Several years ago, Yoweri Museveni was an energetic young activist who fought in the movement to oust the erstwhile dictator and president of Uganda, Idi Amin. The former Guerilla came to power in the first month of 1986 with so much promise to effect desired changes for a progressive nation. However, like a lot of African rulers, Museveni fell to the lust of power and has done everything possible to heft his stay in office.
His government is characterized by repressive policies, barefaced intimidation, unlawful killings, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, political imprisonment, violence against journalists, censorship, denial of a fair public trial, and restricted access to the internet. Uganda’s youth population is the youngest in the world with 77% of this demographic being under 25 years of age but the unemployment rate, rising up to a staggering 83% has kept the youth grounded.
The lack of an environment that promotes growth and prosperity gave way to the abundance of poverty that plagues the people. It poses a great deal of political, economic, and social problems, and, for a president who has claimed to be in the office to fight against poverty, this is woeful. On the 16th of January 2021, Museveni who has been president for 35 years was announced as the winner of the 2021 elections, qualifying him for a controversial sixth term.
During the electioneering process, government forces were dispatched to harass members of the opposition and electorates. The result of this came forth In a viral video in which a woman identified as Bobi Wine’s wife was being harassed by a security operative. Wine, the husband himself is not new to such treatments for his stance against the activities of the government.
Since abandoning his profession as a recording artist to join politics, he has become the regular recipient of the state’s repression and has been arrested, beaten, and detained despite being a member of parliament. In the days leading to the election, Bobi’s team members were arrested and detained leaving him to go ahead on a lonely campaign.
Daily monitor reports that some of his private guards were knocked down by unmarked vehicles believed to be used by security operatives, while some others have been killed in unexplainable ways. Presently, Bobi Wine’s house is heavily surrounded by members of the Ugandan military. Recently, he tweeted an image of himself and his wife’s niece together with whom they are stuck in the house and running out of basic amenities like food.
Jonah Kirabo, a young journalist who writes for Nile Post News in Kampala told me of the challenges that young Ugandans face. “Being a young person living in Uganda is depressing, especially the educated ones who live in urban areas but with no hopes of getting employed. Even those like me who are employed feel the effects of bad leadership. Living here will limit you from being yourself,” he said.
During the election, the government tried to prevent their devious methods from international attention by shutting the internet down for five days. This affected Ugandans in a lot of ways especially those who depend on it for work and health reasons. “Some young people who are unemployed work as online influencers or run online businesses were rendered useless for five days. Some patients managing chronic diseases by using online apps to keep in touch with their doctors were also sabotaged.”
“Since our internet has been restored, our social media has been awash with photos and videos of people pre-ticking ballot papers in favor of incumbent president Museveni in the presence of security forces. The electoral commission has failed to come up with a clear explanation about these videos. The electoral commission boss, Justice Simeon Byabakama, also failed to explain where he was getting the results read because there is a clear contestation in what the polling agents at the districts have and what he announced, I don’t think the will of the people was respected,” he said.
Sarah Owembabazi, co-founder of NJOZA solutions also feels the election result failed to project the true impulse of the people, citing the noticeable disparity in the percent of registered voters and election results, intimidation of voters through military force, inability to support opposition parties openly due to fear of loss of life in a supposed democracy. “The president appoints the electoral personnel. I think we are just wasting resources, especially on the presidential election, while pretending that we are a democracy. How can you defeat someone who is in charge?”
The internet shutdown really impacted Sarah’s lifestyle. She usually depends on Google map while going to new places but a clampdown on the internet has made that impossible. Her communication and information flow was disturbed. “I use social media for work. When they put the internet off, we had no way of reaching out to people despite having a work plan. We got locked out for five days and things could not move, you can’t send emails or connect with the clients. We have made some losses and we hope to recover soon.”
Yoweri Museveni’s continued presidency poses peculiar problems to the young female demography. Apart from general problems like unemployment and poverty, there is a surge in the percent of single mothers in Uganda. “Because the men cannot afford marriage, they run away when they impregnate their girlfriends, thereby increasing the number of children trained by single parents. This is an offshoot of poverty,” she said.
Despite having declared the incumbent president as the winner, post-election tension still linger in the Ugandan atmosphere. Barnabas Atwine, a young lawyer who lives and works in the central region of Uganda told me of how cumbersome his life has been as a young lawyer and how the leading opposition candidate, Wine is still under a siege in his home. Now, people cannot move freely in the streets because there is a file of military men parading the streets. All these send wrong signals to the youth and also contribute to their frustration.
He told me about the unfavorable structure which sees a huge chunk of the country’s fortune go into the ruling elite’s pocket as salary. “We are going to have about 500 MPs. For a country as small as Uganda, I think this is uncalled for. Usually, a member of parliament gets a salary of about 25 million shillings, and there are other allowances. So many resources will go into this. The leading opposition candidate is still detained in his house. You can’t move around freely because there are many soldiers patrolling the streets,” he said.
For the past few weeks, Uganda has been in the global eye and several international media have covered the political situation. Tumuhimbise Mitchel, a Ugandan living in Spain is worried about the state of the country, looking into the political promise of all the political actors involved. He is also worried about the way the people’s preset for political choice.“When one loves his country, it does not matter if they are inside or outside. What comes to mind is what a normal Ugandan who goes to work want for their country. They want to survive and live happily with their family and have good pay and basically enjoy their human rights,” he said.
