As residents—including people living with disabilities—line up for household support, Mutebi’s journey from the State House corridors to Masaka’s villages is putting political trust to a grassroots test
By Brian Mugenyi
Masaka: Thousands of residents of Masaka District on Saturday lined up in Ddiimu, some leaning on walking sticks, others being pushed in wheelchairs, as they waited to receive maize flour, cooking oil and other household necessities delivered through State House Private Secretary Oscar Mutebi.
For some, the queue was a familiar symbol of hardship.
For others, it was a rare moment when help had travelled from the corridors of power to their doorstep.
A sack of maize flour does not make a household wealthy.
Neither does a jerrycan of cooking oil.
But for a family struggling to put food on the table, the difference between having and not having can be measured in a single meal.
That was the human face of Saturday’s intervention.
And it is also the point where the story of Oscar Mutebi becomes larger than food.
Because behind the queue in Ddiimu is a political journey—from the grassroots of Masaka to the State House establishment and back again.
It is a journey that President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has entrusted with national responsibilities.
And now, the people of Ddiimu are becoming part of the test of what that trust means.
THE PEOPLE IN THE QUEUE
The residents did not arrive in Ddiimu carrying political manifestos. They came carrying needs.
Some were elderly. Some were living with disabilities. Some struggled to move through the crowd. Yet they waited.
For them, the intervention was not an abstract discussion about leadership.
It was something they could carry home.
One beneficiary described the support as timely assistance to families facing difficult economic circumstances.
Another said the most important part was not the quantity of food received but the fact that someone had remembered households that often remain invisible in national conversations.
Those voices matter.
Because development is ultimately experienced at the household level.
A policy discussed in Kampala eventually reaches a kitchen.
A government programme eventually reaches a farmer.
A presidential directive eventually reaches a village.
And when it does, the citizen becomes the final judge.
THE PERSON ON THE WHEELCHAIR
Among the most powerful images from Ddiimu was that of people with disabilities making their way to the distribution point.
Some could not walk.
Others depended on wheelchairs or assistance from relatives.
Their presence quietly raised a bigger question:
Who remembers the people who cannot easily reach the centres of power?
For such residents, accessibility is not merely about roads and buildings.
It is about whether public programmes reach them.
Whether they are identified.
Whether their needs are heard.
Whether they are included when communities discuss development.
The Ddiimu intervention therefore carried a significance beyond the items being distributed.
It put vulnerable citizens physically at the centre of a community conversation.
THE WOMAN WHO SEES THE BIGGER PICTURE
Hajjat Zaina Nakidde, the Kyanamukaka Town Council mayor, has been one of the local leaders publicly associated with Mutebi’s grassroots initiatives.
Her assessment of his wider work is important because she sees the interventions from within the community.
She has previously described the impact of development initiatives linked to Mutebi and former Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi.
On the road projects in Kyanamukaka, Nakidde described the development as a historic turning point after years of poor roads that had restricted farmers and businesses.
“For many years, our people suffered because of poor roads. Farmers failed to access markets and businesses struggled to grow. Today, we are witnessing history being made. These roads will change the future of our communities,” she said.
Her statement provides an important lens through which to view Mutebi’s work.
It is not only about giving.
It is about connecting people to opportunities.
FROM MAIZE FLOUR TO COFFEE
The Saturday distribution may have provided immediate relief.
But Mutebi’s more ambitious grassroots agenda lies in production.
Coffee.
The crop is already deeply embedded in the economy of Greater Masaka.
And Mutebi has been involved in mobilisation around coffee seedlings in the region.
In December 2025, farmers in Kyesiiga received 20,000 coffee seedlings through an initiative associated with the office of former Vice President Ssekandi, with Mutebi coordinating the exercise.
Mutebi said the purpose was to strengthen household incomes and promote long-term wealth creation.
“People in Masaka have embraced farming as a key economic activity. That is why we decided to support them with quality coffee seedlings to help strengthen household incomes and promote long-term wealth creation,” he said.
That statement reveals the bigger ambition.
The maize flour answers today’s problem.
The coffee seedling is an investment in tomorrow.
One is consumed.
The other, if properly managed, can produce income for years.
ZAINA AND THE COFFEE STORY
Nakidde has also linked the coffee intervention to the livelihoods of local farmers.
In an earlier account, she said:
“Through the office of former Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi and the support of Mr. Oscar Mutebi, we have received coffee seedlings that will improve our livelihoods. This is a great opportunity for our people.”
Her words move the story away from political praise and towards a measurable question.
Will the livelihoods actually improve?
That is the real test.
A seedling is not yet wealth.
It must survive.
The farmer must nurture it.
The crop must mature.
The farmer must access a market.
And the income must eventually find its way into the household.
Only then can a political intervention become an economic success story.
THE SSEKANDI CONNECTION
Mutebi’s political apprenticeship did not begin at State House.
It began around senior political leadership.
His work with former Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi exposed him to the routines and responsibilities of high office.
That experience matters.
