One Uganda – One Suffer?

Once as I indulged in one of our national pastimes – bemoaning the loathsome state of governance in our country – a friend chastised me; he asked where was my heartfelt bemoaning when Northern Uganda was in the grip of suffering and war, their children spending nights outside their homes to escape the wanton brutality of the Joseph Kony war?

Indeed, where was I? I could argue that I was a child, without control or say, but now that I am an adult, of sound mind, what is my excuse? And if indeed I did not ‘see’ the suffering of my fellow citizens in Northern Uganda because they were so far removed from the peaceful tranquility of my family home in Kampala – then what?

Perhaps, I can go further and pull rank through my ancestry – all the way to Luwero district, the beating heart of the bush war, the mecca of the National Resistance Army (NRA) revolution.

In the village are the remains of flattened houses, homes and families erased, forever blighted by the violence of the Luwero Bush War – the valiant war that brought us the liberators – they who fought for us – that we may sleep. Today, a whole ministerial docket for the rehabilitation of Luwero Triangle stands. Is it working?

Hard to say…Just don’t ask my beloved Jajja about it. Her passionate love for the National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime has over the decades turned to visceral disgust. If I am far removed from the suffering of the ‘other’, then my own suffering becomes instructive. Yet we might get entangled by the classification of suffering. Whose suffering is worthier?

What makes my suffering worthier than the suffering of a teenage dropout? Who is deemed worthier – those who fought or those who were fought for? Thus, we quickly find ourselves ensnared in the suffering Olympics – jostling each other over whose pain is more painful.

Dear reader, whatever the size of your cup of suffering, your suffering is valid. As we reflect on suffering, we revisit the apology that President Yoweri Museveni and his wife read out at a Christian crusade (organized by the President’s daughter – Patience Rwabogo).

The seemingly unprovoked apology, delivered in a monotone louder than the apology itself, was unprecedented. What do you do with an apology you did not see coming, but long waited for – and when it did come, it did not come bearing catharsis?

A year later, the haunting apology has long dissipated in the manner of things done and dusted. Another one bites the dust. Meanwhile, the suffering Olympics continues unabated with intermittent doses of agonizing, ‘how did we get here?’

Since suffering is part of the human condition, we prudently have institutions responsible for the plight of the suffering. In our green and lush Uganda, we have the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), among others.

Numerous human rights reports have over the years highlighted the challenges assailing UHRC – from inadequate funding to lack of political will. The UHRC exists like that poor relative who has no say in family meetings because poverty has turned them into a beggar.

In times of human rights crises, I like to amuse and aggravate my helplessness by visiting UHRC’s social media pages. It’s quite relaxed there – workshops and posters about the backbreaking work of being the toothless poster child of the regime’s human rights promotion.

At its height, the UHRC Chairperson, Mariam Wangadya, publicly admitted that the UHRC is indeed the poor relative at the table. What do they bring to the table? The stink of poverty and endless whining about suffering.

In May 2025, Wangadya bravely attempted to do her job and publicly condemned General Muhoozi Kainerugaba (MK), whose daytime job as the Chief of the gallant Uganda People’s Defence Forces does not stop him from living as the all- punishing avenger of his father and thus, the impunity he displays in his online gloating of the abduction and torture of Eddie Mutwe, bodyguard of opposition leader Bobi Wine/Robert Kyagulanyi.

In response, General MK, he who cannot be summoned, huffed and puffed and threatened to blow down the house of cards that is UHRC. Caught between unrepentant impunity and a longsuffering citizenry, Wangadya commented, in December 2025, that the palpable haplessness of UHRC has earned her such severe backlash from the public that she considers herself the most unpopular chair of UHRC since its inception.

Unfortunately for Wangadya, the politics of our day means that the public backlash will keep coming. Thus, when the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda waded into the murky waters of suffering, it should not have been cause for alarm.

If UHRC cannot shoulder your suffering, at least the Church, which situates itself at the heart of suffering, should be holding up that lamp to light your way as you navigate the potholes and mud of suffering.

In April, in response to growing calls for the Anglican Archbishop to call out; state impunity, Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu sounded exasperated, “I am a person, too. I have my own life to live. I’m not your saviour. Take your problems to the Cross. I do my part and leave the rest to God.”

Responding to critics’ demands that he should walk in the footsteps of Archbishop Janani Luwum during the Idi Amin regime, Kaziimba invited us to a Bible study on the church and its dalliance with state power.

Luwum spoke up about the suffering of the people under Amin’s regime and for that, the regime brutally ‘unalived’ him – leaving his family in the cruelty of lifelong grief. Historians posit that the killing of Luwum, among other factors, accelerated the fall of the Amin regime.

While Luwum’s speaking up seemingly ended badly, today, we find great inspiration in his sacrifice that we commemorate his courage with a whole public holiday. Even more, Luwum’s statue stands etched onto the exterior of Westminster Abbey in London – immortalized as a modern-day saint, one of ten 20th-century saints.

