The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
President Yoweri Museveni has issued a forceful response to a recent opinion piece by journalist Andrew Mwenda titled “When Old Age Strikes a Leader” (Issue No. 915, April 17–23, 2026), rejecting claims about his leadership capacity and defending his government’s economic and industrialisation agenda. Elison Karuhanga (@elisonk), “a learner and follower”, took to X and supported Museveni’s rebuttal and line of thinking. But no sooner had he finished than Anthony Natif (@TonyNatif), “Campaigner for Good Governance & Inclusive Growth”, started shooting holes in his arguments.
X-ARTICLES | ANTHONY NATIF | I’ll start my response to Mr @elisonk ’s very well argued piece by declaring my bias: I don’t believe that even in 10 lifetimes, Mr Nelson Tugume and Mr Matthias Magoola are Uganda’s version of John D. Rockefeller
These are pretend businessmen with access to powerful political networks that they ride on their way to the soup kitchen of a welfare state.
At best, they’re merely more trusted guarantees of kickbacks for their political pathfinders.
No amount of state largesse will turn them into winners of a complex game of capitalism that actually respects merit.
The marketplace doesn’t care about political colour, part of the country you’re from or any such thing. It respects smarts, strategy and execution.
Having said that, it’s very difficult for me to disagree with the thesis of Mr Karuhanga’s piece, to wit: that industries that have dominated global economies for aeons are built on the backs of taxpayer-funded infrastructure, and that actually includes liquidity.
Detroit’s car industry wouldn’t exist today without President Obama raiding the US treasury and handing them bailouts.
Mr Karuhanga rightly points out Silicon Valley as a government-backed mass subsidy that eventually won the capitalist game for the US.
Given my background, I’ll add Pharma.
The US pharma industry wouldn’t be the dominant behemoth that it is without the US government, through NIH grants and all these scholarships they hand out to gifted scientists from all over the world.
I’ll not repeat the Samsung example because EK already exhaustively explained it in his piece. Ditto Huawei.
The Huawei example is instructive because we have current news to illustrate it. President Trump flew with Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, on his most recent China trip.
NVIDIA is locked in a chip war with Huawei. Guess who left China empty-handed? Hint: China didn’t forget the US working with Canada to arrest and embarrass the CFO of Huawei some years back. They also haven’t forgotten the US’ systematic purging of Huawei technology from US tech infrastructure.
That’s not diplomacy in the strictest sense. That’s governments playing commerce. It’s been that way for centuries.
So, in that regard, Uganda’s octogenarian president, who obviously dislikes being called senile, is bang on the money.
A Ugandan can’t build a regionally market-dominant company by buying money at 28% per annum. They’d have to sell cocaine to get there.
Government has a role in growing such enterprises. I also have a feeling that the masses understand that.
What they don’t quite understand is the criteria Mr Museveni’s government uses to pick winners and losers.
I’ll start my response to Mr @elisonk’s very well argued piece by declaring my bias:
I don’t believe that even in 10 lifetimes, Mr Nelson Tugume and Mr Matthias Magoola are Uganda’s version of John D. Rockefeller
These are pretend businessmen with access to powerful political… https://t.co/2uugKMTZcq pic.twitter.com/qX6QZzAE9b
— Anthony Natif (@TonyNatif) May 24, 2026
Must we all first personally know an Odrek Rwabwogo or a Rebecca Kadaga before our ideas are found palatable to state bean counters?
That, right there, is the question that Mr Museveni skirted in his rather ferocious response to Mr Andrew Mwenda.
Having said that, it would be a disservice to take leave of this topic without pointing out the fact that President Museveni is also a victim of his failed hiring practices.
I’ll use this very issue to highlight why: all President Museveni’s communications people have merely parroted his words. They’ve made AI-generated fliers to back them up, got a few retweets and laughs from largely state-affiliated/paid accounts and called it a day.
None of them has bothered to get into the intellectual ring like Mr Katuhanga has done here.
His ministers are even worse.
Even if they wanted to, they can’t remotely make such arguments.
Anite would rather talk about attempting to choke her husband with a deep-throat kiss or debate online hoodlums about an ambulance she took back from them. This, despite being an investment minister under whose docket this issue falls.
She understands that she wasn’t chosen for her smarts.
She was chosen to fill a regional representative slot.
President @KagutaMuseveni cannot escape blame for the public’s failure to understand him. He chose fishermen for ministers.
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