COMMENT: The death of civics

Essay 3 of 7: How Uganda Forgot Its Citizens

COMMENT | Gertrude Kamya Othieno | In most functioning democracies, citizenship is not an accident of birth – it is a skill, a mindset, and a shared understanding. It is cultivated early, often in classrooms, where young people learn the structure of the state, their rights and duties, and the means through which they can participate in governance. This is the role of civic education.

In Uganda, that classroom has gone silent.

Civic education, once part of informal and formal learning, even before colonial contact, has been slowly erased. Precolonial societies like Buganda and others had mechanisms for grooming civic awareness through clan rituals, council discussions, and moral instruction. But colonialism replaced that with loyalty to empire, and post-independence regimes never fully restored what was lost. What remains now is a system that prepares pupils for exams, not engagement.

The result is a generation that knows how to recite the national motto but not how to access a public budget; that can list past presidents but not the roles of their elected representatives; that can sing an anthem but not question a law.

This is not a coincidence. The death of civics is not a passive failure – it is an active omission. A critically aware population is harder to deceive. It demands more, asks uncomfortable questions, and knows when it’s being short-changed. In contrast, a population that is civically uninformed is easier to manage. It relies on hearsay, performs loyalty, and internalises its own exclusion.

In the absence of civic instruction, Ugandans have built an understanding of governance based on what they observe, not what they are taught. And what they observe is often disappointing. Leaders who enrich themselves, offices that require “facilitation,” police who intimidate rather than protect, and a Parliament that debates allowances more than policy. From such lived experience, young people draw their own conclusions: that power is not earned but inherited, that honesty is naïve, and that citizenship is ornamental.

A critically aware population is harder to deceive. It demands more, asks uncomfortable questions, and knows when it’s being short-changed. In contrast, a population that is civically uninformed is easier to manage. It relies on hearsay, performs loyalty, and internalises its own exclusion.

The effects are visible in daily life. Few Ugandans can describe how a law is passed, how to follow up a government commitment, or how to engage local councils beyond voting. The notion of “duty to the nation” has been eclipsed by “duty to one’s survival.” Even among university graduates, the civic imagination is weak – many speak more fluently about foreign governments than their own.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Uganda has a long tradition of community-based decision-making.

Precolonial structures—particularly among kingdoms like Buganda, had systems of consensus, accountability, and public deliberation. These were not perfect, but they were participatory. What colonialism and later regimes did was to erase this civic foundation without replacing it with something of equal depth. Instead, governance became remote, centralised, and increasingly performative.

Reintroducing civic education must go beyond textbooks. It must include the use of local languages, community debates, practical simulations, and critical engagement with Uganda’s Constitution. It must empower citizens to understand not just how to vote, but how to speak, organise, and demand. It must teach people that they are not recipients—they are owners of the republic.

Until then, the absence of civic knowledge will continue to fuel misinformation, political apathy, and dependency. People will continue to thank leaders for delivering what the law already requires. They will continue to wait for “them” to bring change, rather than recognising “us” as the agents of transformation.

In the next essay, we look at the moral collapse that follows when this civic vacuum is filled not by education but by transaction. We turn to the everyday rituals of bribery, enjawulo, kitu kidogo, and ask: How did corruption become culture?

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Gertrude Kamya Othieno | Political Sociologist in Social Development (Alumna – London School of Economics/Political Science – LSE) | Affiliated to Global People’s Network (GPN) – A Socio-Cultural Movement |  Email – gkothieno@gmail.com