Written By | Evan Sande Ndahura
Evan Sande Ndahura is a Ugandan writer and public affairs commentator whose work bridges political critique, social philosophy, and lived grassroots experience.
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National Affairs
The fastest runner is not crowned by noise from the crowd but by the time taken to reach the finishing line.
As Niccolò Machiavelli warned centuries ago, “Men judge more by the eye than by the hand; because everyone can see, but few can feel.” Leadership, like sport, is judged not by applause or propaganda, but by time and outcome.
Yet, when Uganda’s long-ruling NRM regime is evaluated, time—the most honest judge of performance—is routinely ignored.
Development is often paraded in aggregates: roads built, hospitals named, factories commissioned, security cited, water sources counted, electricity exported, and statistics stacked. But development detached from time becomes propaganda. As Hannah Arendt cautioned, “Power that rests on numbers alone is never secure.” A bridge built in forty years is not equivalent to one built in four.
Quantity without temporal context is illusion.
NRM has governed Uganda for over four decades—longer than the combined tenures of the regimes it frequently compares itself against. When development claims are placed against this prolonged timeline, uncomfortable questions emerge. Much of what is celebrated today is rehabilitation and modernization of foundations laid by previous governments. What is truly new must be weighed against how long power has been held.
Consider comparisons often avoided. Idi Amin and Milton Obote, despite their shorter and turbulent tenures, registered measurable outputs within compressed timeframes—industrial plants, cooperatives, education expansion, and state-led infrastructure initiatives executed with urgency, however flawed their politics later became. This is not an endorsement of their excesses; it is an insistence on time-based evaluation. As Max Weber argued, “The legitimacy of authority rests on results, not on duration.” If forty-plus years deliver outcomes that remain uneven, incomplete, and urban-skewed, then the metric itself must be questioned.
The Grassroots Reality
I write from lived experience. I come from a village that, across the entire NRM era, has never seen a government-built road, piped water, or electricity. The first grader to touch our road came in 2017—hired by me, to prepare access for my wedding. Since then, the state has not maintained it.
The borehole serving neighbors sits in our compound, funded by family—not the government. After every election cycle, votes are cast, but presence never follows. When Sheema attained municipal status, our village was carved in on paper. On the ground, nothing changed. No services. No benefits. Municipality by name, neglect by practice.
This is the heart of the argument: time exposes truth. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed, “The people are deceived only for so long as they are ignorant.” When forty years cannot deliver basic social amenities at the grassroots, claims of transformation collapse under scrutiny.
What Government Presence Truly Means
A state is present where people live better, not where speeches are made.
The clearest indicators are simple and universal: safe water and sanitation, electricity connections, healthcare within reach of ordinary citizens, and security of persons and property.
Safe water is not a luxury; it is preventive medicine. Its extension dramatically reduces non-communicable and water-borne diseases, saving families from catastrophic health spending and allowing scarce income to be invested in education and productivity. As Amartya Sen reminds us, “Development is freedom,” and freedom begins with survival and health.
Electricity is not just light; it is enterprise—welding, refrigeration, value addition, information access, and dignity. Yet paradoxes persist. Uganda exports electricity while villages remain dark. Yaka is not free; connections mean revenue. Why then the delay?
Is darkness a policy—keeping rural citizens from information, opportunity, and alternative thought? Machiavelli warned that “A ruler who depends on ignorance for stability builds his power on sand.”
This raises a troubling pattern: NRM dominance in rural areas alongside opposition strength in urban centres. Urban spaces—with electricity, media access, and diversified livelihoods—breed scrutiny. Rural darkness breeds dependence.
Congestion as Policy Failure
If villages had water, power, healthcare, and roads, rural–urban migration would slow. Congestion, pollution, unemployment, and informal survivalism in cities would reduce. Many urban hustles exist only because villages are denied the means to sustain them.
Development withheld at the source creates a crisis at the destination. As Frantz Fanon warned, “When the state abandons the countryside, the city becomes a warehouse of despair.”
Corruption, Courts, and the Cost of Delay
Time has also coincided with a rise in corruption, fraud, commercial crime, and unresolved court cases. Billions of shillings remain locked in endless commercial litigation, undermining investor confidence and public trust.
Justice delayed becomes development denied.
As Montesquieu argued, “There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law.” A regime long in power owns the system’s outcomes—good and bad.
Lessons from Elsewhere
History offers contrasts. Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore transformed within a short, disciplined timeframe—prioritizing integrity, merit, and service delivery. Malaysia industrialized decisively by extending infrastructure and opportunity beyond elite enclaves.
As Peter Drucker put it, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Time mattered. Urgency mattered. Leadership mattered.
Uganda’s tragedy is not a lack of resources but misused time.
The Evening Question
As NRM approaches what feels like its evening, one question remains: What final stroke will it leave for remembrance?
Extending safe water, electricity, healthcare, and roads to villages—now—would be a legacy that speaks louder than rallies. Light the villages, and Uganda lights itself.
Until then, development without time remains a story—told loudly, felt quietly, and questioned deeply by those who care.
About the Writer
Evan Sande Ndahura is a Ugandan writer and public affairs commentator whose work bridges political critique, social philosophy, and lived grassroots experience. His essays and poems—widely circulated in opinion columns—interrogate power, development, civic responsibility, and the moral economy of leadership. With a style marked by moral urgency and analytical restraint, Ndahura consistently centres time as the missing variable in African governance debates, insisting that real progress is measured where people live, not where slogans travel.
