Days after the Electoral Commission disqualified Mathias Walukagga from the race for Busiro East parliamentary seat over his academic qualifications, I interviewed him about his next steps.
He said his party, the National Unity Platform, and his lawyers would appeal the decision and walked me through his academic journey.
The singer-turned-politician told me that in 2022, after he had become Kyengera Town Council mayor, he was contacted by a man he only identified as Kwezi, who runs Stallion Consultants, and he was trying to persuade him to go back to school.
“He came to my office,” Mr Walukagga said in the interview. Kwezi was trying to sell the mature age entry scheme to Mr Walukagga, saying that people with the same musical background as his had managed to go to university through the scheme.
Mr Walukagga cited Fred Sserugga, the husband of singer Catherine Kusaasira, and Geoffrey Lutaaya, the MP for Kakuuto, whom he claimed had even flunked UACE exams.
The primary illogicality lies in the court’s dismissal of the “further studies” exception. If Mr Walukagga does not have the equivalent of an A-Level certificate, as the ruling suggests, on what legal basis is he currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree?
Kwezi told Mr Walukagga that the qualification he needed to be considered for the maturity age entry was being at least 22 years old and having the ability to write and speak good English.
“My company will teach you for one year, and you will be able to sit for those exams,” Mr Walukagga quoted Kwezi as saying.
He said he spent one year studying for mature age entry exams and paid shs6m. Lessons started in 2022, and he took exams on February 25, 2023.
In June 2023, he said, the results were back, and he had managed to score 54%. In August of the same year, he secured a place at St Lawrence University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in public administration.
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He is now a third-year student—but, according to the December 21 High Court ruling by Simon Peter Kinobe, this same man is an academic ghost.
The university offered him a place on the grounds that he had the entry requirement of an equivalent of the A-Level certificate, but the ruling suggests he does not have it.
The ruling goes against logic. Mr Walukagga was not able to go to university through the normal channel—which is passing UACE exams with two principal passes.
He opted for the mature age entry scheme and took exams at the Islamic University in Uganda and passed. That effectively gave him the equivalent of an A-Level certificate, which the National Council for Higher Education confirmed.
Mr Walukagga went ahead to enrol for a bachelor’s degree only two months after getting his A-Level equivalent, meaning he was able to put the certificate to proper use.
Disqualifying him from the race on the grounds that his equivalent for an A-Level certificate expired does not make sense. The same qualification, after all, was used for securing a place at university.
The primary illogicality lies in the court’s dismissal of the “further studies” exception. If Mr Walukagga does not have the equivalent of an A-Level certificate, as the ruling suggests, on what legal basis is he currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree?
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The court’s rejection of the “Golden Rule of Interpretation”—which allows judges to avoid results that are unjust or absurd—is deeply troubling. Why would a law that goes against logic be in public interest?
City lawyer Edward Ssekika told OJ-UGANDA that the judge relied on Legal Notice No. 12 of 2015, which restricts the validity of the mature age entry certificate to two years. But this raises a pertinent question: If an aspiring MP gets elected, what happens to their A-Level equivalent once the certificate’s validity of two years is over?
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.
