By Andrew Besi
“When a clown enters a palace, it does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” — Turkish Proverb
The Speech and the Symbol
August 31, 2023 — State House, Entebbe.
Gen. Kale Kayihura, resplendent in full military ceremonial attire, steps to the dais to speak — on his own behalf and on behalf of his fellow retirees of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces. Presiding over the occasion is Gen. Yoweri Museveni, Commander-in-Chief.
The speech Kayihura delivers that day will be remembered as one of the finest ever made on State House grounds — a speech of history and lament, of wisdom and hope. Above all, it is a reflection whose moral clarity should form the bedrock of political consciousness among the body politic of Uganda and, indeed, of Africa.
In my study of Marx and other political thinkers, political consciousness means an individual’s awareness of their political role and of the social and economic structures that shape life and community. It is the foundation of citizenship — the ability to see beyond personal gain toward collective destiny.
But in Uganda, history shows, this consciousness has long been suppressed by political convenience and patronage.
The Roots of Disillusion
In 1976, while serving as both President and Chancellor of Makerere University, Idi Amin ordered that one of his sons — “who had not even gone to primary school” — be illegally admitted to the Faculty of Law. The young man was even granted residence in a flat atop Mitchell Hall, normally reserved for lecturers.
The outrage that followed became known as Black Tuesday. Makerere students rose in protest. In retaliation, Military Police Commander Mustapha Idrisi herded them into Freedom Square and barked:
“Nyinyi nyinyi munaweza mkapiga vita na kalamu?”
(You cannot fight a war with a pen!)
This contempt — soldiers mocking scholars — sparked a new resistance. Many students, radicalized by humiliation, resolved to find ways of liberating Uganda from Amin’s barbarism.
The Return of the Liberators
Nearly 1,500 kilometres away in Dar es Salaam, a young Yoweri Museveni — with support from Mwalimu Julius Nyerere — quietly organized the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA), whose aim was to overthrow Amin.
The mission succeeded on 11 April 1979, when FRONASA, alongside Tanzania’s Defence Forces and Milton Obote’s Kikosi Maalum, defeated Amin’s army. Ugandans hailed their liberators as Abakombozi — The Liberators.
Yet even in victory, seeds of betrayal were sown. Obote’s loyalists plotted a return to power, while Museveni and a few associates visited Makerere, addressing students with wit, candour, and revolutionary clarity. For many young Ugandans, this was the first encounter with genuine political consciousness.
Among them was Kale Kayihura, who in his speech at Entebbe recalled:
“I can’t forget that event in 1979 — after you, the Abakombozi, as we called you, the liberators … the image has never left me: you in military camouflage, walking toward the stage, flanked by escorts, as the FRONASA choir sang those exciting revolutionary songs.”
Poisoned at the Roots
The optimism of 1979 was short-lived. In December 1980, the Uganda People’s Congress and Milton Obote manipulated the elections, effectively staging a coup against the electorate.
Even without interference, these elections were doomed to fail. Conducted under a 1957 colonial law, only about 100,000 of 12 million citizens could vote. The Revolution that promised renewal was strangled by political convenience over political consciousness.
Disillusionment gave birth to rebellion. On 6 February 1981, Mr. Museveni, together with 41 comrades, and armed with only 27 guns, declared war on Obote by attacking Kabamba military barracks. They called themselves the Popular Resistance Army (PRA). Later merging with Yusuf Lule’s Uganda Freedom Fighters (UFF), they became the National Resistance Army (NRA).
Guided by the Maoist strategy of protracted people’s war, the NRA relied on stretched enemy supply lines, disciplined citizen engagement, and gradual transformation from guerrilla cells to mobile warfare units.
By 1983, they controlled half the country. Obote’s Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) was disintegrating. On 27 July 1985, an Acholi faction of the UNLA led by Tito Okello Lutwa and Bazillio Olara Okello seized power. By 25 January 1986, the NRA was in Kampala. The Okello junta had fled, and once again, Ugandans welcomed new liberators.
A Full Circle of Hope and Irony
As MJG Henry Matsiko, Chief Political Commissar of the UPDF, reminded us, forty-five years have passed since the first bullet was fired at Kabamba; forty-three since Gen. Kayihura — then a young postgraduate fresh from the London School of Economics — abandoned a promising career to wade into the swamps and thickets of Luwero, guided by the conviction that national interest must always stand above personal ambition.
And as he reflected at Entebbe:
“What particularly left an indelible mark was seeing an accomplished intellectual in military uniform deliver a lecture so remarkable — full of new knowledge, and a fresh, profound interpretation of our history that we had never heard before.”
The Death of Political Consciousness
For all its achievements, the NRA’s Revolution faced a slow moral decay. It rebuilt institutions, restored investor confidence, and re-anchored Uganda in the East African Community — now a bloc of over 320 million citizens. Roads replaced footpaths, factories reopened, and the shilling regained dignity.
But somewhere along the road from Luwero to State House, political consciousness — the moral compass of the Movement — began to die, replaced by what Ms. Anne Mugisha has referred to as “winnowed chaff.”
Liberation mutated into entitlement. Service to the nation became service to the self. Parliament, once a sanctuary of conscience, became a marketplace where loyalty is traded in envelopes. The civil service, once disciplined, became a corridor of extraction. Merit bowed to mediocrity; accountability became theatre.
When the state is subordinated to personal survival, the Revolution’s moral promise collapses under its own beneficiaries.
The Palace and the Circus
Kayihura’s lament was not personal — it was a mirror for the nation. The palace that once hosted disciplined liberators now hosts courtiers in designer suits. Leaders can recite history but often fail to learn from it. They speak of universal socio-economic transformation – the economic liberation of citizens – while living as occupiers of the Republic they claim to serve.
A Republic at the Crossroads
Uganda’s economy may still grow; the East African Community may still court its leadership. But no growth can endure when moral foundations crumble. The Revolution’s true success is not in GDP figures or summits but in awakening a generation to reason, discipline, and conscience.
If we are to preserve the NRA’s legacy, we must restore political consciousness in schools, civil service, Parliament, and in our hearts. Otherwise, today’s wealth will become tomorrow’s poverty, and yesterday’s liberators will be remembered not as nation-builders but as architects of disillusionment.
Epilogue — The Theatre of Forgetting
The Revolution that promised freedom appears to have been poisoned at its roots. Beyond gun salutes and choreographed parades, Tarehe Sita should not function as a theatre of national amnesia. It is a day when the ruling establishment invites the nation to remember that the war it glorifies was fought for the people, for the country.
And so, as drums beat and flags flutter, we must remember the Turkish aphorism: when a clown enters a palace, the palace becomes a circus — and when a revolution forgets its conscience, it becomes its own parody.
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