A man bearing the same name as Mbarara City North MP Christopher Bakashaba has disputed the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results that the legislator is alleged to have used to obtain admission to Valley View High School, deepening an election petition challenging the MP’s academic qualifications.
The dispute is part of a petition filed by former Mbarara North MP Robert Mwesigwa Rukaari, who contested the January 2026 parliamentary election as an independent after losing the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party flag to Bakashaba.
Rukaari is challenging Bakashaba’s election and nomination, alleging that the MP presented forged academic documents to the Electoral Commission.
According to court documents cited in the proceedings, Bakashaba is alleged to have used the 2011 PLE results of another Christopher Bakashaba, who attended Mushasha Primary School in Buhweju District, to gain admission to Valley View High School. The person whose identity is allegedly in dispute has since filed an affidavit in the case.
The petitioners contend that the results enabled Bakashaba to proceed to secondary school, where he later obtained his Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) in 2015 and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) in 2017.
The allegation has created a central question in the petition: whose PLE results were used to establish the academic record on which Bakashaba’s subsequent secondary-school qualifications were based?
Rukaari’s lawyers have asked the High Court in Mbarara to examine the records and summon officials from the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), among other witnesses.
The legal team also wants the Christopher Bakashaba who attended Mushasha Primary School to appear before court and give oral evidence.
In an application filed in the case, Rukaari asked for oral cross-examination of the UNEB executive director, the Registrar of the Law Development Centre, the executive director of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), the head teacher of Mbarara High School and an individual identified by a National Identification Number in the name of Bakashaba Christopher.
Rukaari argues that the disputed identity is among facts that cannot adequately be resolved through affidavits alone and should be tested through cross-examination.
The petitioner’s lawyers have also questioned the chronology of Bakashaba’s education and employment. Court proceedings have heard allegations that he worked for UCAA between 2006 and 2019, while the academic record attributed to him indicates that he sat UCE in 2015 and UACE in 2017. The allegations remain subject to determination by the court.
The defence has denied the allegations.
Bakashaba has maintained in his affidavit that he is not the Christopher Bakashaba who attended Mushasha Primary School and has insisted that he possesses valid academic documents. He is expected to defend the authenticity of his qualifications during the proceedings.
The Electoral Commission is also a respondent in the petition. Its lawyers have raised preliminary objections, arguing, among other things, that some of the issues raised by Rukaari should have been handled during the nomination process and that the petitioner did not lodge a formal complaint with the commission before polling.
The High Court declined to dismiss the case at the preliminary stage after Rukaari’s lawyers argued that the allegations of fraud and forgery warranted judicial examination. The case was subsequently set down for further proceedings.
Rukaari lost the Mbarara City North parliamentary election to Bakashaba, who was declared winner with 5,478 votes. Rukaari received 4,802 votes, while independent candidate Benon Kajubi polled 4,225.
The Judiciary has scheduled election petitions arising from the 2026 general elections for hearing between September 14 and November 13, 2026.
The Bakashaba petition therefore turns not only on the validity of the election but on a more fundamental question about academic identity: whether the examination record attributed to the MP belongs to him or to another person with the same name.
The substantive petition remains before the High Court in Mbarara, and the allegations have not been judicially determined.
