Dear Ugandans, the ball is in your feeble hands

COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | As we head into the 2026 elections with nary a whisper about comprehensive electoral and political reforms to guarantee free and fair elections, toward that elusive goal of peaceful political transition, we must ponder the tools in the feeble citizens’ hands.

Feeble because our political history and culture has conditioned us to be more accepting of militarism- the gun means power, power to ‘stabilise’ Uganda. Thus, do not be offended too much when Musa Ecweru, the state minister for Works and National Resistance Movement (NRM) member of parliament (MP) states, “For now, President Museveni is the cement that holds this country together. He may have his shortcomings and we all have our problems but he remains the glue that unites Uganda”.

January 2026 will mark 40 years of the NRM regime yet here we are sanitizing its deterioration. It is a grave letdown of the National Resistance Army (NRA) revolution that 40 years later, we are beholden to a man.

A man who famously quipped that Africa’s problems lay in the hands of leaders who overstayed in power. Perhaps somewhere in State House sits the mythical fountain or tree of immortality (for can one overstay if one is not immortal?). Now, while Museveni still lives, reigns and commands influence, the NRM has a fleeting chance to change course—by truly listening to Ugandans. Resistance may be the party’s founding ethos, but, as the internet meme goes, “resistance is futile.”

Change is inevitable. My elders watching the self-immolation of the NRM spearheaded by the First Son and chief of the defence forces, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, are melancholic. A sigh escapes one of them as he flips through the newspapers. He marvels at the display of might, the grandness of political impunity.

One is forced to sit up when they start comparing the turbulent yesteryears of Idi Amin and Milton Obote to current events and finding similarities – not the good kind. They reminisce about the powerful ruling party that was the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC).

They smirk to see the raggedy banana fiber-doll UPC is today, a plaything for the NRM. The elders and historicals in the evening of their lives have taken to grandparenting with premium enjoyment. After all, they are too old to go to the bush, too old to run, too old to hide.

When they pull themselves away from the entertaining antics of their own cherubic-cheeked bazzukulu, they watch warily the young and restless, the tayaad firebrands of the opposition whose radicalism is fanned on by the growing militarism of the NRM regime.

Online, the young firebrands blame the old farts for saddling Uganda with the NRM that refuses to unhand Uganda from the shackles of impunity and injustice. The young radicals demand that the old historicals should step up once more and set Uganda free.

The elders, slightly incensed by the rudeness and entitlement of the young foot soldiers, retort that their work is done. They did what they could for their generation. It is now time for this generation to do the heavy lifting.

Somewhere in the middle of the old and the young, are the wise sages sitting on the rickety fence lecturing young people on how to avoid oppressing the oppressor. On X, news anchor Samson Kasumba, dispenses caution to young braggarts.

He writes, “As a kid at Nakasero primary school, I recall vividly walking past that Nakasero torture facility now swallowed by State Lodge. The pungent smell of decomposing human flesh from inside it never leaves me. You simply did mind your own business never saying what you saw or smelled. We are a generation that grew up knowing how to manage ourselves around people with power. I am not sure that is a skill common in this generation of young people! I just know what to do when I encounter absolute power!”

What must Ugandans do when they encounter absolute power? Should they wait to take the place of decomposing bodies or become the next traumatised generation sticking its head in sinking sand?

Meanwhile, in April, Deputy Premier Moses Ali, one of the longest-serving members of the NRM regime and pre-NRM, caused a stir on social media when he declared his intention to run for parliament again.

Moses Ali, 86, has been in office longer than some bazzukulu have been alive. In the viral video, Ali is evidently frail, his body lurching constantly, a young woman stands beside him acting as his spokesperson. The whole scene is a haunting circus. The ailing old man seeking another term in office.

The much younger crowd cheering him on. The soldiers guarding the circus, one of them decked out for battle. Beyond revolutionary leaders hanging onto their glory days, the constant in all these scenes are the people.

People clapping, cheering on the impunity while also begging for services. Even as we lament and rant, perhaps God has forsaken this land, that the curse upon us is too heavy to break, we cannot escape ourselves.

When we have had our fill of quisling leaders—those who betray us at every turn and treat us like beggars—it is ourselves we must confront. We must turn to one another. We must look in the mirror. Ba dia, the ball is in our hands. Feeble they are. Yet, the ball remains in our hands.

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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER