“They thought they were immortal”
Today, I’ll borrow a leaf from Stella Nyanzi’s poetic analogy.
That they were different.
That they were immortal.
That they were permanent.
That they were untouchable…
They believed it.
Not just whispered in corridors of power, not just repeated by those who benefit from proximity—but deeply, dangerously believed it.
Power-greedy dictator Yoseri Tibuhaburwa Museveni and Janet Kembabazi Kataha did not merely rise to lead a nation—they settled into it, reshaped it their way, and over time began to treat it not as a republic, but as a personal inheritance.
Our country, Uganda became a possession.
Institutions that were meant to stand independently were slowly bent and arm-twisted into instruments of loyalty.
Systems designed to serve the people were redirected to sustain power.
The line between national interest and personal control blurred so completely that it almost disappeared, in that transformation, something deeply unjust took root.
The ordinary Ugandan—farmer, student, worker, entrepreneur—became secondary in their own country. Our labor taxed, their voices managed, futures postponed.
Meanwhile, privilege concentrated at the top, protected, expanded, and normalized.
Power stopped listening.
Power stopped fearing accountability.
Power started believing its own myth – that it could last forever. That nothing could shake it.
That history itself could be paused, but history does not pause. Time does not ask for permission.
It is the one force that ignores titles, dismisses convoys, and does not recognize authority. It moves steadily, quietly, dismantling every illusion ever built by those who thought themselves above it.
Because no matter how tightly power is held, it cannot hold back time, when leadership becomes consumed with its own survival, something else begins to fade—the nation itself.
A country cannot breathe when its future is locked in the hands of a few. It cannot evolve when leadership refuses to imagine a tomorrow without itself. It cannot thrive when opportunity is narrowed, when dissent is feared, and when renewal is delayed year after year.
Uganda’s tragedy is not sudden—it is cumulative. It is built from years of control tightening slowly. From voices that learned to lower themselves.
From systems that forgot their purpose. From a generation forced to wait while power refused to let go. And yet, even now, the greatest illusion remains:
That this can continue indefinitely. But no system built around individuals survives the limits of those individuals. No grip remains unbroken. No era escapes its end.
What is left behind, however, is what matters.
Will it be a nation weakened by years of over-centralization? Or one that finally reclaims its strength, its institutions, and its future? Simply because in the end, the truth is simple and undefeated:
No one is immortal.
No power is permanent.
And no nation belongs to a family.
Uganda does not belong to them, never did.