We shall continue putting microscopic eyes on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) which last week took itself to the edge of the graveyard. In a rather cavalier and dramatic fashion, elements within FDC opposition party leadership, instigated by its founder president Kizza Besigye staged what many in legal circles consider a futile coup that purports to have toppled Patrick Oboi Amuriat, Secretary General Nathan Nandala Mafabi and Treasurer Geoffrey Ekanya.

The ongoing political rancor over alleged neglect of Luwero Triangle, the beacon of NRM revolution compels my recollection into Uganda’s rural transformation journey since 1987 when government in a fanfare launched the now forgotten Rural Farmer’s Scheme, and along with it, the Free Tractor Service funded through the Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) and Cooperative Bank (Co-op Bank) both state owned.

What passes for the National Unity Platform (NUP) opposition political party is emerging as rogue tribal sectarian outfit whose impudence, bullying, mob mentality and crude arrogance at the national level must be knocked down if Uganda is to maintain stability and social cohesion. Last week’s public rally in Luwero town where its leader Robert Kyagulanyi called for the expulsion of alleged non-Ugandans accusing them of myriads of transgressions against the Baganda went beyond a healthy discourse and bordered incitement to criminal violence.

The political ground is beginning to shake again in preparation for 2026 general elections as inter and intra party elbowing come to the surface, possibly realignments and NRM needs to keep possible opposition resurgence within check. After 37 years under President Yoweri Museveni, NRM no longer enjoy much of the rose garden considering various internal malaise, impudence and public dissatisfaction over sluggish service delivery.

There’s a thriller book titled “The Lying Tongue” by Andrew Wilson, and also a Bible verse; The Deadly Sins; Proverbs 6-16-19: A Lying Tongue, which God detests. Bobi Wine, otherwise called Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu seeks to out-flank both, and is a let-down in his political message, not that the public expected much from a local musician turning into a political maestro.

The recent chain of military coups in West Africa, mostly former French colonies is an inflection point, a disdain and rebuke to French meddling, dilemma for a lackluster African Union (UA), and exposes the stupidity of its psychology. The AU left putschists intact in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea Conakry, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Sudan where a civil war is raging. This week Gabon’s Omar Bongo Ondimba fell in a surprise turn of events minutes after being declared the winner of a presidential election, and few will ‘make noise’ in his favour.

Fire continues to rage in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) opposition party which pundits cannot ignore. Some seem to believe that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) political Organisation, not a party, as we, its founders in 2003 preferred to call it is not very different from opposition parties we like mocking considering some aspects in its current trajectory.

With 530 MPs, 82 ministers, and thousands of other personnel on public payroll but whose real contributions to the country’ progress cannot be measured, many areas of duplication, wastefulness, and pervasive corruption, yet plenty of resources, Uganda probably deserves neither pity nor World Bank (WB) loans.

The ongoing civil war in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) is on purpose announcing Warren Smith Kizza Besigye’s return as the doyen of opposition politics in the run-up to the 2026 general elections with a desperate expectation to topple President Yoweri Museveni who will be aged 82 with 40 years under his belt as president of Uganda. With 23 years in opposition but without much discernible success, Besigye is running desperately impatient, and so he wants to get either power or money. 

Saint Petersburg, formerly Petrograd, then Leningrad, our venue last week for the well-attended Second Russia-Africa Forum with at least seventeen presidents, and forty-nine delegations of African governments and Regional Organisations is Russia’s second largest city of seven million after Moscow with fifteen million people. Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Cyril Ramaphosa, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Mackay Sall, and Azali Assoumani (the Comoros) and AU Chairman to mention just a few were there.