KAMPALA – A section of National Youth Council (NYC) leaders belonging to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party have accused the ruling party of sidelining them from nationwide mobilisation efforts ahead of the 2026 elections.

These, who included, Rwampara district youth secretary for finance Stephen Ndyamuhaki made the remarks on December 8, 2026. This was during an impromptu presser in the Kampala city suburb of Makerere-Kikoni.

“On the ground, mobilisation has been handed over to the elderly, disconnected and corrupt individuals. Some of whom deploy their own family members while pushing aside genuine youth leaders. This has killed peer-to-peer engagement, hope, killed the belief that young people matter,” Ndyamuhaki said.  

The law

NYC, which is an umbrella body for youth aged 18 to 30 years. It was established by National Youth Council Act, Cap 319 to mobilise and empower young people for national development.

The body acts as a unified voice for youth related policy and activities, with structures from national to village level.

This is in tandem with Articles 20, 21 which prohibit discrimination of persons on sex, age, disability grounds. Furthermore, Article 32 provides for affirmative action for special interest groups on the basis of age.

Voter demographics
Section 5 of the National Youth Council Act provides that the National Youth Council is composed of the chairpersons of all district youth councils, district secretaries for female youth and district secretaries for finance.

The council also includes eight non-voting, ex-officio representatives from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) involved in youth activities, one representative of youth with disabilities and four student representatives elected by the Uganda National Students’ Association (UNSA), two of whom must be female, including one from a secondary school.

With Uganda’s 146 districts, this structure translates into a council of 443 members. Of which, fewer than 20 are independent, with the rest aligned to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).

And yet, despite doing the heavy lifting, Alex Wamakota the Bududa District Youth Council secretary for finance, alleged that they have been abandoned on the wayside, in favour unnamed persons. A phenomenon, he warned might haunt NRM and President Yoweri Museveni if not addressed.

“The number, you are seeing on those placards, the 684,000 is not of young people, it’s a number of young leaders. These are leaders that were voted from every village, out of the 72,000 villages in this country by young people regardless of their political affiliation,” Wamakota explained.

“So, they voted nine people in every village, times (multiplied) the 72,000, those are the sure voters that the President starts with. But these same people are going to mobilize people who voted for them in their villages. That is the structure that is being left alone. That structure alone can contribute around 7 million votes to the President,” he cited.

2021 Elections

A demographic, political players warn is not one to ignore, especially considering the fact that, eligible voters have increased by 3.5 million from the previous polls.

In the 2021 Presidential Elections, it should be noted that out of an estimated 18 million voters, President Yoweri Museveni defeated his closest challenger, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine of the National Unity Platform (NUP), securing 6,042,898 votes (58.38 percent) against Kyagulanyi’s 3,631,437 votes (35.08 percent).

Edith Ayebare, who is in charge of Isingiro District female affairs docket, said “As female affairs, we have a feeling and hope that we should be given power to go to the young ladies and enrich them about our President and the leadership of Uganda. But we are just as pictures, we are not given any role, we are disempowered completely and we are feeling a lot of pain.”   

“If we are considered and given that mandate, given that value, we shall go and entrust a woman with anything and know you have got it. That’s why they say ‘teach a mother and teach the nation’. Don’t ignore women, we can do better,” she summed.    

Meeting flops
The backstory is that last Saturday, the group had scheduled a pressor to deliberate on matters which included the whereabouts of shillings three billion they previously lobbied for mobilisation activities.

However, at the 11th hour, the meeting was called off following the intervention of a senior party leader, who reportedly, later gave each member a transport refund of shillings 500,000. However, they are not about to give up.

NYC, President Museveni engagement

According to a member who wished to remain anonymous, the funds were promised by President Yoweri Museveni during a meeting two months ago in Mbale, while he was campaigning in the Bugisu sub-region.

The member told New Vision Online that the President first guided them on the dynamics of youth mobilisation before asking them to prepare a budget that he would facilitate.

After which, NYC chairperson Daniel Ongom said the President instructed NRM secretary general Richard Todwong to meet the NYC executive committee to discuss the modalities and finalise a budget cap.

In a telephone interview on Friday January 9, 2026, Ongom said “We made a budget, the secretary general received it and submitted it to the President.

That is the last, we have heard of it. Other youth groups for example, the Youth League have been well facilitated. And the young people are saying, Mzee is a very frank and straightforward person, if he didn’t want to give us, he would have told us.”

Impeachment calls
The delay in availing these funds has sparked internal tensions, with one group of leaders calling for Ongom’s impeachment for allegedly failing to exercise due diligence.
Ongom, however, claims the move is the handiwork of frustration and a small clique of his opponents who are yet to recover from their loss in the last elections.

“No, I have a very good relationship with the delegates of the National Youth Council (NYC). One, it is the frustration that they feel which is not only on them but also comes from down, the people they lead up to village level. We are a structure of about 648,000 people. So, this, frustration is upon them, and the only way of venting it, they feel, I should have a solution,” he explained.

“But, two, there is also a small drop of our people, our election cycle just ended very recently like two months ago and there are a few people that have not yet moved past that election and it will take time. It might take a year or two, I do not expect them to quickly move on,” Ongom pointed out.

Repetitive calls to NRM SG Richard Todwong and Emmanuel Dombo the party’s Director of Communication over the past two days went unanswered.    

What others say 
Asiimwe Hafashimana (Kisoro District Youth Chairperson); We believe that the National Youth Council members have, in fact, done mobilisation for the President. But also, of other leaders in the party as NRM.

But we have been disenfranchised, especially when it comes to facilitating members of the National Youth Council. This explains why a number we believe there was a budget meant for the National Youth Council, but it must be stuck somewhere.