Uganda’s general elections are still two years away, but signs show contenders elbowing to have a foot ahead of potential rivals especially at the presidential and parliamentary levels where contests are usually stiff and brutal, but hopefully this time not. President Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni previously YKM, the man not to be under-estimated, and NRM’s presumptive candidate is leaving many including within to guess whether he is retiring after forty years at the helm or willing to stretch his record. 

I have spent the last one week traveling through Northern Teso, comprising the districts of Katakwi, Amuria, Kapelebyong, Kalaki and northerly parts of Bukedea that has gradually returned to peace, tranquility, and there are signs of small steps in social and economic rejuvenation after years of internal conflagration.

Uganda has now survived seven years since some European governments and the US slapped sanctions when the DGF through which they funneled illicit money for conspiratorial purposes to their local political counterfeit running dogs was stopped in the run up to the 2016 general elections.

Justice Julia Sebutinde returned to the Uganda media spotlight but only briefly this week when she joined Israeli Judge, Aharon Barak to dissent on a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) by South Africa against the State of Israel for its ongoing near-genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza Strip most of them children, women and male civilians, and destruction of hospitals, schools and energy. 

Nigerians say, “No matter how hot your anger is, it cannot cook yams.” Cecilia Atim Barbara Ogwal, the estranged former Assistant Secretary General of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), turned FDC honcho and Dakolo Woman MP being buried today was nasty and had hot anger toward the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and President Yoweri Museveni.

This week power changed at the National Unity Platform (NUP party with Mathias Mpuuga, the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP, former Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP) handing over to Journalist-turned politician Joel Ssenyonyi, 37. Mpuuga limped off as LoP after two and a half years without much to show in policy initiative or achievement except flourish language at the dispatch box. In fact, even his principal, Robert Kagulanyi a.k.a.

Alexander Graham Bell, the Scot, turned Canadian-American inventor of the first practical telephone is quoted to have said many decades ago that “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” An African proverb too says, “He who chases you gives you a way out of troubles”, to show that life is a series of open doors with opportunities, not just one offered by the United States of America.

The last months of 2023 have been grey as rains pounded the ground soaking soils and wreaking havoc on infrastructure across Uganda as if to clean up stench from the now almost forgotten mabati scandal that had engulfed the country since February to end the year on a gentle breeze. When the putrid storm blew up putting a noose around over forty top politicians mostly ministers and MPs, many thought that the end of times written in the Bible had come. 

Uganda will from January 15 to 22 host back-to-back the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit of 120 countries, and Group of 77 Plus China of 135 nations. It will then for the next three years chair NAM focusing economic inclusion and transformation.

Last week on the 75th Human Rights Day, US embassy in Uganda on its X account, @usmissionuganda, formerly twitter, bragged; “In Uganda and around the region we have seen the brave work of human rights defenders everyday advocating for the most vulnerable, fighting in the courts, and championing the safety and wellbeing of those in need. We support you. As we mark 75 years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let us reaffirm our commitment to advancing human rights for all people, in every region of the world.”-AmbPopp.