40 years of Museveni

President Yoweri Museveni has formally announced that he will seek a seventh term in Uganda’s presidential election, scheduled for 12 January 2026. The 80‑year‑old has led the country since 1986, when I was 11; I am now 51. 

Yet 1986 hardly feels like another time. It is more reminiscent of the film Groundhog Day: I seem to relive 26 January 1986 again and again every re-election. 

On a loop, the words Museveni spoke as he was sworn in as Uganda’s ninth head of state since independence in 1962 still resonate: “The problem of Africa in general, and Uganda in particular, is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.” 

Those words leapt from the page like paper tigers, brimming with what Wole Soyinka—fresh from his 1986 Nobel prize for literature—might have called “tigritude”. In much the same way, Winston Churchill was once summoned to supply the roar to Britain’s lion heart during the Second World War. 

Nor did Museveni stop there. 

“Nobody is to think that what is happening today, what has been happening in the last few days, is a mere change of guards,” the then 43‑year‑old declared. “This is not a mere change of guards. I think this is a fundamental change in the politics of our government.” 

From that day forth, Museveni’s inaugural address became known as the Fundamental Change speech. As the leader of the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A), Museveni used the occasion to outline a Ten-Point Programme for Uganda’s future, with democracy highlighted as Point Number One. 

Chiefly, he pledged fealty to the country and its people. It was a pivotal moment—one in which, between 1986 and 1989, the Movement government revealed only its transitional stripes. 

At the micro level, it rolled out the Resistance Council (RC) system—a five-tier, hierarchical structure of local governance. It served as a mechanism for citizen participation and grassroots decision-making, evolving from structures originally created during the 1981–1986 civil war. 

The highest organ of the original RC system was the RC V Council at district level. Later, the National Resistance Council (NRC) took the baton from the RC Vs as the most prominent organ of the NRM regime. The NRC was a legislative body established by the NRM after it came to power in 1986. The RC system was later renamed the Local Council (LC) system in 1997. 

At the macro level, the NRM created a broad-based government by inviting its former adversaries to join the administration—an attempt to steady the ship while navigating the choppy waters of governing a Third World country. 

Museveni’s team of rivals initially performed well. Legal Notice No. 1 of 1986 formally established the NRM government in all its finery. Almost immediately, the idea of convening a Constituent Assembly (CA) to debate and promulgate a new constitution was set in motion. The seeds of constitutionality were thus planted, so the Jeffersonian tree of liberty need no longer be refreshed by the blood of patriots. 

“The NRM is not a military government. We are freedom fighters who took up the gun as a last resort to fight against dictatorship,” Museveni referring to the ouster of Idi Amin. The narcotic of his revolutionary appeal got the whole country hooked on his aspirational politics. 

Museveni was hailed as a hero. This image was burnished by the fiction that the NRA was the first guerrilla movement to successfully overthrow a government on the continent. Yet this was not Africa’s first rodeo of its kind: the Frente de Libertacao Mocambique (FRELIMO) had gained power through armed struggle on 15th June 1975 and so did the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in Algeria in the early 1960s.  

Still, that detail didn’t matter to Museveni’s ink-slingers. They were riding the crest of a favourable publicity wave. Ugandans were besotted with the president. He was cut from a different mould, they believed, a leftist mould, to be precise. 

Museveni the Marxist  

While Mr Museveni juggled the vicissitudes of governance arising from the competing demands of a coalition, he turned to Marxist‑Leninist literature. 

It underpinned his interventionist politics: Uganda had, in effect, become a single‑party state, with every citizen conscripted into the Movement system by fiat and all political parties held in abeyance. 

Marxism also offered a counter‑diagnosis to the neoliberal prescriptions bottled up in the conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

The IMF and World Bank urged the new administration to abandon command economics and adopt structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). Yet Museveni, incredulous, had already watched such programmes breed corruption under Milton Obote’s second regime (1980–85); the first externally imposed SAPs in Uganda dented Obote’s credibility and swelled support for the NRA, paving the way for his overthrow on 27 July 1985. 

Though SAPs vary from country to country, their script is broadly identical: currency devaluation; higher interest rates to curb inflation; promotion of savings and the channelling of capital to the largest borrowers; tight control of money supply and credit expansion; cuts in public spending; price deregulation; export promotion; and the privatisation of state enterprises. 

If these measures were adopted, the Bretton Woods institutions preached, the rabbits of investment, growth and development would magically appear. 

