I have lived in Uganda continuously since 1999. I was involved in the intellectual debates of the early 1990s, when soldiers and civilians would peacefully debate and clash on national issues, some political, some non-military, without civilians ever suspecting that they would be kidnapped or roughened up, ultimately getting incarcerated in Luzira or other centres of abuse of freedom of UGANDANS.

We praised the government of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni for being an open-minded, loving and listening institution. Many young people benefitted from the debates on the issues and got deeply involved in advancing ideas, some of which benefitted the government and the country. Many debating platforms called Bimeza sprang up. Numerous government and military officials did not shy away from debates, unlike today when they would rather keep silent and let one person – President Tibuhaburwa Museveni pour out his idea onto society and wait to act on them, often to make the president happy rather than suggest alternative ideas to him.

Eventually debate became squeezed out of the sociopolitical and other processes in the country. Even the universities are almost banned debates, preferring conspiracy of silence to reign in academia.

Then there was a storm and bullets began to flower. Rivers of blood followed.

Soon the conspiracy of silence proliferated in every institution. Simultaneously society became militarised with so many paramilitary groups being erected ostensibly to ensure peace and security. However, it became clear that the aim was to conquer the natives and control their movements and minds, and ensure that it is mostly the military and government officials that could speak on anything without contradicting the choices and decisions of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and his government.

This trend has meant that the country becomes far more intellectually poor than was in the 1960s. In the universities, it is academicism and scholasticism that are preferred to intellectual development and dynamics, and hence academic jargons are on the rise. The universities have never been ineffective towards the needs of democracy, freedom and justice than they are today. This is why when Ugandan citizens are kidnapped from a foreign country and arraigned in kangaroo courts called military courts we no longer hear academic staff and student associations coming out with positions to restore sanity in leadership and governance of the country. They keep quiet even when agents of justice are hounded and rushed to prisons with no opportunity to defend themselves.

The case of respected lawyer Eron Kizza is fresh in our minds. He was supposed to be a main lawyer for incarcerated Dr Kiiza Besigye. His justice and by extension, that of Dr Kiiza Besigye was abused by the military court deciding to arrest the lawyer, roughing him up, ostensibly for contempt of the court. The whole world now knows Eron Kizza’s justice and human rights have been abused by the military Court. Besides, the Uganda Constitution 1995 made by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) is being violated by abusing the Justice and human rights of UGANDANS; the latest to suffer such abuse is lawyer Eron Kizza Besigye.

I am one of the many senior citizens of Uganda wondering what kind of Uganda we shall leave behind. Already we are witnessing how our leaders are pretending that they are building democracy, justice and freedom as key virtues for Ugandans while at the same time doing everything possible to violate them.

As we advance towards the 2030s state – inspired abuse of power and violence are on the rise as if the aim is to maintain and sustain fear in leadership and governance in Uganda.

I appeal to President Tibuhaburwa Museveni to lead the country out of militarily imposed fear, insecurity and hopelessness. I also speak to the president to intervene in the case of lawyer Aeron Kizza the way he intervened in the case of the NUP supporters, politician Michael Mukula and other cases.

All of us must – leaders and the led – must resolve to keep Uganda among the civilised nations of the world. It is the gift we can leave behind for our children and children’s children. If we don’t we shall have wasted time and energy leading and governing Uganda because ultimately we shall have led it to nowhere. Future generations will condemn us perpetually.

We should not continue to militarize life, democracy, freedom and justice. Without genuine democracy, freedom and justice we cannot hope to hand Uganda to future generations as a developed, transformed and progressive country. By the time we all leave the scene Uganda will be deep in the abyss of underdevelopment, overdependency, impoverishment and ecological and environmental decay, which the ingredients needed to sustain a country dominated by violence.

For God and my country.

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).