African Political Analysis Think-Tank Vignettes

  Museveni Can Pull A Hat Trick Finally   Tom Muyunga-Mukasa   The first 20 years after independence derailed Uganda.  Unlike many of the African countries which were taking the reigns of control after independence, Uganda did not undergo the kind of weaning preparation that linked it to nationalistic, economic, cultural, political and social progression.  After 35 years, Museveni has scored on the security front, next come democracy and governance.  Uganda is fast tracking toward the middle-income nation goal and this has been possible through attracting investors and government commitment toward industrialization.  The state structures are not distant from the common references, conceptions, recollections, sufferings, claims, hopes, sentiments and symbols. Protected speech in Uganda comes in many shades. Ugandan evangelicals easily adopt such titles like Apostle, Prophet hacking back to Moses or Jesus and a God complex fraught with theatricals and it...

  Museveni’s Goodwill Is A Return on Investment   Tom Muyunga-Mukasa   From 1966 to 1985, Uganda’s economy suffered and so did the business cycles in all sectors e.g. education, commerce, infrastructure maintenance and service delivery with nationalistic, democracy and governance repercussions.  The governments that followed in succession up to 1986 absconded on the duty to serve the social needs of Ugandans. It was easier to provide visibility to the army, police, local government security entities and not economic entities.  Culture remained the enduring fall back entity that connected Ugandans geographically, spiritually and ethnically. But this put the cultural dimension of Ugandans as contrary to the goals of the existing governments then.  The 35-year NRM rule returned a recognition of the many entities that define the survival of Uganda. The years between 1986 to 2021 are a securitized hegemony that gives Uganda a breath of life and a very go...

Museveni A Pro Africa Financial and Security Stability   Tom Muyunga-Mukasa   Museveni is a Sun-Tzuian military strategist who mixes the doctrines from the Copenhagen Controversy and the Manchester Schools’ state-craft manuals. He has in the process had to come up with a choreographed pattern called the Museveni neo-realism which for the past 35 years has set all moving parts in Uganda toward a middle-income state goal. Galvanized and empowered to participate in oversight roles and strengthened their belief in state structures, the people are now aware of what value-for-money outcomes look like. They see the manufacturing sector making economic returns. Many come from or have settled in the regions where reinstated parastatals and other government corporations that were scrapped in the 1990s under the WTO/IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are now run better and are lifting Ugandans out of the no-value-added raw-material producer captivity by provid...

Museveni is Good for Uganda, Africa and The World   Tom Muyunga-Mukasa   Museveni has redefined presidential longevity and has presented Uganda as a case study against which to critique effective political, economic and social benchmarks.  He took power in 1986 and the recent swearing-in was on May 11 th 2021. He was declared the winner of the January 2020 elections at 58% by the Electoral Commission beating his closest contender Mr. Kyagulanyi Robert who had secured 35%. His slogan “securing the future,” rides on the cusp of a continuously rising GDP putting Uganda on track to a middle-income economy by 2027.  A quintessential Pan-African Activist President, Museveni’s 35-year reign has consolidated Uganda as an increasingly independent African nation and secular state whose religion is security. Uganda disintegrates when any form of opposition (seen as tyranny) desecrates this security. People don’t take the security for granted but in their self-determina...