By Kabuye Ronald
The High Court has dismissed a petition filed by musician Mathias Walukagga, upholding the Electoral Commission’s decision to bar him from contesting in the 2026 parliamentary elections for Busiro East constituency over lack of the minimum academic qualifications required by law.
In a ruling delivered on Sunday, December 21, 2025, via the Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS), High Court Judge Simon Peter Kinobe rejected Walukagga’s challenge to his disqualification from the ballot.
Walukagga had moved to court after the Electoral Commission (EC) declined to nominate him, following a complaint by John Lubowa Kilimiro, a registered voter. Kilimiro argued that Walukagga did not satisfy the academic requirements prescribed for candidates seeking election to Parliament.
According to court records, Walukagga sat for the Mature Age Entry Examination on February 25, 2023, where he scored 54 percent. He was issued with a certificate on June 12, 2023, which under the law is valid for two years and therefore expired on June 12, 2025. The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) issued him with an equivalence certificate on June 11, 2025—just one day before the expiry of the Mature Age certificate.
However, Walukagga’s nomination for the Busiro East parliamentary seat took place on October 23, 2025, nearly four months after the Mature Age certificate had expired.
In his ruling, Justice Kinobe held that by the time of nomination, Walukagga no longer possessed a valid academic qualification, rendering both the Mature Age certificate and the NCHE equivalence invalid.
“From the above timeline, I note that the petitioner’s only qualification had expired by the nomination date, rendering both the certificate and the NCHE equivalence invalid. Legal Notice No. 12 of 2015 sets strict conditions with no provision for extension or exception,” Justice Kinobe ruled.
The judge further emphasized that the law is clear that a Mature Age Entry Examination certificate is valid for only two years from the date of award and cannot be extended.
As a result, the court found that Walukagga’s nomination was invalid and that the Electoral Commission acted lawfully in excluding him from the list of duly nominated candidates.
On the question of costs, the court declined to award costs to the respondents that’s John Lubowa Kilimiro and the Electoral Commission, noting that the petition raised issues of public importance that had not previously been tested in Ugandan jurisprudence. Each party was ordered to bear its own costs.