Yet Kaziimba argued that it is not always fruitful to speak up so loudly and boldly – it comes with the side effect of death, and not the peaceful kind. That power abhors noise (just not its own noise).

Kaziimba also spoke of John the Baptist – one who eschewed all manner of materialism for the sake of following God. He upset the regime of his day when he publicly rebuked the king’s murderous and adulterous ways. The king may have ignored John the Baptist but the queen did not. She bid her time like an apex predator.

The king, generous in festivity, threw a bash befitting his imperial status. The jewel of his bash was the queen’s daughter dancing for the king and his guests. The Bible demonstrates she danced well, so well that the king rewarded her with a blank cheque. The young lady was not only delectable in dance; she was also wise.

She consulted her mother, the queen, about the kingly blank cheque. The queen, who had lain in wait like a black Mamba, sprung with such precision. She told her daughter to ask for one thing: the head of John the Baptist.

And that dear reader, is how John the Baptist’s radical crusade and life came to a decapitating finish. Or did it? Kaziimba compared John the Baptist to Prophet Nathan during King David’s reign. When King David beheld a beautiful woman taking a bath on the roof of her house, King David’s lust took the reins and escalated into infidelity and murder.

Kazimba defending his stance, highlighted that Nathan admonished the king privately and fruitfully – and Nathan went on to live another day. According to Kaziimba’s measure, Nathan was successful because he lived another day.

Kaziimba’s defensiveness tells us several things: one, the pressure from the public on him and other religious leaders to say something about the country’s dangerous trajectory is actually felt. Your voice does matter. Two, Kaziimba’s illustration inadvertently demonstrates the danger of dissent in autocratic states.

You must count the cost of your dissent because the options are many – from death, martyrdom to exile, imprisonment, torture, financial ruin, societal dysfunction or fine dining with the oppressor – the choice is yours.

Three, Kaziimba admonishes us that the corridors of power do not appreciate the embarrassment of noise – imputing that he is quietly, lovingly engaging the regime (on January 31, the Communications Officer of Church of Uganda in defence of the Archbishop’s methods, stated on X, “…he prioritizes constructive engagement and responsible dialogue, rather than using the pulpit to issue condemnations that may inflame tensions and endanger the peace of the nation”).

Four, Kaziimba sounds tired. Tired of all of you, us calling on people like him, people with proximity to power to do more. Yet our suffering persists, unrelenting in its insidious colonization of our nation.

Ba dear, what then is the purpose of this episode of suffering? The purpose in my pedestrian view is the demise of the NRM regime and its long-forgotten NRA ideals. This demise is personified in General Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s wielding of state power in a global environment of ‘might is right.’

A cursory glance at the X account of MK unveils unashamed impunity Peculiarly, none of MK’s public appearances match his online vitriol as MK’s illegal outfit, the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), encircles the remains of his father’s revolution.

What started as birthday parties to soft launch the ‘Muhoozi Project’ has evolved unapologetically into a hostile takeover of Uganda’s ailing democracy. Online, the rabid ‘patriots’ gleefully fan the MK flames – like monkeys dancing in a burning forest!

When MK fails to sustain a logical argument and like a ‘ghetto yute’ resorts to F bombs; yearns for American superstar Beyoncé while also declaring his wife the most beautiful woman; identifies as a lion among mere mortals; shares humiliating pictures of his abductees; parrots racist colonial tropes about African facial features while grandstanding about Pan-Africanism; gloats about torturing those in his custody while weaponizing ethnicity; fantasizes about hanging Kizza Besigye; trolls Bobi Wine with top-tier base insults; enlightens that his Aryan Jesus was the first Muchwezi; warns that only President Museveni is keeping him from unleashing the madness he imagines will ‘fix’ Uganda – they hoot and toot wildly urging him on.

In the grand scheme of the arduous suffering that is nation building, today’s suffering demands that each one must continually grapple with how we are going to extricate ourselves and, therafa, each other from the collapse of the ideals of the Luwero Bush War.

One of MK’s finer contributions to the struggle of suffering is increasingly seen in a few comments below his posts. One commenter posted, “I loved PLU and thought it would correct the mishaps of NRM. However, it has proven to be worse than NUP. PLU has now championed abductions, torture, murder, extrajudicial killings, abuse of the constitution, human rights abuses, disregard of rule of law and revenge.”

In the latest flexing of his herd – the abduction and humiliation of the former Lord Mayor and Parliamentarian Erias Lukwago and the arbitrary closure of the Nation Media Group, etc- MK has shaken some of his supporters out of their sleep, reintroduced them to “One Uganda – One Suffer!” Ba dear, 40 years is a tad too long to remain asleep – ‘Term No Sleep’ and other slippery slope tales. We are no sleeping beauty. No prince charming is coming to kiss our luscious lips.

For what does it benefit us to sleep on a bed of nails when we are all soft life baddies at our core? ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’

smugmountain@gmail.com

The writer is a tayaad muzzukulu.