“Can Uganda build a $500 billion economy if people are afraid to speak?”
With that question, Odrek Rwabwogo stepped into one of Uganda’s most sensitive political debates: whether a country can pursue rapid economic transformation while citizens fear challenging those in power.
Rwabwogo, President Yoweri Museveni’s son-in-law, has again spoken publicly about governance, urging Ugandans to resist silence in the face of impunity and violations of the rule of law. He argues that civic freedom is not separate from economic development. It is one of the conditions that makes development possible. “
Fear disables citizens. Silence weakens institutions. Suppressed opinion kills national confidence,” he said.
“We grow by listening, talking to each other and exercising restraint. Uganda must keep communicating freely.”
The remarks carry added political weight because they come from within the President’s extended family and the broader establishment around the ruling National Resistance Movement.
Rwabwogo is not speaking as an opposition activist looking in from the outside. He is raising questions about the exercise of power from close to its centre. His latest intervention follows an earlier video in which he warned that torture, killings, electoral malpractice and the militarisation of politics posed a greater danger to Uganda’s stability than external enemies or natural disasters.
This time, he linked the political climate directly to President Museveni’s ambition of building a $500 billion economy within 14 years.
“We must keep the country communicating, and it must communicate freely, without fear,” Rwabwogo said. “You need to speak out without fear because fear disables people.”
“This is your country. You should speak out. I believe the concern behind your question is that we should keep Uganda growing.”
The connection Rwabwogo is making is straightforward. Investors do not look only at electricity supply, roads, taxes or labour costs. They also examine whether laws are predictable, whether disputes can be resolved fairly and whether people can raise concerns without being punished.
“This is especially important when it comes to the rule of law and the treatment of opinions that may offend those in power,” Rwabwogo said.
“The President has set a target of building a $500 billion economy within the next 14 years. Achieving that will require at least 35,000 megawatts of electricity to power industrial growth. The President, and all of us, want to industrialise rapidly. We want to turn much of our mineral and agricultural potential into finished, high-value products.”
“That kind of investment will not come if we are constantly quarrelling, lying about one another or stifling civic dissent. We grow by listening, talking to each other and exercising restraint.”
His argument turns free expression from an abstract democratic principle into a practical economic concern. Uganda may generate more electricity, process more minerals and build more factories, but Rwabwogo suggests those investments will struggle to deliver their full value if fear weakens institutions and undermines public confidence.
Human-rights lawyer Dr Sarah Bireete welcomed the call for more open debate, saying many Ugandans had learned to express themselves cautiously.
“Many Ugandans have resorted to the art of speaking in whispers, but democracy is strengthened when citizens speak openly and respectfully,” Bireete said.
She questioned whether Uganda’s democratic space remained strong enough to give citizens confidence that they could express themselves freely.
“I don’t know whether Uganda is still regarded as a democracy, but a nation only progresses when more citizens find their voice. We have enough laws regulating speech. Let the rule of law prevail,” she added.
But Rwabwogo’s intervention also drew an angry response from within the wider political establishment. David Kabanda, the Kasambya County member of Parliament and executive secretary of the Patriotic League of Uganda, questioned whether the remarks represented a genuine push for reform or an attempt by Rwabwogo to recast his political image.
“I have watched Rwabwogo’s video calling on citizens to speak out. I agree citizens must speak out against corruption and land grabbers like him,” Kabanda said.
Kabanda accused him of trying to present himself as an alternative political voice without accounting for his own place within the existing system.
“Trying to position himself as an alternative opposition to avoid accountability won’t save him,” he said.
“Those who talk about reforms and the economy must first tell us their contribution to the existence and continuity of the NRM.”
Behind the personal exchange lies a larger contest over the future of the ruling movement and the growing prominence of the Patriotic League of Uganda. Since the 2026 general election, PLU has become increasingly active in political mobilisation and major political decisions.
In early May, it withdrew support for then Speaker Annet Anita Among and declared Jacob Oboth Oboth its preferred candidate for Speaker before the NRM Central Executive Committee announced its official position.
That intervention projected PLU as an increasingly assertive force and raised questions about whether it was beginning to overshadow the party whose government it supports. Rwabwogo’s remarks went beyond free speech.
He also addressed criticism that he was naïve to believe the NRM could recover from decline.
“I have personally been the subject of insults and falsehoods for a long time,” he said. “I have choices. One option is silence if what is being said is simply rubbish.”
“One person once told me, ‘You are naïve to think the NRM can recover anything that begins to decline. Once it starts dying, it will die.’” Rwabwogo disagreed.
He compared political institutions to living organisms: they can weaken and eventually die, but early intervention can extend their life.
“I truly believe that anything that is born, anything that grows, that thing will die. But it can be recovered or extended or kept alive by preventive measures from those who know the value of that institution.”
His prescription begins with a return to the NRM’s founding principles, stronger political education and a demand that members live by the values they teach.
“So primary prevention, which in medical terms means addressing the known risk factors that spread disease, for example, the lack of awareness about a disease, that in medical terms can be equated in an organisation in the movement as the aggressive teaching of our fundamental values and living those values daily.”
He also called for structural reform. More authority, he argued, should be transferred to district structures, with local leaders given responsibility and then held accountable for how they use it.
“If we decentralise the movement and allow more responsibility, mark that word, responsibility, at the district level and hold district leaders accountable, we can teach, we can recover some of the lost ground,” he said.
The idea is that ordinary party members should become participants in shaping the movement rather than passive supporters mobilised only when votes are needed. In Rwabwogo’s telling, the NRM can rebuild trust only by renewing its values and changing how power operates inside the party.
His critics argue that the diagnosis has come too late. Lawyer and activist Ann Mugisha said calls for reform should have been made decades ago.
“This message of reform comes 25 years late,” Mugisha said. “Remember the Reform Agenda of 2001? You are running two and a half decades behind our clock. NRM has been overwhelmed by PLU. The thing you remember and want to reform is no more.”
Another commentator, Nebart Nagaba, interpreted the remarks as evidence of deeper uncertainty within the ruling party.
“Is the NRM fundamentally dead as an institution, or can it genuinely be salvaged by internal factions trying to distance themselves from military extremism?” he asked.
That is the political question beneath Rwabwogo’s intervention. His comments can be read as a warning that Uganda’s economic ambitions will falter without the rule of law. They can also be read as an internal appeal to save a ruling movement facing pressure from disillusioned members, critics outside the party and competing centres of influence within the wider political establishment.
What remains unclear is whether his proposals can move beyond speeches and videos. Open debate requires more than encouraging citizens to speak. It also requires institutions that protect them when their opinions offend powerful people. Party reform requires more than teaching old values. It requires consequences when those values are violated.