In other African states, however, such reforms triggered economic upheaval ­and the same drama would soon unfold in Uganda. 

At first Museveni stood firm. He regarded foreign aid as a noose disguised by the rhetoric of trade liberalisation, which in practice meant easier access to profitable markets and resources for multinationals, and a raw deal for Uganda and for Africa. 

For a leader with a taste for control, neoliberal policies threatened to dismantle the state‑led model of development and enthrone a market‑driven order, thereby shrinking his power. Even so, in June 1986 he invited the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) to help devise remedies for Uganda’s deteriorating economy. 

Despite these efforts, foreign debt still swallowed two‑thirds of the country’s export earnings in interest payments. Inevitably, Museveni’s regime accepted the dreaded SAPs in 1987. Marxism was elbowed aside by capitalism. 

Museveni the Warrior  

Museveni has a thirst for power in its most naked form. He believes intensely in violence as a means of governance and for holding power. He is an accomplished liar and a total stranger to truth. His method of conducting public affairs—whether through his political party, the UPM, or now his NRM/NRA—is a combination of violence and lies. Museveni prefers a militarist (violent) approach to the resolution of problems, but would also, at times, put forward a dissembling scheme while preparing a military solution, deposed Ugandan president Milton Obote wrote in his 1990 pamphlet, Notes on the Concealment of Genocide in Uganda. 

He adds: “Museveni's propensity for bloodshed did not start in Luwero. The UPC government contained this mass killer within the Luwero Triangle. The Okello and Okello junta facilitated the killer, and now he brutalises the whole country. Ugandans who, for whatever reason, have not seen Museveni as a killer, or think that they would be safe because they are close to him, are in for a rude shock. Museveni kills not only those he sees or regards as his enemies but also those closest to him.” 

In the 1980s, Museveni had to contend with several rebel groups opposed to his rule. There was the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA), a significant rebel group, particularly in the north and east of Uganda. Then there was the Uganda People's Army (UPA), another rebel faction operating in the same regions. 

Again, the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM), led by Alice Lakwena (Auma), was known for its spiritual and supernatural claims, fighting in northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which emerged from the HSM, became infamous for its brutal tactics. 

The Lord’s Resistance Army killed more than 100,000 people during a reign of terror in Central Africa, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2016. 

On 11 July 1989, NRA 106 Battalion—called Pili-pili (hot pepper)—herded 120 men into train wagon number C521083. They were suspected of being rebel collaborators. Upon release, 69 had suffocated to death, while 47 survived. 

Similarly, the Kichwamba massacre occurred on 8 June 1998 at the Kichwamba Technical Institute in Kabarole District, Uganda. The attack was carried out by rebels affiliated with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), resulting in the burning to death of 80 students and the abduction of over 100 others. 

During the latter-day Kasese clashes in November 2016 between Ugandan security forces and the Rwenzururu kingdom’s royal guards, there were over 150 deaths and 218 arrests. 

Nevertheless, the NRM/A prevailed against its warring opponents, with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)—a Ugandan Islamist rebel group based in western Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo—being the only real rebel group of any significance still standing. 

Regionally, Kenya accused Uganda of killing eight people on 7 March 1989, after an unidentified aircraft crossed the Uganda–Kenya border in the remote northwest of Turkana, in the direction of Lokichoggio. 

Then there was the 1990 invasion of Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which was supported by Uganda, despite official denials by Kampala. The RPF was formed by Rwandan refugees who had been living in Uganda, and they used Uganda as a base for their operations. 

Later, Uganda was embroiled in the Rwandan genocide, which occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, one million Rwandans were systematically killed. That war ended with the RPF coming to power in 1994, with the tacit acquiescence of Museveni’s regime. 

Next on the chopping block was Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Museveni, in concert with Rwanda’s RPF government, facilitated Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s rebellion, fuelled by ethnic tensions and resentment towards Mobutu’s rule, which ultimately led to Mobutu’s ousting in 1997. 

The roaring 90s to present-day 

Throughout Museveni’s regime, he has received encomiums for his war on HIV/AIDS, which was exemplary, particularly in the 1990s. Uganda experienced a significant decline in HIV prevalence during that decade, marking a success story in the global fight against AIDS. 

Between 1989 and 1992/93, on the political front, the NRM sought to strengthen its chokehold on Ugandan politics. It therefore moved to formally ban political parties through the Constituent Assembly (1994–95). After 1993, Museveni’s regime tightened its vice-like grip on power. 

