The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | NNANDA KIZITO SSERUWAGI | Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni and Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, aka Bobi Wine, are two wide contrasts of each other. Both minds come from different eras. Museveni was born in 1944. Kyagulanyi, in 1982. Born 38 years apart, little could be found in common between these two presidential aspirants. Each has a unique perspective on leadership.
Active in politics since 1971, Museveni’s mind has been shaped by about 54 years of political work (or his “Struggle”) as he calls it. His experience as president runs four decades, making him the fourth most experienced (or you can say “longest serving”) president in the world.
Although he started singing a bit earlier, Kyagulanyi’s music career can be traced to his breakthrough in 2002, when he released his debut singles, such as Akagoma. To his credit, Bobi’s music growingly turned political over the years as he sang about social issues concerning the slum-dwelling communities where he lived as a youth. Later, in 2017, he cut his teeth in active politics as an independent runner for the Kyadondo County East Parliamentary seat.
For all the political issues he sang about and the politics he has played since 2017, Kyagulanyi doesn’t compare to Museveni’s mind as a leader. He lacks the depth, breadth, rigour, perspicacity, sagacity, erudition, clarity, acuity, and historical grounding that punctuates every edge of Museveni’s mind.
A casual flip through Museveni’s curriculum vitae reveals a mind sculpted by decades of scholarly engagement. He is a revolutionary who imbibed revolutionary theory and put it into practice. He carries a warrior’s brand, both as a great military commander and a military theorist. The nucleus of his 27-gun-carrying soldiers came to establish an army strong enough to influence political outcomes beyond Uganda. Rwanda, the DRC, South Sudan, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, and the Central African Republic have all been in some way impacted by UPDF/NRA boots. The grey matter between that old man’s ears is full of strategic reflection on Africa.
Although charismatic and populist, no adjective describes Bobi Wine better than superficial. His politics pays lip service to real issues concerning Ugandans but lacks sincerity. Performative activism and emotional appeal substitute for his lack of genuine and substantive political aims. You cannot trace an ideological conviction in his stand on anything.
This comparison of the minds and, inevitably, the character of both men reveals their difference in approaching leadership in post-colonial Africa. It matters immensely how a leader thinks about leadership in our part of the world, given the structural post-colonial challenges our states face.
Museveni has a wealthier intellectual heritage as someone who is well-rooted in profound intellectual engagement with global and African thinkers, and his mind was also forged by years of politically curious formal schooling and experience in revolutionary struggle. At the University of Dar es Salaam, he read economics and political science. He was also heavily influenced by the revolutionary thoughts of Karl Marx and the anti-colonial theories of historian Walter Rodney. His mentors included Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. His undergraduate thesis was more significant than the theses of most undergraduate students worldwide. It studied and applied Frantz Fanon’s theory on revolutionary violence to the post-colonial African struggles. It is easy to see his early commitment to ideas concerning the future of Africa.
His pragmatism is also seen in his shift from Marxist influences to free-market leaning, the latter leading to the transformation of Uganda’s economy. His writing and speeches are all littered with references to both Karl Marx and Adam Smith, and other scholars like John Maynard Keynes, the founder of modern macroeconomics.
Moreover, his close relationship with great Ugandan intellectuals like Dani Wadada Nabudere, Mahmood Mamdani, etc., underscores Museveni’s respect for intellect in the shaping of the leadership process. Nabudere was critical of Museveni, describing him as a “petty bourgeois anti-Marxist reactionary” in the 1980s, but this did not scratch Museveni’s regard for him as a staunch Pan-Africanist and an intellectual ally. He not only invited Nabudere from exile to join the Constituent Assembly in the 1990s but also attended his burial in 2011 and honoured him as a comrade and ally. This illustrates Museveni’s tolerance and intellectual maturity to engage respectfully with his critics and absorb diverse perspectives from peers who disagree with his politics.
His authored works, including ‘Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda (1997)’, ‘What Is Africa’s Problem? (2000)’, and ‘The Strategy of Protracted Peoples’ War’, among others, reveal not just Museveni’s preoccupation with systemic issues afflicting Africa but also long-term strategic thinking on our continental progress.
Kyagulanyi stands in stark contrast with Museveni. It is a tall order to establish his intellectual profile. His pop stardom might have blessed him with potential for cultural expression, but it denied him any ability for rigorous analysis of serious political economics.
His education is decorated with a diploma in music, dance, and drama from Makerere University (2003) and a Bachelor of Laws from Cavendish University (2024). A look into Bobi’s background exposes a performative artist whose intellectual nourishment lacks a menu of scholarly discipline or serious political thought – with all due respect to his “edutaining” songs.
His songs may have raised awareness for social issues like hygiene (Buyonjo), maternal health (Everyone is Me), domestic violence (Calorina), the cost of living (Time Bomb), etc., but they do not substitute for the lack of deep reflection on leadership and governance. Our country’s problems require leaders who don’t simply recite catchy lyrics that reduce complex problems to simplified narratives, but those with a wide aperture for understanding and analysing issues systemically. The music may mobilise people through its emotional appeal, but it never compares to the theoretical depth that informs transformative leadership that comes from a serious student of Fanon, Marx, Nabudere, and Keynes.
We need ideologically grounded philosopher-kings, not reactive activists like Bobi. We need radical challengers of President Museveni, but not sensational insurrectionists. We need true Pan-Africanists and anti-imperialists. Our lethargy with Museveni’s four decades of presidency should not lead us to blind hope and unquestioned trust in whoever and whatever challenges him.
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The writer is a Ugandan thinking about Uganda.
