King Saha, who had been announced as the headline act at Gracious Kadondi’s “Street Jam” campaign event, confirmed Monday that he would not be performing — but used the cancellation as a platform to deliver a pointed message to Makerere’s student body ahead of Wednesday’s election.
“It hurts to say this, but I won’t be performing at Street Jam at Makerere University tonight,” King Saha wrote. “The organizers did their part and paid.”
He did not stop at the announcement.
King Saha’s statement went well beyond a routine cancellation notice. The musician directly connected the halting of the campaign event to what he described as systematic efforts by a corrupt establishment to suppress the opposition — a narrative that places the Makerere guild election squarely within Uganda’s broader political contest between the ruling party and the National Unity Platform, with which Kadondi is affiliated.
“What’s happening during the ongoing guild election campaigns shows how a corrupt system keeps fighting the opposition, and now it’s even affecting spaces like education,” he wrote. “This is bigger than music.”
His closing message to students was unambiguous: “To all students of Makerere, stand firm and make your voices count. Vote for Kadondi.”
The Street Jam was Kadondi’s major campaign event scheduled for Nalika Lane in Kikoni — the same venue that rival candidate Hannah Karema Tumukunde had also announced plans to use on the same day, setting up one of the most tense standoffs of the entire campaign season.
Kadondi’s event had been billed as a major musical evening featuring King Saha, Nubian Li, Dax Vibez, Kabako, and Nina Roz. The clash over the venue had already deepened fears of possible violence between the two camps, with each side claiming to have booked Nalika Lane first.
The cancellation of the event — coming after the organisers had already paid their artists, according to King Saha — raises questions about what intervention, if any, led to the rally being halted, and whether the Electoral Commission, university management, or another authority was involved in the decision.
At the time of publication, the Guild Electoral Commission had not issued a public statement explaining the circumstances of the cancellation.
King Saha’s intervention — however brief — crystallises something that has been visible throughout the 92nd guild campaign season: this election has never been purely about student governance.
The open affiliation of Kadondi’s campaign with NUP, Uganda’s principal opposition party, has given the race a national political dimension that previous guild elections rarely carried so explicitly. When a nationally recognised musician publicly tells Makerere students to vote for a specific candidate and frames the suppression of her campaign rally as part of a wider political battle against the opposition, the line between student politics and national politics effectively disappears.
For students voting on Wednesday, that context is part of the decision they are being asked to make.
Whatever students make of King Saha’s intervention, the cancellation of the Street Jam, or the broader political framing of the Kadondi campaign, the election itself proceeds as scheduled.
Makerere University students vote for the 92nd Guild President on Thursday, April 9, 2026 via the AIMS student portal. Voting opens at 8:00 AM and closes at 5:00 PM. Students must use their official credentials and have access to their registered email to receive their voting token.
