Gulu, Northern Uganda – Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, lit up a National Unity Platform (NUP) leaders’ retreat in Gulu City on Monday, declaring Uganda’s north a cornerstone in the fight for freedom.
The high-level mobilization meeting, which brought together over 300 party representatives and mobilizers from Acholi, Lango, and Karamoja, was described as a political awakening, a declaration of readiness for battle in Uganda’s upcoming 2026 general elections.
With elections just months away, NUP is shifting its gaze northward, and Bobi Wine came bearing a fiery message: “This is the resistance generation!”
“This regime fears your voice. They fear your vote. That’s why they send police and soldiers into our meetings. That’s why they arrest our people. But we shall not be silenced not today, not tomorrow, not in 2026!” declared Robert Kyagulanyi in Gulu City.
The retreat came hot on the heels of multiple arrests of NUP members in Entebbe, accused of holding an illegal meeting.
However, the atmosphere was defiant. Delegates arrived in convoys, some traveling over 400 kilometers, risking arrests and intimidation to be part of the historic assembly.
Once sidelined and scarred by war and marginalization, Uganda’s northern region is now a rising front in the country’s shifting political landscape. The retreat offered NUP an opportunity to galvanize support in areas that once lay beyond the grasp of opposition politics.
“For too long, our people were manipulated, bought with sacks of sugar and lies. But that era is over,” declared Sarah Ayaa, a fiery NUP parliamentary hopeful from Kitgum. “We now speak the language of freedom and justice.”
With passionate speeches, group strategy sessions, and late-night planning meetings, the retreat turned into a boot camp of political resistance.
Party leaders urged their coordinators to organize door-to-door campaigns, monitor voter registers, and train legal observers in anticipation of electoral violence and vote rigging.
“This is no longer a war of guns. It’s a war of ideas, smartphones, and ballot boxes,” said Daniel Odokonyero, a digital mobilizer from Lango. “The NRM has the bullets, but we have the numbers.”
The retreat featured workshops on cyber-security, voter sensitization, protection from political persecution, and rapid response mechanisms. According to insiders, NUP plans to set up regional command centers across Uganda to provide legal, emotional, and logistical support to candidates and campaigners.
“Our fight is lawful, peaceful, and people-powered,” added Bobi Wine. “But make no mistake, we are not weak. We are organized. We are focused. We are ready.”
The rhetoric was fiery, but grounded in political reality. Bobi Wine painted a picture of a regime cracking under the weight of its fear.
“Why do they brand us terrorists? Why do they raid our homes, our meetings, our rallies? Because they fear what we represent: change. Truth. Accountability,” he declared.
“They cannot stand a free and fair election because they know they will lose.”
For many Ugandans, especially in the north, the 2026 elections represent more than a routine exercise in democracy. They are a moment of reckoning. The fear, pain, and silence that once gripped this region is transforming into something potent, a political roar demanding change.
As the retreat concluded with unity prayers and an emotional singing of the NUP anthem, there was no mistaking the shift in tone.
“They may control the guns,” Bobi Wine said, “but we control the people. And in the end, it is always the people who win.”
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