Museveni at 80: ‘Uganda: Starting Over’

COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Luweero has its hold on President Yoweri Museveni – as the cradle, the Mecca, the Rome of the National Resistance Army (NRA) bush war which brought Museveni to power in 1986. Luweero has a special place in Museveni’s revolutionary heart and Uganda’s political history.

Capturing the hard work ahead for Museveni’s regime, Kaplan quoted an Italian doctor, (who by 1987 had lived in Uganda for 20 years, survived coups and their subsequent lootings), “If Museveni cannot make it this time, I am going to leave, because there is no hope.”

Today, in his 38th year as president, Museveni, unwittingly or not, embodies the hope for Uganda’s peaceful transition. Now at 80 years of age, a nostalgic Museveni just celebrated his birthday in Nakaseke district, formerly part of Luweero.

For his birthday, Museveni swapped his beloved billowing white Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU) shirt, for an army green one alongside his usual combo of black trousers and matching shoes – not forgetting the hat. The nature of our skittish politics has rendered us consummate speculators.Thus, we read entire tea plantations into any slight change in Museveni’s routine. The government mouthpiece, New Vision, was exuberant in its celebration of the presidential birthday, printing a souvenir magazine headlined, “120 pages of celebrating a revolutionary life under God’s hand.”

Veteran journalist Bernard Tabaire, writing in the Daily Monitor in October 2016, found the conflation of Museveni and God disconcerting. Noting that many Ugandans are overwhelmingly religious, Tabaire opined that casting Museveni as the ‘anointed one’ emasculated Ugandans/citizens, erasing their power to question God’s revolutionary.

Conversely, Museveni has no such qualms. In September 2008, President Museveni in a lecture to students and faculty of the Command and General Staff College, Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, USA said, “A revolutionary is like a holy man, but using guns. If you can imagine Jesus wielding a gun, that is a revolutionary.”

The Independent Magazine in its coverage of the birthday also noted that Museveni is now firmly on those lists of aging leaders hanging onto power. In our young and reckless stage, we scoffed at such lists – foras, Museveni was on the A-List of the “New Breed of African Leaders.”

Back then, Museveni could do no wrong, his regime feted at home and abroad – we were firing on all cylinders. Now, Museveni’s metamorphosis from the ‘new breed’ to ‘entrenched breed’ breathlessly reminds us he has ‘arrived’, and become that which he despised – leaders who overstay in power.

Fortunately for him, Museveni has lived long enough to add a disclaimer to his young and reckless statement – it is not just leaders who overstay in power but those who do so without the people’s mandate.

Widely popular for at least the first decade (1986-1996) of his regime, Museveni scooped the 1996 elections with 74 per cent. In the 2021 presidential elections, Museveni led with 58 per cent, a far cry from the intoxicating era of 1996.

So much has changed since 1996, even Museveni seems surprised by how things have changed despite his dogged resistance to change. On September 12, Museveni repeated his previous assertion that the opposition rigged the 2021 elections. Given his stranglehold on the presidency, his comments are laughable, tinged with a whiff of missed opportunities.

Museveni claimed that the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) “cheated by one million votes.” It is the sort of claim that should send heads rolling mercilessly if our leaders riyalle believed their sloganeering about Uganda’s democratic credentials.

Was the Electoral Commission (EC) even mortified that the president’s claims finally aligned with the imperialist foreigners who premised that the 2021 election did not meet the standard for a free and fair election? Such is the change that Museveni by his assertion now finds himself in agreement with the opposition NUP that the 2021 election was fraudulent.

Who knew such a day would come so soon?

Daily Monitor columnist Timothy Kalyegira commented that the president’s birthday, which previously has been very demure, very private, is now a national thanksgiving, extolling the greatness of President Museveni and his achievements. For his 79th birthday, a massive celebration was held at Kololo ceremonial grounds – the celebration was also a commemoration of the fighters of the Katonga battle, a critical battle of the NRA bush war.

For his 78th birthday, there was no national celebration, just delightful banter on the president’s social media accounts. First Lady Janet Museveni tweeted a hearty message to her beau, “Every time a year passes by, it is an opportunity to pause and look back.”

Museveni at 80 looks back on his revolutionary days of the bush war in Luweero Triangle, buoyed by those victories – he chugs on full speed ahead. Ahead towards 2026 where he will be 82 and still in the running for the presidency. With each birthday, we draw nigh to Uganda post-Museveni.

How bittersweet that we have come full circle, back to the title of Kaplan’s 1987 Atlantic article, “Uganda: Starting Over”.

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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER