Kampala, 1986–2026: Museveni's Liberation Army Became What It Overthrew

The man selling newspapers outside Nakivubo Stadium has watched seven presidential elections from the same corner. Six of them had the same winner. He folds a copy of the New Vision—government-owned—and slides it across the wooden stand. The headline promises infrastructure development. The photograph shows Yoweri Museveni cutting a ribbon. The vendor is forty-one years old. Museveni has been president for thirty-eight of those years.

When Museveni's National Resistance Army marched into Kampala on January 26, 1986, the men who fought their way up from the Luwero Triangle believed they were ending tyranny. Idi Amin had murdered 300,000. Milton Obote's second government killed another 100,000. The NRA promised something different. Museveni called it "fundamental change." What Uganda got was continuity.

By 2026, Museveni has ruled longer than Amin and both Obote governments combined. The guerrilla commander who promised to end personal rule amended the constitution twice to keep himself in power—first removing term limits in 2005, then age limits in 2017. He is eighty-one years old. His son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commands the Special Forces and tweets about inheriting the presidency. Nobody in government contradicts him.

What the Guerrillas Promised

The NRA's Ten-Point Programme, written in 1985, reads like a document from another country. Point One: democracy. Point Two: security. Point Three: national unity. Point Seven: elimination of corruption. The programme promised regular elections, a professional army, and rule of law. For a decade, it looked possible.

Between 1986 and 1996, Uganda stabilized. The economy grew. The government opened schools. International donors called Museveni a "new African leader." Bill Clinton visited. Tony Blair praised him. The World Bank sent delegations to study Uganda's success. What the visitors did not see—or chose not to see—was the war in the north.

Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army began in 1987 as a response to Museveni's consolidation of power. The Acholi people of northern Uganda had formed the backbone of Uganda's military since independence. The NRA defeated them. Kony claimed to be their avenger. What followed was not resistance but atrocity. Between 1987 and 2006, the LRA killed an estimated 100,000 people, abducted 60,000 children, and displaced 1.8 million. The Ugandan military did not stop them. By multiple accounts documented by Human Rights Watch and the International Criminal Court, the military sometimes armed them.

The war served a purpose. A president fighting insurgents does not hold competitive elections. A president protecting the nation does not face questions about term limits. When Museveni finally pushed the LRA out of Uganda in 2006, he did not disband the military he had built to fight them. He redeployed them to Somalia, to South Sudan, and—most profitably—to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Prizes

In 2006, geologists confirmed what had been suspected for decades: Uganda sits on oil. The deposits in the Albertine Graben along the border with Congo contain an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of recoverable crude. TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation signed production-sharing agreements worth $10 billion. First oil was promised in 2020. Then 2023. Now 2025. The delays cost Uganda $2 billion in lost revenue annually, according to the Uganda National Oil Company.

The oil belongs to the people, the government says. The contracts are secret. What is known comes from leaks and audits by the Natural Resource Governance Institute. The Ugandan government will receive 15 percent of gross revenue after costs. TotalEnergies and CNOOC will recover costs first. The definition of "costs" runs to 247 pages and includes management fees, insurance premiums paid to subsidiaries, and depreciation on equipment purchased from related entities. Civil society groups estimate Uganda will receive less than 8 percent of actual revenue for the first decade.

More lucrative than oil is Congo. The UN Group of Experts on the DRC has documented Uganda's role in Congo's mineral trade in twenty-three annual reports since 2001. Ugandan military officers and companies linked to the first family control cobalt, coltan, and gold smuggling routes through Kasindi, Bunagana, and Mpondwe. A 2022 investigation by The Sentry estimated Uganda earned between $800 million and $1.2 billion annually from minerals extracted in North Kivu and Ituri—provinces Uganda does not control but where its proxies operate.

The System

Museveni does not rule alone. He rules through patronage networks built over four decades. At the center is the military. The Uganda People's Defence Force employs 45,000 active soldiers—small by regional standards—but consumes 16 percent of the national budget. Senior officers receive land, government contracts, and stakes in parastatals. Generals who retire enter parliament. Parliament does not reject the president's bills.

The National Resistance Movement—Museveni's party—is not a party. It is a patronage distribution system. District chairpersons receive vehicles and discretionary funds. In return, they deliver votes. Opposition candidates receive police raids. In the 2021 presidential election, Bobi Wine—a musician turned opposition leader—drew crowds of 50,000 in Kampala and Gulu. He won 35 percent of the vote, according to the official count. Independent monitors from the Citizens' Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda documented irregularities in 112 of 146 districts: ballot stuffing, military intimidation at polling stations, and opposition agents barred from tallying centers.

Bobi Wine spent the campaign under house arrest. His security detail—provided by the state—was withdrawn. Soldiers surrounded his home. When he attempted to leave for rallies, police fired tear gas and live ammunition. Fifty-four people died in protests following his November 2020 arrest, according to Uganda Police Force figures. Human Rights Watch documented extrajudicial killings of sixteen protesters by soldiers in plainclothes. Nobody was charged.

The Allies Who Look Away

Museveni survives because powerful governments want him to. The United States provides $970 million in annual aid to Uganda, according to the State Department's 2025 Congressional Budget Justification. Most of it goes to health programs—PEPFAR has spent $6.8 billion in Uganda since 2003—but $45 million goes to security assistance. Uganda contributes more troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia than any other country. Those 6,200 soldiers receive American training, equipment, and intelligence support.

The CIA uses Entebbe as a regional hub. Rendition flights stopped there during the War on Terror. Counterterrorism cooperation continues. In 2010, Al-Shabaab bombers killed seventy-four people watching the World Cup final in Kampala. Museveni framed himself as a frontline ally against jihadism. Washington agreed. When the State Department's 2021 Human Rights Report documented torture, extrajudicial killings, and restrictions on opposition parties, it changed nothing. The aid continued. The military partnership continued. Museveni met with senior Pentagon officials four times in 2024.

China provides infrastructure without conditions. Between 2010 and 2024, China Exim Bank financed $6.3 billion in Ugandan roads, power plants, and airports, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins. The loans come with 2.5 percent interest and repayment periods up to twenty years. They also come with Chinese contractors, Chinese materials, and no questions about governance. When Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2023—imposing the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality"—Western donors threatened funding cuts. China increased its credit line by $400 million.

The Succession Question

Muhoozi Kainerugaba is forty-nine years old and has never fought a war. He attended Sandhurst, the British military academy. His rise through the ranks took seven years—unusually fast even in a military where patronage determines promotion. In 2019, Museveni appointed him special presidential advisor for special operations. In 2021, he became commander of the Uganda People's Defence Forces Land Forces—the army's largest and most powerful branch.

Muhoozi tweets. In October 2022, he tweeted that Uganda could capture Nairobi in two weeks. Kenya's government protested. Museveni apologized and removed his son from command—for two months. In January 2023, Muhoozi returned to his post. In March 2024, he launched a political pressure group called the Patriotic League of Uganda. Its stated aim: prepare Uganda for "visionary leadership in the next generation." Its unstated aim: prepare Uganda for Muhoozi.

Uganda has seen this before. Milton Obote tried to install his son. Idi Amin ruled through family networks. The NRA promised to break that pattern. Now the liberators are building their own dynasty. The generals who fought in Luwero are retiring into wealth. Their children are colonels. The revolution has become inheritance.

What the People Know

The vendor at Nakivubo Stadium folds another newspaper. A customer asks why he still sells them when everyone knows the news is managed. He shrugs. "People need to know what the government wants them to know," he says. "That is also information." He has not voted since 2006. Most people he knows have not voted since 2011. They watch the rallies. They see the soldiers. They know the outcome before the ballots are counted.

Uganda's economy grows at 5.3 percent annually, according to the World Bank. Mobile money users increased from 18 million in 2018 to 31 million in 2025. Kampala has new roads and shopping malls. This is what the government shows visitors. What it does not show: youth unemployment at 64 percent among 18-to-24-year-olds, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Or public hospitals without medicines. Or northern districts where GDP per capita remains below 1996 levels. The growth is real. The distribution is not.

Bobi Wine still lives under surveillance. His lawyers estimate he has been arrested or detained forty-six times since 2018. He cannot hold rallies without police permits. The police do not issue permits. When he tries to travel outside Kampala, roadblocks appear. The government calls it security. The opposition calls it siege. International observers call it democratic backsliding. None of these words change what happens on the ground.

What Will Not Change

Museveni will run again in 2031. He will be eighty-six years old. The constitution he amended twice will allow it. The military he built will ensure it. The donors who fund Uganda's health sector will issue statements of concern and renew their disbursements. The opposition will protest. Some will be arrested. Some will be beaten. A few will be killed. The international press will write articles like this one. Then the cycle will repeat.

The question is not whether Museveni will leave power. The question is what happens when he finally does. He has built no institutions that can function without him. He has eliminated rivals who might have offered alternatives. He has centralized everything—security, revenue, appointments, justice—in the presidency. When he goes, the system he created will not produce a successor. It will produce a scramble.

The NRA fought for five years to end personal rule in Uganda. It has now imposed personal rule for thirty-eight years. The guerrillas who marched into Kampala in 1986 believed they were different. They were not different. They were younger. Now they are old. And Uganda is still waiting for the fundamental change they promised when they had nothing but guns and a programme written on scraps of paper in the bush.