Mpuuga, the new Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP), admitted it was difficult to read into President Museveni’s intentions, suggesting the President could be looking at the short end of a stick that he can let go of after earning his bargain.

“It is very difficult to decipher what Gen Museveni wants to deliver to the country,” Mr Mpuuga said.

“It is his game, probably desirous of a performance in abeyance.”

Walking in the big shoes

Ms Nabbanja, the 11th prime minister since Independence, is expected to walk in the shoes of what many have seen as luminaries. In the NRM era, the office, first occupied by two-time President Apollo Milton Obote at Independence in 1962, has been marshalled by Dr Samson Kisekka (1986 to 1991), George Cosmas Adyebo (1991-1994), Kintu Musoke (1994-1999), Prof Apollo Nsibambi (1999-2011), Amama Mbabazi (2011-2014) and Dr Ruhakana Rugunda (2014-2021).

Of the NRM government stewards, only Kisekka was not “dropped” and instead assumed a higher office in the vice presidency until 1994.

Would Ms Nabbanja feel awkward and “too small” when her portrait is hung in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) alongside those of the aforementioned? There are certainly many who would say “hold on, you mean that woman who…?”

The Nabbanja in the ellipses has come in a political jacket of many colours, mostly tailored by her own ambitions and ability. The woman who made conscious decisions to study leadership, democracy and development, did not just shoot out of the blue, although her propensity to first lie low before stepping out of the shadows has been noticeable.

She cut her teeth in politics as a district councillor (Kibaale) in 1998 before assuming the often raucous role of Resident District Commissioner in Pallisa, Budaka and later Busia.

Soon after the presidency released the Cabinet list, Ms Nabbanja played coy, saying she would comment on her appointment after going through the vetting that Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah on Thursday revealed had been held up by the President’s delay to forward the names to his office.

Calculative player?

Although Ms Nabbanja could not hide much longer in her usual veneer given the weight of her new office and had to address the media about it, she has been known to, in the past postings, take her time watching her new space before committing to tasks.

In Busia, she replaced Mr Patrick Bageya as RDC and went on to first make everyone comfortable about her before she started dragging them by the ears.

“Mr Bageya had left acrimoniously as RDC and when Ms Nabbanja came, she learnt very fast from the reasons that pushed Mr Bageya out,” Mr Michael Werikhe, a businessman in Busia Town, says.

“She started initially as a pro-people RDC but after getting a good foothold, she became a vicious regime enforcer, who curtailed the rights of the Opposition from organising. Her departure in 2011 to run for MP was such a great relief in Busia,” Mr Werikhe says.

Among those who faced her wrath was former LoP Nandala Mafabi, who would later accuse Ms Nabbanja of “organising his beating by security forces” during a campaign incident.

When Covid-19 hit the nation last year, it took a while for many to take note of the Health State Minister for General Duties. With career doctors Jane Ruth Aceng, Diana Atwiine and Joyce Moriku in the driving seat, Ms Nabbanja could hardly come out of their shadow.

However, she still found a way to stick her head with regular commentaries on the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I am not the type of leader who will hide behind the scenes,” she told Daily Monitor in 2014.

And there will be no more hiding even if she wanted as her initial attempt to first observe her surroundings failed. Ms Nabbanja has been thrust into the political limelight.

As prime minister, Ms Nabbanja’s mandate is cut out. Article 108(a) of the Constitution mandates the Prime Minister to be the Leader of Government Business in Parliament and be responsible for coordination and implementation of government policies across ministries, departments, and other public institutions.

In the NRM government, the business Ms Nabbanja has to execute will almost entirely revolve around the manifesto and its implementation.

While Mr Mbabazi and Dr Rugunda before her were deeply entrenched in the NRM system prior to assuming the OPM, Ms Nabbanja finds herself with just her willpower and mobilisation skills to turn to.

Ms Nabbanja says having previously served as a minister, Commissioner of Parliament and RDC is enough experience for someone to be a good leader.

“I was appointed to chair a committee of audit but the committee was not there. So I organised the Audit Charter of Parliament. Parliament can now proudly say it has an audit charter which I organised single-handedly, by the way,” she says.

And now she has to make that confidence count. Even as many say she has been a good mobiliser, it has never been at a national level. Her constituencies in Kibaale and now Kakumiro, too, are not the cradles one would consider political hotspots.

With a nation hugely in doubt, Ms Nabbanja has a big onus to prove millions wrong and show that there was something President Museveni saw in her that the trolls on social media would never have imagined.

She has been judged rather harshly, mainly for her sense of style and the video clips of her explaining to NTV Point Blank about a beating in Kibaale nearly 10 years ago.

“I don’t know what Dr Rugunda has been doing that Ms Nabbanja cannot do,” Kampala Capital City Authority deputy Lord Mayor Doreen Nyanjura says.

The public beating Ms Nabbanja has taken at her appointment to the premiership might be reminiscent of the roadside beating in Kibaale but back then, she said she was not the kind to take a beating lying down.

But as prime minister, Ms Nabbanja’s fight will be to satisfy the appointing authority rather than social media or Ugandans at that. A surprise or two from this woman who calculates her steps before she commits should be in the offing, surely.