Our country, Uganda ๐บ๐ฌ is a young country trapped inside an old desperate political loop. Roughly seven out of every ten [7/10] Ugandans are under the age of 35.
That should be our countryโs great advantage: a huge generation with the energy, imagination, innovation, the right mindset and sense of urgency to build something new, something better.
On the contrary, that same generation has been turned into an audienceโyoung and foolish enough to be mobilised and exploited, old enough to be taxed, desperate enough to be used, but never trusted enough to lead themselves.
At the centre of this contradiction sits the four-decade [mis]ruler, foreign despot octogenarian Senile Kagutema Museveni and the familiar old guards around himโfigures from a political era that refuses to end.
Bush-war veterans, retired servicemen and grandparents have occupied the national stage for so long that political change has begun to sound like folklore. Our country, Uganda ๐บ๐ฌ has changed around them. The population has changed. Technology has advanced rapidly and systems have modernised tremendously.
The economy has changed but the script remains stubbornly familiar: the same speeches, the same slogans, the same rhetoric surrounded by empty promises of transition, and the same invisible date when power will supposedly belong to somebody else – the people’s choice.
At the microphone, the performance is almost ritualistic.
โEhhhโฆ myโฆ myโฆ grandchildrenโฆ bazzukulu—-eehhโฆ the youthโฆ eehhโฆ we shallโฆ we shallโฆ eehhโฆโ
The words may vary, but the message does not: wait a little longer. Be patient. The revolution is still coming. The promised handover is always somewhere beyond the horizonโafter the next election, after protecting the gains, after the next security crisis, after the next development plan, after the next speech about 2046.
And so the country waits. It has been waiting for over four decades.
๐๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐จ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ฒ ๐ข๐ง ๐ฉ๐จ๐ฐ๐๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ?
First, you claim to liberate the country and then quietly redefine liberation as permanent ownership of the state. The movement that arrives promising to rescue the nation eventually begins to speak as if the nation is its private inheritance.
The original victory becomes a permanent receipt, presented at every election as proof that no new mandate is required.
Second, you remove the limits one by one. Term limits go first, then age limits become an inconvenience to be negotiated away. Then the Constitution itself is treated less like a binding national compact and more like a document that can be amended whenever the incumbentโs future becomes legally uncomfortable. In the end, the republic begins to resemble a family photo album: the same faces in every frame, the same patriarch at the centre, and a younger generation standing at the edge, waiting to be introduced to their motherland.
Third, you hold elections that preserve the appearance of competition while making genuine competition increasingly expensive, dangerous, or impossible. Ballots are printed. Rallies are held. Speeches are broadcast. The machinery of democracy is displayed in full public view. But the deeper questionโwhether power can actually change handsโremains off-limits.
Fourth, you appoint your crippled inept sexmate Kataaha as minister and the result is dying nation that lives in fear, fatigue, patronage, and intimidation.
And finally, whenever a young Ugandan asks the simplest political questionโโWhen do we get a turn?โโthe system offers an answer. Not a transition. Not a timetable. Not an open contest. A turn in a cell. A turn in exile. A turn under surveillance. A turn in court. A turn in a political obituary.
The message is unmistakable: you may inherit the debt, the unemployment, the broken services, crumbled infrastructure, national anxiety. But do not ask to inherit power.