MUK guild president Gracious KadondiOn the night of October 31, 2026, Makerere University’s Freshers ball at Impis Rugby Grounds produced an image that will be difficult to unsee. Guild President Gracious Kadondi stepped onto the stage during Fik Fameica’s performance and sought the microphone. The artiste refused. “Leave my stage! I have work to do,” he told her. Parts of the crowd answered by chanting his name. She and her team eventually withdrew. He finished the set. The exchange was short, public, and revealing. Six months earlier, Uganda Law Society president Isaac K. Ssemakadde SC had greeted her election with unusual directness. In a widely circulated congratulatory note, he praised the gallant Makerereans for choosing an “uncompromising, bare-knuckle fighter for justice and institutional independence.” He further urged her to abandon the “prefectorial posture” of her predecessor, draw strength from the 2024 Bangladesh student uprising, and immediately demand the unconditional release of political prisoners while dismantling “gamba nogu” tyranny. THINGS FALL APART Kadondi did not take up the challenge. In the months that followed, the national questions, a never-ending series of abductions, political prisoners whose plight it has become taboo to even mention, and the climate of fear drew no sustained public response from her office. On October 4, 2026, the guild president was inexplicably a no-show at a virtual town hall to discuss the role of the students’ fraternity in confronting lawlessness in the country. What is certain about Kadondi’s presidency so far is her focus on campus protocol and personal visibility. The Freshers’ ball confrontation was the first visible cost of that choice. The second arrived almost immediately. On November 2, Mutebi Edward, the 92nd guild minister of Culture, Mobilisation and Social Affairs, resigned in a letter written “with a light heart and a bright smile.” He recorded that planning meetings with the dean of students, security, and sponsors had gone ahead without the guild president and her vice president. TAKEAWAY LESSONS FOR FUTURE GUILD LEADERS The lessons from this kerfuffle are too many to list. A few, however, are compelling. Big talk at the national level means nothing without competence at the local level. A leader who cannot coordinate her own culture ministry, security, and sponsors before a Freshers’ ball is poorly placed to demand the release of political prisoners or confront entrenched power.Who gets the credit tells you a lot. When the people who actually did the work start documenting what they built, and what held them back, the gap between image and reality becomes clear. Crowds are ruthless auditors. Students chanted for the artiste, not the guild president. Ignoring early advice has a cost. The April note from Ssemakadde told Kadondi the mandate was heavier than guild affairs. Yet she treated the office as a glorified prefectship. The public rebukes and resignation are the interest on that decision. Some students are now asking her to apologise to her defeated rival, former Miss Uganda Hannah Karema. Karema was advised to leave the politics of pageantry and quietly heeded. Kadondi stayed inside it and is now collecting the receipts. What was she doing on stage, fighting for a mic with a multiple-award-winning crooner menacingly called King Kong? The mask is slipping. Students who elected a NUP-backed fighter for justice are watching a different performance, one in which the hardest battles she is willing to fight are over stage time and internal credit, while the legacy-defining national questions remain unanswered. The author is a third-year law student at Bishop Stuart University, Mbarara.The post Is university leadership falling from grace? appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.