Comment: Expectations in this Kisanja “No More Sleep for all Ugandans”

What awaits H.E. President Yoweri Museveni in this kisanja “no more sleep for all Ugandans” is ultimately a test of legacy. Internally, he faces an old question in a new form: how to turn stability into visible and inclusive household prosperity. Uganda has peace, infrastructure, oil prospects and a youthful population, but citizens now want jobs, cheaper credit, better service delivery, less corruption, and a State that works faster.

His biggest domestic challenge will be economic impatience. Young people no longer judge government only by the history of 1986 and what came before; they judge it by present opportunities. The next term must therefore be less about explaining achievements and more about converting them into incomes that reach the pockets of ordinary Ugandans.

At the centre of that transformation lies one unavoidable battle, corruption. No country can industrialise seriously, attract sustainable investment, lower the cost of doing business or deliver public services efficiently while leakage, and bureaucratic theft continue to consume national energy. The war against corruption must therefore move from lamentation and arrests to disciplined systems, faster institutions, visible accountability and a culture where public office is treated as responsibility rather than opportunity for extraction.

Politically, he will have to manage Cabinet expectations, generational pressure within the National Resistance Movement, and a Parliament where ambition may at times be louder than ideology. After every major victory, the hardest battle is often not against the opposition, but in managing the appetites of friends, allies and power centres within.

The election gave him a mandate. That legitimacy must now be deepened through performance, efficiency, discipline and national inclusion.

Externally, he returns to office in a more difficult world. Geopolitics is increasingly transactional. Regional security remains fragile. Uganda must balance relations with the West, China, the Gulf and African neighbours without appearing dependent on any single centre of power.

The real opportunity is that Uganda can now move from the politics of survival to the politics of delivery. Oil, agro-industrialisation, regional trade, value addition, technological transformation and youth enterprise must become the grammar of this new term.

This term will likely be judged by one central question: whether the revolutionary of stability can also become the architect of disciplined prosperity, institutional efficiency and national transformation.

History has already given him longevity. The next five years must now deliver a stable Uganda that feels transformed in the lives, pockets and hopes of ordinary people.

Kind regards,

The writer is Crispin Kaheru, Member , Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC)