- Guild President Gracious Kadondi suspended her culture minister on Sunday
- Less than 24 hours later, Edward Mutebi hit back with a scorching resignation letter
- He accuses her of storming backstage with family and friends and hijacking the freshers ball programme
- Guild leaders insist she was “set up” in a deliberate programme clash
The freshers ball was supposed to be the party of the semester. Instead, it has blown Makerere University’s student government apart.
On Sunday, Guild President Gracious Kadondi suspended her own Minister for Culture, Mobilisation and Social Affairs, Edward Mutebi, for 29 days, saying he had fallen short of the conduct expected of a Guild minister.
But Mutebi was not about to go quietly.
By Monday, he had quit altogether, firing off a resignation letter that pins the blame for Saturday’s stage chaos squarely on his boss.
“I write with a light heart and a bright smile to resign,” he began, before wasting no time on pleasantries.
“You acted with cunning but without class, with force but without craft,” he told the Guild President. “An office meant for representation became a tool of petty control and sudden moods.”
“A crowd of family members and friends”
In his letter, Mutebi gives his version of what went wrong at the October 31 ball.
He claims he met the Dean of Students, the head of security and sponsors to plan the event, but that the Guild President and Vice President stayed away from those meetings.
Then, he alleges, Kadondi turned up at the eleventh hour with a crowd of family and friends, used her office to force her entourage backstage without proper accreditation, and tried to take the stage early against the agreed programme. That, he says, sparked the clash with security, sponsors and the guest artist.
“The embarrassment that followed was entirely self-inflicted,” he wrote, adding that it should teach her humility and “reading-the-crowd.”
He also accuses her of taking credit for work she did not do and of putting personal gain ahead of students’ interests.
Blowing his own trumpet
Mutebi used much of the letter to list his own achievements since taking his oath on April 15. He credits himself with bringing in Made in Uganda as headline sponsor of the bazaar, bringing back Coca-Cola as a partner for the first time since 2022, staging a FIFA World Cup watch party and reviving movie nights with Mary Stuart Hall.
After thanking his deputy and allies, he added a final note: “Lastly, I thank myself.”
The Guild tells a different story
Guild leaders have offered a very different account. In a statement on Sunday, Guild Prime Minister Ndawula Kimera Fahad said Kadondi’s speech was repeatedly postponed for what he called political reasons. He said she was then called to speak at the same moment the headline artist was invited to perform, with the microphones switched off.
The Guild says Kadondi never meant to stop the performance but was “set up in a programme clash,” and that the cabinet is investigating who designed the programme.
The Guild President’s suspension letter did not say what Mutebi did wrong, and neither side has offered evidence beyond its own account.
CampusBee has contacted Kadondi’s office for a response to Mutebi’s claims and will update this story.
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