Who is Agnes Nandutu? Flash Uganda Media looks at her biography, age, husband, family, Bududa District Woman MP, Political Journey, Early life and Education of the current Minister of State for Karamoja Affairs.
Agnes Nandutu is the Woman Representative for Bududa district in the eleventh Parliament and serving Minister of State for Karamoja Affairs in the Government of the Republic of Uganda.
Her story is one of humble beginnings, from grace to grass, as she has risen from a housemaid to journalist and now lawmaker and Minister in the Uganda government.
Early Life and Education
Agnes Nandutu was born in the present-day Bududa district in the Bugishu subregion of Eastern Uganda. She is of the Gishu tribe which is part of the Bantu ethnic group.
Her parents separated while she was still quite young and this resulted in her moving back and forth between her grandparents and stepmothers.
Nandutu attended Bumwali Primary School where she sat for the national primary leaving examinations, attaining a graded aggregate of five, an outstanding performance. She was a gifted pupil and was often consulted and approached for assistance by her classmates.
She then proceeded to attend Bbulo Girls’ Secondary School and then Blucheke Secondary School for her secondary education although she confesses her dream was to join the armed forces which she admired but those aspirations were ended by her father’s refusal.
Frustrated by her father’s decision, she dropped out of school at age 18 before completing her Ordinary level.
Poverty and hardships would eventually press her to move to Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya in search of a better life. They were able to find work as housemaids to make ends meet.
However, life in the Kenyan capital wasn’t any easier and her mother convinced her to return home to Bududa where her honesty and cooking prowess helped her secure a job as a cook and later a barmaid at Freedom restaurant.
In 1997, she joined Radio Uganda as a reporter. She went on to attain a diploma in Journalism at the Uganda Institute of Journalism and Media studies.
She eventually registered for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) exams at Uphill College Mbuya much later in 2013 where she attended evening and weekend classes, surmounting many hurdles to pass the exams.
She wasn’t so lucky in the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exams which she sat for in 2015. Personal responsibilities and work obligations got the better of her and she failed the exams. However, on her second attempt in 2017, she passed.
Family
Agnes Nandutu is a single mother of seven children. She says some people identify her as “that woman who produces a lot”. The hardships in her life reinforced her hardworking drive and vow to hustle her way in Kampala.
Career, Work and Experience
Agnes Nandutu started her career as a journalist in 1997 when she joined Radio Uganda as a reporter. She later found work at the Daily Monitor newspaper as a freelance reporter.
From 2002 to 2008, she was a staff reporter for Impact FM. At the time she joined Impact FM, she was a mother of four and was expecting her fifth. Juggling motherhood and multiple jobs was a daunting task but she managed to pull it off.
Her big break came in 2008 when she was assigned to Nation Media’s television station NTV where she was appointed Parliamentary reporter for the media house.
She quit her other jobs at Impact FM and Daily Monitor to focus on the new challenge of television reporting which was a dream come true for her. She even declined the opportunity to be promoted to become a Daily Monitor Eastern bureau chief in order to be on television.
She remained at NTV for over 10 years until her resignation in 2020 when she joined elective politics.
Politics and Ministerial appointment
Before getting involved in politics, the now-elected Bududa Woman Member of Parliament Agnes Nandutu hosted a popular TV talk show called “People’s Parliament.”
Through this show, she interacted with various communities by “bringing the Parliament to the People” in their villages, in an effort to aid residents in airing their grievances to the relevant leaders.
Political analysts in Bugisu speculate that Nandutu’s spirits and the political wave for change that is currently sweeping Uganda may have worked more favourably than her political savvy because Justine Khainza her main rival is regarded as some sort of ‘goddess’ in Bududa, where she has a lot of power, particularly among politicians, religious leaders, and the locals.
Ms Nandutu, who believed that becoming an MP was the pinnacle of her political career, admitted that the news of her selection as Minister on June 12 2021 moved her to tears.
She confessed that she sobbed, was astounded and was filled with awe that President Yoweri Museveni had actually followed what she saw as the path of Jesus Christ, choosing a former housemaid and a barmaid to be Minister of Karamoja Affairs.
Controversies
Voters urged Agnes Nandutu to present her husband during the campaigns leading up to the general elections in 2021, but she did not do so because she is not married.
Instead, she requested the electorate’s assistance in finding a suitor on the radio and begged them to place more importance on good representation than her marital status. Her marriage was a much-debated topic in society.
Despite wanting to withhold further information from the observer newspaper during an interview, Nandutu is the mother of seven children.
Kadaga-Obore, Nandutu feud
Agnes Nandutu, a scourge of authenticity, claimed that she was barred from covering parliament in 2017 because of her honesty.
She wrote a narrative on Speaker Rebecca Kadaga‘s excess in the August house.
With her fellow journalists Francis Jjingo and Yassin Mugerwa, she believed nothing could jeopardize them.
She said that Chris Obore, the head of communications and public affairs for Parliament, was then instructed to refuse her accreditation as a result of her actions in pursuing the truth.
Years later, Ms Nandutu sneaked into parliament and conducted an interview with the then speaker of parliament, Mr Jacob Oulanyah.
All of the security personnel at the entry were moved around when her presence was realized. To her dismay, some security personnel complained to her that their jobs were in jeopardy because of her presence in Parliament.
Ms Nandutu said that she had pardoned people who had grudge against her. She gave up and vowed that she would be Mr Obore’s boss one day. She left parliament as a journalist but promised she would return as an MP.
