The numbers are brutal. The 2026 Nations Inquiry Country Index places Uganda in the bottom third of the world in nine of the 14 areas measured.
Our country, Uganda 🇺🇬 ranks 172nd of 196 countries on Development and Human Capital, 157th of 200 on Health and Wellbeing, 157th of 184 on Food and Agriculture, and 155th of 198 on Democracy and Civil Liberties.
These rankings should be an embarrassment to a government that has spent decades telling the world about development and transformation.
They raise a simple question: after all these years, why does a country with people, land, resources and potential continue to perform so poorly in so many fundamental areas?
Imagine a county ruled by one dictator for over 40 years who now has run out of excuses and cannot continue presenting himself as the solution to problems which he caused during his (mis)rule deliberately, just to cling on power.
At some point, longevity seizes to appear like evidence of some sort of stability but becomes tangible evidence of political failure and turmoil.
The foreign octogenarian Museveni has had more than enough time to transform Uganda (if he ever wanted to);
Instead, he has presided over a political system increasingly organised around his continued occupation of power. The question we should be asking is no longer whether Museveni has survived another election.
It is what Uganda has received in return for giving one man such extraordinary control for so long.
That should destroy the myth that political longevity automatically produces institutional stability. Genuine stability does not depend on one ageing ruler remaining in office.
It depends on institutions, laws and democratic systems that can survive the departure of any president. If a country is supposedly safe only when one man remains in charge, then the country has not been made stable. It has been made dependent.
And the consequences are not theoretical. They are visible in the lives of ordinary Ugandans. Food insecurity, unemployment, overstretched public services, inadequate healthcare, poor educational outcomes and vulnerability to climate shocks continue to burden millions.
Uganda has enormous agricultural potential, yet its food and agriculture ranking remains near the bottom globally. It has a young population that should be an extraordinary economic advantage, yet too many young people struggle to find decent opportunities.
It has natural resources and a strategic position in East Africa, yet ordinary citizens continue to ask when the promised prosperity will finally reach their homes.
The most disturbing legacy of Museveni’s rule is not simply how long he has stayed in power, but how normalised permanent power has become. A generation has grown up knowing only one president. Constitutional safeguards have been dismantled. Political competition has repeatedly been constrained. The state has become deeply intertwined with the ruling establishment. And citizens are still being asked to believe that the same man who has dominated the system for decades is somehow the only person capable of fixing it.
Enough is Enough with Musevenism!!