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Can you tell us about yourself and your background?

I am a writer and university teacher who is interested in good governance. I strongly believe that being in a position of power comes with immense responsibility and accountability; any misuse of power should therefore be censured. Every leader should know that every decision they make and every action they undertake comes with consequences; in everything they do, therefore, they should maximize the good they do and strive to do better all the time.

This is the lesson I have shared with hundreds of students that I have taught, both in my classes as a teacher, but also in my writing workshops as a facilitator.

Can you tell us about the current situation in Uganda, including President Museveni’s very lengthy reign, the creation of repressive legislation, and the problems faced during elections? How does this impact the population of Uganda, and what do you hope to see change in the future?

This is President Museveni’s 39th year in power—just imagine that! Thirty-nine years, and the same person is still the President of Uganda, which remains a poor developing country. To understand how long this is, you need to look at how many U.S. Presidents he has surpassed: Ronald Reagan (1981–1989); George H.W. Bush (1989–1993); Bill Clinton (1993–2001); George W. Bush (2001–2009); Barack Obama (2009–2017); Donald J. Trump (2017–2021); and Joseph R. Biden (2021–present).

This long reign has been made possible through several tactics, including manipulating the Parliament of Uganda to amend the constitution in two major respects: removing term limits (in 2005), and removing the age limit (in 2017). Previously, the term limit provision had stipulated that one could serve as President for two 5-year terms (i.e., a maximum of 10 years), and the age limit provision stipulated that one could not serve as President beyond the age of 75. By manipulating the parliament to remove these two provisions, Museveni ensured that he could rule Uganda till he dies. How did the manipulation take place? Uganda media reported that on both occasions, members of parliament had been paid by the president to amend the constitution.

"As for elections, it is common knowledge that they are not free and fair in Uganda. The military and other security forces are always heavily involved in them for the benefit of the ruling party."

The parliament has also been used in other ways to make Museveni a lifelong president—it has passed laws that criminalize demonstrations (for instance, the Public Order Management Act of 2013) and criminalize legitimate critique (for instance, the Computer Misuse Act of 2011, amended in 2022). There are several other laws that have been enacted to make it criminal to critique the way Museveni and his supporters run the country.

As for elections, it is common knowledge that they are not free and fair in Uganda. The military and other security forces are always heavily involved in them for the benefit of the ruling party. Unfortunately, we have seen people lose their lives in every election we have held; others get maimed as they are beaten by security forces. What we have is an electoral autocracy—the use of elections to sanitize a tyrannical regime. Several scholars have explained how this works in a newly published book edited by Dr. Moses Khisa, entitled Autocratization in Contemporary Uganda: Clientelism, Coercion and Social Control (Zed Press, 2024). Remember, the electoral commission is not independent—all of its members are nominated by the president and vetted by the parliament, which is a rubber stump one, since the ruling party controls more than 65% of its membership. Yet the president is a vested party in the elections, since he is always already a candidate. It is sad that we waste hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars on elections that mean nothing.

This situation has led to apathy and a sense of hopelessness—there is a feeling that the future of the country is doomed, since President Museveni is repeating the mistakes that the rulers before him (like Milton Obote and Idi Amin, for instance) made—mistakes that plunged the country into several civil wars. There is another fear: because members of his ethnic group occupy thousands of strategic positions in government, the resentment against Museveni’s regime is beginning to take on a tribal color, which is very dangerous given the genocide that happened in the neighboring country, Rwanda, in 1994.  But there are also people who believe that sooner or later, the country will be liberated since President Museveni is getting older. True, his son may succeed him (this is what Museveni is working towards, to the extent that he has appointed him the commander of the army, the institution that has contributed most to keeping him in power), but it is unlikely that General Muhoozi will have the sophistication and cunning to keep the cards together the way he has done.

During your time as the President of PEN Uganda, what kinds of challenges did you face in the operations of the organization, and also personally? What did you seek to accomplish during your time there?

The biggest challenge I faced was the arbitrary arrest and sometimes kidnapping of artists, particularly writers. The two that suffered most were Dr. Stella Nyanzi (a poet and social media critic) and Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a novelist and memoirist. These writers were very critical of President Museveni and his regime, and they called him out openly as a dictator, a nepotist, and a tribalist, sometimes using very strong language (one time, Dr. Nyanzi called him a “pair of buttocks”; another time, she called him “the poop that was clogging the digestive system of Uganda”). Defending this kind of figurative language as being within the purview of freedom of speech was challenging. Remember that in Uganda, the judiciary is not independent, so fighting for the release of these writers was not just a legal, judicial issue; it was mostly a political one.

"In my work as President of Ugandan PEN, I fought hard to ensure that the freedom of speech is defended at all costs. This is why I campaigned for the release of imprisoned writers, even when I was aware that it was a dangerous thing to do."

In my work as President of Ugandan PEN, I fought hard to ensure that the freedom of speech is defended at all costs. This is why I campaigned for the release of imprisoned writers, even when I was aware that it was a dangerous thing to do. I also ensured that I taught multitudes of people the power of words and how to use those words to speak to the ills they saw in their society. This is how I ended up, with colleagues from Ugandan PEN, teaching courses on creative writing to prisoners at Uganda’s maximum prison, Luzira. This led to the publication of the poetry, short fiction, and short drama anthology, As I Stood Dead Before the World (2018). I also went to high schools and taught students how to write poetry, leading to the publication of two anthologies, A Day or Two Before We Part (2021) and Striding to Triumph (2023). Finally, I worked with university students to teach them how to use poetry to articulate human rights issues. This led to the publication of the poetry anthology, I Promise this Song Is Not About Politics (2022).

During your time with the Carr Center as a Human Rights Defender and Fellow, what have you been researching, and what are you interested in exploring further?

I have worked on the effect that Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act (2023) is having on artistic freedom, with writers, publishers, booksellers, filmmakers, and distributors—to mention but a few of the stakeholders in the creative industry who are scared for their lives in case a book or film they work on or sell is construed as promoting homosexuality, and therefore can be penalized with up to 20 years in prison. I have spoken about these effects at symposia in the U.S. and in Canada.

I am also raising awareness about the suffering that Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community is going through because of the law, which gives the public the right to report people they suspect (imagine that!) to be gay to the police. There is a folio coming out in Transition Magazine (published by the Hutchins Center at Harvard University) that features Ugandan gay writers. I worked on this folio with the Transition editor, Tanya Larkin, and I have a short article that serves to introduce it.

Finally, I have used my time at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy performing research to write three articles on censorship for Index on Censorship Magazine, published in the U.K., to highlight how repression affects artists not just in Uganda, but also in other African countries (e.g., Eritrea).