Political leadership has an unwritten curriculum.
It teaches patience.
It teaches discretion.
It teaches the importance of listening.
And it teaches that the person sitting at the centre of power must never forget the people outside the gate.
Mutebi appears to have carried that lesson into his grassroots work.
THE KAKANDE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE
There is another important figure in this story.
Hajji Yunus Kakande.
As a senior official in the Office of the President, Kakande represents a generation of public servants whose experience has placed them close to the centre of national decision-making.
For people working around the presidency, such experience can become an informal school.
How to handle responsibility.
How to manage sensitive information.
How to exercise restraint.
How to listen.
How to understand that proximity to the President is not personal power.
It is public responsibility.
Kakande’s worldly wisdom and guidance have been credited by Mutebi as an important influence in his own understanding of leadership and service.
This is the quieter side of politics.
The mentorship nobody sees.
The advice that does not make the evening news.
The correction that may prevent a mistake.
And the institutional knowledge passed from one generation to another.
FROM STATE HOUSE TO THE VILLAGE
The significance of Mutebi’s current role lies partly in this ability to move between two worlds.
State House is the centre.
Ddiimu is the last mile.
At State House, government priorities are discussed.
In Ddiimu, those priorities are experienced.
At State House, agriculture may be discussed as an engine of economic transformation.
In Ddiimu, it is a farmer waiting for coffee to mature.
At State House, youth empowerment may be a programme.
In Masaka, it is a young person looking for work.
At State House, infrastructure may be a budget line.
In Kyanamukaka, it is a road that determines whether coffee reaches the market.
That is why Mutebi’s grassroots presence matters.
He has the opportunity to carry the concerns of the village towards the centre.
And to carry the opportunities of the centre back to the village.
THE ROAD FROM RELIEF TO RESILIENCE
But there is a difficult truth in this story.
No community can build its future permanently on donations.
The food will eventually be eaten.
The cooking oil will eventually finish.
The distribution point will eventually close.
That is why the more important question is what happens next.
Can the farmer produce?
Can the young person find work?
Can the household generate income?
Can people with disabilities access economic opportunities?
Can infrastructure open markets?
Can government services become reliable?
Those are the questions that separate political visibility from sustainable development.
WHY MUSEVENI MAY HAVE SCORED
President Museveni’s decision to entrust Mutebi with responsibilities around the State House establishment can therefore be viewed through a wider political calculation.
A President needs people who understand government.
But he also needs people who understand the country outside Kampala.
Uganda is not State House alone.
It is Ddiimu.
It is Kyanamukaka.
It is Kyesiiga.
It is the coffee garden.
It is the village school.
It is the household where a parent is calculating whether the next harvest will pay school fees.
Someone who can move between these worlds can potentially become an important bridge.
But bridges are judged by what they carry.
THE REAL TEST
Mutebi’s greatest test will therefore not be how many people he can gather at a distribution point.
It will be what happens when the distribution is over.
Whether farmers become more productive.
Whether households become more resilient.
Whether young people find opportunity.
Whether vulnerable citizens become more visible in development programmes.
Whether the roads create markets.
Whether coffee becomes income.
And whether government becomes something people experience rather than something they only hear about.
That is the difference between mobilisation and transformation.
THE QUEUE WILL DISAPPEAR
By evening, the long queue in Ddiimu will have disappeared.
The wheelchairs will have gone home.
The elderly will have returned to their households.
The maize flour will be stored.
The cooking oil will enter kitchens.
And the photographs will eventually disappear into phones and social-media timelines.
But the bigger story will remain.
What happens after the food?
That is where Mutebi’s journey must now be judged.
Because political leadership cannot be measured only by the ability to respond to suffering.
It must also be measured by the ability to reduce the conditions that create that suffering.
The sack of flour is immediate.
The coffee tree is patient.
The road is structural.
The school is generational.
And the State House connection is only useful if it helps bring these pieces together.
THE VERDICT BELONGS TO DDIIMU
President Museveni may have scored by entrusting Mutebi with responsibilities close to the presidency.
Ssekandi’s earlier mentorship gave him exposure to senior political leadership.
Kakande’s guidance represents the value of institutional wisdom.
And Ddiimu has given him something no office can provide:
a direct test from the people.
The people in wheelchairs.
The elderly.
The farmers.
The mothers.
The young people.
The households.
They do not need political theory.
They need results.
And that is why the most important voice in this story may not belong to State House.
It may belong to the beneficiary who carried the maize flour home.
Or the farmer who planted the coffee seedling.
Or the resident who finally uses a road that was once impassable.
Or the person with a disability who discovers that development has room for them too.
Because when the political speeches are over, the citizens remain.
And when the food is finished, the question remains:
Did the intervention merely feed the household for a day—or did it help build a future in which that household can feed itself?
That is the question Ddiimu will eventually answer.
And that answer—not the size of the crowd, not the number of bags distributed, and not the proximity to State House—will determine the real value of Oscar Mutebi’s journey from the corridors of power to the people.