The final nail in Ugandan democracy’s coffin was the 2000 referendum on whether single-party politics or pluralism should animate the country’s civic future. The former prevailed, and Museveni was ordained as the man to steer the ship of state away from the supposedly sectarian politics of multipartyism. 

The current constitution was promulgated on 8 October 1995, summarising the NRM/A revolution by codifying its precepts and principles. The economy, too, was looking up. 

The Ugandan government launched its first wealth-creation scheme of the NRM/A era: the Entandikwa Programme, a rural farmers’ initiative aimed at providing loans for income-generating activities. This was followed by other initiatives, including the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP), which focuses on youth enterprise development, and the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE), which provides social protection for vulnerable individuals. Further programmes—Bona Bagagawale (Prosperity for All), the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), Emyooga, Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), and the Parish Development Model (PDM)—were to follow. 

African patriot? 

Once feted by the West as part of a new breed of African leaders, Museveni is now frowned upon as part of a “new greed of leaders”. His seemingly interminable rule, coupled with increasingly draconian policies, points to suspected megalomania. While his popularity at home is debatable, his standing across the African continent is far less so—the man is popular. 

This was especially evident after Uganda’s Constitutional Court, on 3 April 2024, upheld the radical provisions of the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. The ruling proscribed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) commingling, so to speak. 

Museveni insists such sexual practices are un-African and many Africans agree. Even in Uganda, he is being applauded for standing his ground as it shifts beneath him. 

However, this may be yet another instance of the president’s dissembling approach to politics. The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli’s seminal work, suggests that in politics, appearances matter more than reality and that a wise leader must learn to appear virtuous without necessarily being virtuous. 

In Wikileaks, Museveni’s chameleonic tendencies of the Machiavellian kind were described thus: 

MUSEVENI'S IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION IS MURKY, COMBINING FERVENT NATIONALISM, THIRD WORLD RHETORIC AND PRAGMATIC OPPORTUNISM. HE DECLARED TO THE DIPLOMATIC COMMUNITY THAT HIS FOREIGN POLICY WOULD BE NON-ALIGNED AND THAT HE WOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL. LIKE MANY UGANDAN FACTIONS, HE HAS SOUGHT LIBYAN ASSISTANCE, BUT WAS MOTIVATED PROBABLY MORE BY OPPORTUNISM THAN IDEOLOGICAL AFFILIATION. 

So, what now?  

Well, Uganda and Ugandans appear to have come full circle on the vexed question of Museveni’s legacy. In light of this reality, the square peg of Ugandans’ previous perception of Museveni now clashes with how they view him today. 

These days, George Orwell’s Animal Farm is frequently invoked to illustrate the metamorphosis of the Museveni regime. The end of that book is particularly apposite: 

“The animals look through the farmhouse window and observe a scene of pigs and humans socialising and playing cards, indistinguishable from one another. The animals can no longer tell the difference between the pigs, who were once their liberators, and the humans, their former oppressors.” 

It gets worse. 

“Being president for a very long time is not a bad thing. That is why I am experienced … Even if you woke me up at night, I will tell you what is happening,” President Museveni was quoted as saying in 2008 by The Observer. 

This is a dramatic departure from the message Museveni delivered on 26 January 1986. Consequently, many Ugandans believe the Museveni of 1986 and the Museveni we see today are two different bears. However, it is possible that these two Musevenis are the same person, with varying degrees of actualisation shaped by politics born in vastly different contexts. It is said that a revolutionary is a young conservative, and a conservative is an old revolutionary. They are both the same person, set apart by time and all it attends with. 

Besides this, Museveni did not promise “fundamental change”; he observed it. That is why he said, “I think this is a fundamental change…”. So, he craftily gave himself a get-out clause in his concordat with the people by using a verb—think—instead of a demonstrative pronoun—this. As in this is a fundamental change. 

This gave him wiggle room to accommodate the changes he has withstood and surmounted in ways that recall the part of that famous 1986 speech in which Museveni implied that he and his fellow revolutionaries are everyman—albeit writ large: 

“Of course, we may have some bad elements amongst us – this is because we are part and parcel of Ugandan society as it is, and we may, therefore, not be able completely to guard against infiltration by wrong elements.” 

In other words: “Ugandans, it’s you. It’s not me,” the president seems to say. Which can also be read as: Ugandans, you are the ones you have been waiting for. Not a messianic leader.