“Aaaaaaagnes Nandutu, NTV!” was the way she signed off her field reports as a reporter for the Serena hotel-based NTV.
From a little-known and hustling journalist from the hills of Bududa, to the lights and heights of Kampala and beyond, Agnes Nandutu’s story was simply too good. Maybe, sadly, therein lay her downfall.
“I wore my first pair of shoes in P7. It was also my first time to move from the village to Mbale town. It was also my first time to travel in a car. We were going for drama competitions. I was a very good dramatist. I was going to town and could not go without shoes. I didn’t sleep that night!” she told The Observer in a 2020 interview.
From a girl who excelled in her PLE (aggregate 5), to dropping out of secondary school like many rural girls do due to a lack of school fees and working as a teenage housemaid in Kenya, Nandutu beat all odds, took herself back to school and rose to fame and…later, infamy.
At the height of her fame, Nandutu had managed to cut a niche for herself as a parliamentary reporter, understanding the august house so much after decades of covering it that she started her own syndicated community show, People’s Parliament, which raked in considerable revenue for her.
And it is here that she caught President Museveni’s eye; in 2021, Museveni appointed her Minister of State for Karamoja Affairs, where within months, a scandal of misappropriated roofing sheets sucked Nandutu into its ugly abyss and just like that, this woman from the hills of Bugisu came full circle!
A single mother of seven, as she described herself in the anti- corruption division of the high court last Friday as she begged for leniency, Nandutu and several other ministers were found to have misappropriated thousands of roofing sheets meant for the disadvantaged Karamoja sub-region that she ironically represented in cabinet.
While the others including her former line minister Maria Goretti Kitutu, Finance State minister Amos Lugolobi and a list of other prominent politicians and ministers implicated seem to have shaken off the allegations, Nandutu’s has been the lone case that Prosecution has driven all the way to a sentencing.
From a seasoned journalist and community influencer, this woman, once celebrated as a fearless voice for ordinary citizens, has become a cautionary tale about power, pressure, and the cost of compromise. Few stories capture the fragile line between promise and downfall like that of Nandutu.
A STORY OF RESILIENCE
Nandutu first rose to national prominence not in the corridors of power, but in the newsroom. After working as a maid in Kenya for three years, she returned to Uganda, ending up in Kampala’s slum of Wabigalo, where she was also first introduced to journalism.
“My cousin had a friend at Radio Uganda and I used to tour the place and one day I gave it a try. I did voice training and started presenting a health show on radio. I was a freelancer then and my first salary was Shs 16,000. My friend encouraged me to study journalism so I went to Uganda Institute of Business and Media studies and got a certificate,” Nandutu told NTV show Mwasuze Mutya, shortly after her ministerial appointment.
“I joined Monitor Publications and told them I wanted to write. When my first story appeared in the paper, I decided to go back to school and get a diploma to improve my writing skills.”
As a journalist, Nandutu rose through the ranks, and indeed, few remember her at the newspaper or at Impact FM, because once she got a foot in at NTV, she ensured that no one ever forgot her name again. She built a reputation for asking difficult questions in the corridors of Parliament and covering heart wrenching stories of everyday Ugandans.
“My passion for journalism helped me land those jobs despite being a dropout. On recommendation from NTV’s Samuel Ssettumba, I started working on NTV as a reporter. I resigned from Daily Monitor and crossed to TV even though I was being offered a promotion. My first story was on Buganda road eviction and later I started ‘Point blank’,” she told Mwasuze Mutya.
“In 2013, I went back to school at Uphill College Mbuya to complete my S4. I sat my senior six in the same school in 2015 and I did not pass, so I went back in 2017 and resat my exams. Wherever I would go, people were pushing me to join politics, my pastor inclusive.”
In 2020, she heeded these calls, contesting for the NRM primaries, which she lost, but still stood as an Independent candidate and won.
“In Bududa primaries, I walked door to door because I had no money and I was well- liked, but I lost. During elections, two people were disqualified which worked to my advantage. I cried when I won.”
Had she known the misery and heartache that lay ahead with that parliamentary win, she probably would have cried harder that day! Within a short time, Nandutu secured a cabinet position – proof that integrity and determination could still carve a path to influence.
“I did not see the ministerial position coming as a first-timer. The president has been my friend for a long time as a journalist, but we were not that close. Being an MP was enough for me, because winning a seat was a miracle. I read the cabinet list and cried, because I was in disbelief.”
But power, as her story would reveal, comes with its own demands and temptations.
THE UNRAVELING
A government relief initiative intended to support vulnerable populations in Karamoja fell directly in her docket as minister of state for Karamoja affairs.
Soon, allegations emerged that roofing sheets had been misallocated, and Nandutu’s name surfaced in the unfolding scandal, as did that of her boss, Kitutu and minister Lugolobi; the latter was found with the iron sheets allegedly roofing his pig sties.
Initially, Nandutu denied the claims, suggesting she was being unfairly targeted, and those images of her exiting her vehicle and entering court while grinning, were unforgettable.
As the investigations progressed, public confidence began to erode, Nandutu’s smile faltered as she and her two cabinet colleagues did a brief stint in prison, before being released on bail.
The same public that had once championed her rise, now questioned her credibility. Her removal from office marked not just a political setback, but a profound personal reckoning.
For many observers, the irony was stark: a figure once associated with accountability now stood accused of betraying it. In the months that followed, A happy Nandutu when she was a Minister Nandutu retreated from public life.
She lost both the cabinet and later parliamentary seat, and her troubles became too overwhelming for her to even revisit a formerly shining journalism career, like some of her colleagues such as outgoing Mityana Woman MP Joyce Bagala have managed to.
Remember, prior to her running for Parliament, Nandutu had fallen out spectacularly with Parliament’s Director for Communications and Public Affairs, Chris Obore, who in 2017 denied her accreditation to cover the august house.
In a comical twist of fate, Obore himself was shown the exit from Parliament two years later, by then speaker Rebecca Kadaga’s administration. In 2021, Nandutu made a triumphant return to Parliament now as MP just as Obore also staged a comeback, under the new speakership.
Now, the tables are once again turned; Obore remains in his position of power, while Nandutu fights to keep her head above the water.
As the day wound down last Friday, Nandutu was returned to court for sentencing, and Justice Jane Okuo Kajuga handed her four years in prison, adding an unwanted colour to her otherwise beautiful palette.
Nandutu’s influence has largely receded, her political future is uncertain, seeing as her sentence comes with a ten-year ban from holding public office. That, on top of the scandal attracting international sanctions in 2024, meaning significant asset freezes and travel bans.
