In 1986, as the National Resistance Movement marched into Kampala, Uganda was exhausted by coups, counter-coups, and the violence of state collapse. The arrival of a new government was greeted not merely with celebration but with relief. The promise was “fundamental change,” not cosmetic reform. It was a pledge that Uganda would never again be held hostage by personal rule. Yet amid the jubilation stood a dissenting voice. The late Paulo Muwanga, who had himself occupied high office and understood the grammar of power, issued a warning that now lingers in Uganda’s constitutional conscience:
“Ugandans are jubilating over Museveni's rise to power although they have no idea what awaits them. I know President Museveni inside out, and I can even tell from his sitting posture or how he blinks his eyes what he is thinking or plotting. By the time Museveni's rule ends, the country will have lost its possessions and national assets, the political class will be divided, one against the other, and Uganda will be in ruins.”
— Paulo Muwanga
Those words were controversial then. Today, they demand sober examination—not as prophecy, but as political diagnosis.
When Uganda promulgated its 1995 Constitution, it did so with deliberate philosophical clarity. The framers sought to bury the ghosts of authoritarianism through entrenched checks and balances. Sovereignty was vested in the people. The separation of powers was affirmed. Presidential tenure was limited.
It was, in spirit, Montesquieu’s architecture transplanted onto Ugandan soil.
Yet constitutions do not guard themselves. They rely on political culture for survival.
The removal of presidential term limits in 2005 and the removal of the presidential age limit in 2017 marked turning points in Uganda’s constitutional journey. Legally enacted, yes. Politically transformative, unquestionably. Each amendment recalibrated the equilibrium between permanence and accountability.
The question is not whether amendments are lawful—they often are. The question is whether repeated personalization of constitutional change weakens the republic’s structural restraints.
Muwanga’s warning was not about a single policy decision. It was about trajectory.
Uganda’s post-1986 era was defined by liberalization and privatization under structural adjustment frameworks. State enterprises were divested. Public utilities were restructured. Markets were opened.
Supporters argued that the reforms modernized a struggling economy. Critics contend that strategic national assets passed into private hands with limited transparency and long-term national safeguards.
The issue is not nostalgia for state monopolies. It is constitutional stewardship.
Article 237 of the Constitution vests land in the citizens of Uganda. Public resources are held in trust for the people. When state assets are alienated without robust public accountability, the constitutional doctrine of trusteeship becomes strained.
If a republic loses control over its commanding economic heights, does it merely reform—or does it relinquish them?
Few would dispute that Uganda’s political landscape is polarized. Parliament often mirrors entrenched partisan lines. Electoral cycles intensify suspicion rather than reconciliation.
Muwanga foresaw a “political class divided, one against the other.” Today, divisions manifest not only between the ruling party and the opposition, but within institutions themselves—between executive ambition and legislative autonomy, between judicial assertion and political pressure. A divided political class weakens collective accountability. It transforms governance into survival. When loyalty supersedes institutional duty, the separation of powers becomes ceremonial rather than substantive.
Uganda’s Constitution grants the President extensive appointment powers—over ministers, ambassadors, members of key commissions, security leadership, and significant segments of the administrative state. These powers are not inherently unconstitutional; they are part of executive design.
But longevity amplifies authority.
Over decades, appointment power becomes influence. Influence becomes consolidation. Consolidation becomes a system.
The challenge for any republic is not merely the character of the officeholder, but the durability of institutional independence. When the executive becomes the gravitational center around which all organs orbit, checks and balances lose their tensile strength.
This is not an argument against strong leadership. It is an argument for strong institutions.
Is Uganda “in ruins”? No. That would be an injustice to its industrious citizens, its entrepreneurial youth, its resilient civil society, and its enduring constitutional spirit. But resilience should not silence reflection. A nation does not collapse only through war. It can erode gradually—through weakened oversight, diminished parliamentary independence, politicized institutions, and constitutional amendments tailored to incumbency. The tragedy of many post-colonial African states is not sudden implosion but the slow normalization of concentrated power.
Muwanga’s statement forces an uncomfortable inquiry:
Was he exaggerating?
Was he embittered?
Or was he observing patterns invisible to a jubilant public?
History does not answer in slogans. It answers in consequences.
Uganda’s unfinished task is institutional renewal. The future of the republic will not be secured by personalities but by restoring the primacy of constitutional guardrails:
The test of a republic is not how long a leader governs, but how securely institutions outlive leaders.
If Uganda is to avoid the fate feared in Muwanga’s warning, it must recommit to the constitutional morality envisioned in 1995—a morality where power rotates, institutions restrain, and sovereignty genuinely resides in the people. The prophecy need not become destiny. But neither can it be ignored.
About the Author
Evan Sande Ndahura is a Ugandan political and legal commentator, columnist, poet, and social justice advocate whose writings focus on governance, constitutionalism, democracy, and the political economy of power in Africa. He is widely published on issues of judicial accountability, electoral justice, human rights, and institutional reform, with particular emphasis on Uganda’s political and legal systems.
