State House described this week’s meeting between President Yoweri Museveni and Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi as a “courtesy call” in which they shared “pleasantries and matters of mutual interest for the development of Buganda and Uganda”. Unfortunately, the meeting came against the subdued and angry tone by Mutebi and his sidekick, Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga over the proposed amendment to the extortionist feudal Mailo land system. It’s sad though not strange, that Mengo leaders are opposing the proposals even before reading the contents.

Jamil Alibaki, Nnyanzi Yafeesi Philip, Lwanga Thomas Musisi, Kityo Denis Musoke, Jjunju Abdalla-a Kenyan driver, Kalamire Patanguli- a British citizen, Julius Elius Mashairi a Tanzanian Citizen, Lumu Nicholas are different people in one. Elsewhere, he went by David Amon Musenge. This was the world of Jamil Mukulu, leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) who was a fugitive on the run for two decades until his capture in Tanzania and extradition to Uganda in 2015. 

Aggrey Siryoyi Awori, 82, who died this week by his own account, lived a full life as a flamboyant maverick across social, business, professional and political spheres both here and abroad starting from student days in King’s college Budo up to Harvard in the United States where he later returned in 1981 as Uganda’s Ambassador in Washington.

The recent political shifts against the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and President Yoweri Museveni particularly in Buganda and Busoga, hitherto known strongholds, are grim pointers to what the future portends. The loss came against the backdrop when NRM first lost Kampala in 2001, and later Jinja, Masaka, Mbale, Wakiso, Kabale, and Tororo, and the conventional wisdom then was to dismiss it as an urban phenomenon mostly driven by the ungrateful elites.