PROFILE: Who Exactly is Joel Ssenyonyi, the New Leader of Opposition in Uganda’s Parliament (LoP)?

Main opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party has named Joel Ssenyonyi the new leader of opposition in Parliament a few days after the youthful legislator celebrated his 37^th birthday. Born in 1986, the year President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni took power after years of a bush war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, Ssenyonyi replaces Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba, the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP. Mpuuga is now a commissioner of Parliament.

POLITICAL LIFE SO FAR

Until 2011, Ssenyonyi was not known in the political circles. That year, after shelving his idea of running for Nakawa West MP, Ssenyonyi contested for youth MP for central region on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) ticket but lost.

He would have to wait for many more years before he appeared alongside activists opposed to the social media tax and the spate of killings of women in Entebbe. He stayed on his job as an anchor on NTV Uganda, only resigning his position after landing a job with Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine’s People Power movement as spokesperson.

As he appointed him spokesperson, Bobi Wine said the following of Ssenyonyi, who had spent 13 years in the media having cut his teeth at state broadcaster UBC: “Joel Ssenyonyi is an intelligent young Ugandan, accomplished professional, and devoted patriot. He is a man of unquestionable integrity with an impeccable record in speaking out against injustice, bad governance and the many evils that bedevil our society.

It gives me great pleasure to see intelligent young Ugandans join this struggle to liberate our country from oppression and dictatorship. Thank you comrade, for accepting this responsibility, which I know is a sacrifice.”

And since then, things have worked in Ssenyonyi’s favour.

In 2021, he won an election to represent Nakawa West as MP. His NUP, the party for which he has been spokesperson, also eclipsed the FDC as the main opposition party, getting the coveted chance to appoint chairpersons of key public accounts committees. Bobi Wine picked Ssenyonyi to head the Committee of Parliament on Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises (Cosase).

Two years later, Ssenyonyi is now the LoP and a top leader in the administration of Parliament.

GROWING UP IN KYENGERA

Ssenyonyi was born to Basekezi Ssenyonyi and Nankunda Ssenyonyi at Mulago Hospital on December 20, 1986.

In an interview with The Observer, Ssenyonyi spoke fondly of his mother, and shared details about his family’s struggles with a polygamous father.

“I am the first born to my mother. She was the official wife, the wedded wife. We are four of us. My father was a hardworking man. So, I have half-brothers and half-sisters, each of them with their own mother. But eventually, many of these half-brothers were brought to our home. My mother asked my father to bring them. She said I will raise the children. So, we grew up together,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we had to leave our Kyengera home, move elsewhere and began to live real life after the separation of our parents. We went to live somewhere and it was a kitchen really! In that room we were six of us: my mother, myself, my three siblings and then a maid that we came with from Kyengera.  I remember my mother going without food some nights so we [the children] could eat the little that was there.”

The first-born child, Ssenyonyi went to Kazinda Memorial School for his P1 through P5. He also attended  Namirembe Infant Primary School, Bakuli, for two terms, and later Joy Primary School. He sat his Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) at Trinity Academy Primary School, Bukoto in 1999. He was aged 13.

For secondary school, Ssenyonyi went to St Lawrence Citizens High School (Kabaka’s Lake Campus) for ‘O’ level in 2000. He returned to the same school for his A-levels in 2015, reading Physics, Economics, Mathematics and Fine Art (PEM/A). He proceeded to Makerere University for a Bachelor Degree in Statistics and later a Bachelor of Laws (LLB).

FAMILY

In 2017, Ssenyonyi told a Watoto Church congregation that he was a virgin in his early thirties.

“I’m a virgin, some people might think that maybe I do not have opportunities, or that my ‘things’ don’t function. Of opportunities, they are immense. In fact, I was about to report a police case,” Ssenyonyi said.

“About the ‘things’ God blessed me with, they are working. However, just because they work, doesn’t mean I go all over putting them in every place.”

He would later explain why he was a virgin in his thirties.

In June 2020, Ssenyonyi officially married Febress Nagawa. The couple has two children.

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