For over four decades, the people of the 15 traditional nation-states of Uganda – including Buganda, Bunyoro, Acholi, Busoga and Teso – have endured a multi-layered crisis. While the physical violence of conflict is visible, a more insidious process has unfolded in the shadows: de-politicisation.

This article argues that President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (referred to here by his traditional honorific, Tibuhaburwa) has systematically engineered the political emasculation of indigenous Ugandans. Through the monopolisation of political space, the securitisation of civic life, the weaponisation of land and the co-option of cultural institutions, the ruling regime has not merely suppressed opposition but has actively worked to produce a citizenry incapable of conceiving of political alternatives.

Architecture of de-politicisation

• First decade from 1986-1995: The ‘movement’ monopoly and the illusion of liberation

Upon seizing power in 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) did not usher in an era of democratic pluralism but rather a personalist, militarised system. The first ten years were spent “dilly-dallying” with the concept of single-party rule under the guise of the Movement system. Ugandans were legally barred from organising in alternative political parties. This was not a peace dividend; it was a calculated freeze on political thought.

As legal scholar Manisuli Ssenyonjo noted, despite Museveni declaring a period of “fundamental change,” the reality was that the “no-party” political system fundamentally undermined the effective protection and promotion of civil and political rights. During this formative decade, a generation of youth came of age believing that political association was synonymous with the NRM, effectively rendering them political infants in a system designed to prevent their intellectual maturation.

• Second decade from 1995-2005: Constitutional promises vs. authoritarian reality

The promulgation of the 1995 Constitution was supposed to be a watershed moment. However, while the document contained a bill of rights, it simultaneously institutionalised the Movement system. Political parties were confined to their headquarters, placed under surveillance, and prevented from accessing the population.

This “herding” of Ugandans ensured that even as the constitution was being debated, the populace was being de-socialised from the habits of democratic engagement. The result was a dual tragedy: not only were ordinary Ugandans de-politicised but the alternative leaders themselves were rendered impotent, subjects of what would later be termed electoral authoritarianism.

Instruments of political emasculation

• The militarisation of civic space and the ban on political education

Perhaps the most devastating long-term tool of de-politicisation has been the ban on political education in schools. Debates – the very crucible of critical thought – were restricted at universities and remain so today. The recent lifting of the ban on open guild campaigns at Makerere University after five years only highlights the depth of the freeze.

As Dr Jude Ssempebwa stated, this move was a small step toward “reviving democratic culture” after a period where the university was “digging itself into a hole”.

The intent of the state is clear. As opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine) recently observed when police moved to scrutinise his party’s leadership school, the government “prefer[s] a politically ignorant population,” which is precisely why political education was banned. By severing the link between education and civic awareness, the state ensures that the youth remain de-radicalised and docile.

• Land as a weapon: dispossession as de-politicisation

Alongside the control of ideas, the regime has wielded land as a primary instrument of de-politicisation. The processes of dispossession and Bantustanisation have physically displaced indigenous communities from their ancestral grounds, fragmenting the geographic and spiritual basis of their political identity.

Across the 15 traditional nation-states, land evictions – often justified in the name of “investment,” military expansion or “conservation” – have had a paralysing political effect. When the Bagungu were evicted from their oil-rich lands in the Bunyoro region, or when pastoralist communities in Karamoja and Teso were concentrated into enclaves to make way for game parks and foreign investors, their political energy was forcibly redirected.

Instead of engaging in civic organisation or demanding political representation, these communities were thrust into a daily struggle for physical survival.

As scholar Mahmood Mamdani has observed, the creation of a dispossessed, landless class is also the creation of a politically neutered class – one too preoccupied with subsistence to challenge the structure of power.

This spatial control is the physical manifestation of de-politicisation. A community that is constantly fighting eviction or scrambling for a new place to call home has no bandwidth to build political parties, educate its youth on civic rights or resist the de-identification imposed by the state.

• Co-optation of traditional institutions: de-sovereignisation from within

Perhaps the most sophisticated layer of de-politicisation has been the regime’s manipulation of the 15 traditional-cultural institutions themselves. These institutions – the Buganda Lukiiko, the Acholi Ker Kwaro, the Busoga Lukiiko, and others – were historically the nuclei of political identity and resistance. Under Museveni, they have been systematically de-sovereignised.

The 1993 Traditional Rulers (Restitution of Assets and Properties) Act appeared to restore cultural institutions but it did so on a poisoned platter. By recognising traditional leaders as “cultural” but not “political” figures, the state created a firewall: cultural leaders could parade in regalia but could not mobilise their people politically.

The regime then deepened this divide through a strategy of co-optation and fragmentation. Some traditional leaders were given state salaries and vehicles, effectively converting them into extensions of the NRM’s patronage network. Others were played against each other to prevent any single institution from becoming a rallying point for opposition.

As scholar Oloka-Onyango notes, this “culturalisation” of traditional leadership – stripping it of political teeth while dressing it in ceremonial cloth – has been central to the regime’s strategy of divide and rule. When the Kyabazinga of Busoga or the Omukama of Toro is seen dining with the president, it signals to their subjects that the institution is no longer a counterweight to state power but a subsidiary of it. The result is de-sovereignisation: the slow death of indigenous nation-state’s ability to command the political loyalty of its own people.

• The rural web: surveillance and civic silence

In the rural areas of these 15 nation-states, de-politicisation is enforced through a matrix of fear. The proliferation of DISOs (District Internal Security Officers), GISOs and VISOs has created a surveillance state that penetrates to the village level. The operations of these institutions generate so much fear that even discussing alternatives to the NRM becomes a clandestine act. This compounds the demoralization already wrought by land dispossession and cultural co-optation, producing what can only be described as civic silence.

• Digital authoritarianism and the 2026 elections

The de-politicisation process has now entered its digital phase. The 2026 General Election have been characterised by what The EastAfrican describes as a “digital iron curtain.” The government implemented a three-day internet ‘curfew’ just before the vote – the third consecutive election with such a blackout – to prevent opposition coordination and civic mobilisation.

This is supplemented by a media boycott; the NRM has barred major outlets like NTV and Daily Monitor from covering its campaigns, creating fragmented information spaces. Meanwhile, the police defend these measures by citing the President’s security privileges, effectively placing the head of state above campaign regulations. International observers from FIDH have warned that these conditions – where journalists are assaulted, opposition leaders like Dr Kizza Besigye are detained, and civil society is suspended – make it impossible for elections to reflect the genuine will of the people.

Conclusion: The long shadow of de-politicisation

The impact of 40 years of de-politicisation is the creation of a politically illiterate populace that struggles to envision governance outside the NRM framework. The processes of de-identification, de-socialisation, dispossession, and de-sovereignisation have left the indigenous nations of Uganda in a state of civic paralysis. By severing the people from their land and their traditional leaders—the two pillars of indigenous political identity – the regime has ensured that even if the formal barriers to political organisation were lifted tomorrow, the muscle memory of collective action would take generations to rebuild.

History, however, shows that de-politicisation is never permanent. As Charles Onyango-Obbo recently noted, despite the digital iron curtain, “nothing stops a story… the truth has a way of leaking through the cracks”. The reclamation of Uganda’s political soul will depend on reversing these four decades of engineered silence and restoring the right of every Munyoro, Muganda, Acholi, Karimojong and Itesot to think, organize, and reclaim their ancestral heritage freely.

• A Tell Media report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula. Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula is a natural scientist, academic, public intellectual and a former Secretary General of Makerere University Academic Staff Association and former chair of the Nile Basin Discourse.