The West Stays Silent, But Ugandans Must Rise Collectively Now – Heed General Sejusa’s Urgent Warning
In July 2026, weeks after President Yoweri Museveni’s swearing-in for a seventh term following the disputed 15 January elections, Uganda stands at a dangerous precipice. Official results gave Museveni 71.65% against Bobi Wine’s 24.72%, yet allegations of widespread fraud, ballot-box stuffing, biometric kit failures in opposition strongholds, and a brutal post-poll crackdown have defined the moment.
Dozens of protesters were killed, hundreds arrested, journalists assaulted, TikTok critics jailed under the Computer Misuse Act, and civil society organisations arbitrarily suspended. Military courts continue trying civilians, including opposition leaders. A new Protection of Sovereignty law targets “foreign agents” and NGOs. The “internal transition”, cabinet reshuffles elevating family and loyalists, the dramatic sidelining of former Speaker Anita Among, and intensified elite consolidation, has been swift and ruthless.
Western powerhouses and traditional allies have responded with striking restraint. The EU noted the results without robust condemnation; the US, having already ended AGOA over rights concerns, offered little beyond routine statements. No large-scale election observation missions materialised. Geopolitics, counter-terrorism ties, refugee hosting, and looming oil interests appear to have muted criticism. Ugandans cannot wait for external saviours. The silence makes our own collective action more urgent than ever.
It is precisely now that the testimony of General David Sejusa (also known as Tinyefunza), the retired intelligence chief, bush-war veteran, and fearless critic, cuts through the darkness like a beacon. In a candid two-part TikTok podcast (Part 1 and Part 2), he delivers hard truths about how we arrived here, and, crucially, how we climb out.
“People get the leaders they deserve… because impunity is entrenched by the silence of citizens.”
When we say that people get the leaders they deserve, I question that and say, really, did Ugandans deserve Idi Amin? … But then recently, I find myself agreeing that people get the leaders that they deserve. Because, you see, impunity is started by rogue leaders. It is strengthened by dysfunctional institutions. But it is entrenched by the silence of citizens. If we do not stand up for ourselves, if we do not stand up to impunity, then we are actually entrenching it.”
Rogue leaders, are playground bullies who keep pushing “to see the extent of our tolerance… measuring our cowardice.” They pile insult upon insult until the moment citizens “turn around and face the bully. And I say we collectively. We have to do it collectively.”
Our leaders end up in prison or exile “because they are easily isolated. If you have 100 Matembes, 100 Lukwagos, 100 Semujus, 100 Bobi Wines, or 100 Segonas, it’s very difficult to round them all up… But we isolate our leaders. We have to stop and turn around collectively, stop running and face our fears.”
General Sejusa, a Fronasa pioneer and 1985 bush war veteran, revealed that For years the descent was gradual. Now it accelerates. The oppressor captured not just political space but “the media… the organizational space… the social relationship space.” Opposition and freedom-seekers “have done nothing to struggle for this space.” This is the “slave mentality of the African peoples”, long abuse has made many see everything through the oppressor’s lens, doubting even genuine sacrifices.
Sejusa knows sacrifice personally. Wounded in the bush war, left lame (one leg 1.5 inches short), he lost a brother (strangled, post-mortem evidence suppressed), two sisters, his mother-in-law, and property in exile. “I didn’t borrow this, I found half of my property gone, but still I am in the service of Museveni? What sense does it make?” He insists he is “my own man… working for me… to know that even if I have accumulated… my children stay in Uganda and they do not die in exile.”
He recalls the recurring pattern on Kampala’s seven hills; Naguru, Kololo, Nakasero, Mbuya and others. After every struggle, new groups occupy them: British, Indians and affluent Baganda; then northerners after Obote attacked Mutesa’s palace; West Nile under Amin; the 1979 liberators; then the NRA. Power changes hands, but the cycle of domination persists.
Breaking the web of fear – Sejusa’s example
In the second part of his testimony, Sejusa details his 1996 attempt to resign from the army (he was already an accomplished lawyer and former police commander before the 1985 liberation). The Supreme Court case reached the point where Museveni allegedly told judges, “You want to destroy my army.” Due process was subverted, “the biggest corruption” being not just money but the abuse of power by a president entrusted to protect the constitution and his own generals.
Museveni, Sejusa says, long used the army “as a political management tool… to keep those who are would be competitors” in check, even parking four-star generals in ceremonial medal-giving roles for 15–20 years. Sejusa could have become a renegade and fought from outside, as he once considered against Milton Obote. Instead he stayed, spoke, and ultimately declared: “I have broken it, I have broken it… that’s why I am here, I am speaking. What has it done to me? Nothing… How do the dictators control people? Because they intimidate them with jail or death. I fear neither, so what will you do with me? So it’s redundant.”
He notes the full circle of being detained in the same cells where earlier regimes held him, proof of “how far we have degenerated as a country, but even as leaders, morally.”
What Ugandans must do now – a practical collective roadmap
The abyss is real, but not bottomless. Western silence is a wake-up call: the struggle is ours. Here is what we must do, drawing directly from Sejusa’s wisdom and the moment’s demands:
- Shatter the silence and multiply voices. Stop entrenching impunity with our silence. Speak, to neighbours, in workplaces, on safe digital platforms, in places of worship. Create hundreds of local leaders and voices so none can be isolated. Form neighbourhood civic circles, professional networks, and youth groups. Amplify every credible voice of dissent. Document abuses safely. The bully retreats when the playground turns together.
- Face the bully collectively and strategically. Organise peaceful, sustained, coordinated actions; demonstrations, stay-aways, petitions, consumer boycotts, when timing and safety allow. Learn the lessons of history: violence usually resets the same cycle on the hills. But disciplined, mass non-violent resistance backed by broad coalitions changes the math. Support political prisoners and their families. Do not let any leader stand alone.
- Liberate minds and reclaim narrative space. Reject the captured media and propaganda. Build independent information networks, citizen journalism, and community education on our real history, including the sacrifices of the bush war and the failures of every subsequent regime. Teach the youth that fear is a tool of control, not destiny. Rebuild civil society from the grassroots upward, independent of state patronage.
- Demand rule of law and accountability from below. Use every legal avenue, courts have pushed back before on military trials of civilians. Challenge arbitrary arrests, unconstitutional laws, and asset seizures. Prepare for by-elections and the next national cycle with concrete reform demands. Inside the security services and NRM itself, moral voices must find courage.
- Build inclusive, cross-cutting coalitions. Transcend ethnicity, region, party, and generation. The hills change occupants; the underlying problems remain. Unite opposition parties, civil society, faith leaders, businesspeople harmed by instability, and even quiet reformers within the system around a shared minimum programme: accountable governance, transparent oil revenues, youth jobs, and an end to both grand corruption and the abuse of power.
- Practise strategic endurance and self-reliance. This is a marathon. Build economic resilience through cooperatives, skills, and local production so patronage cannot starve dissent. The diaspora must support from afar without handing the regime easy “foreign agent” narratives. Focus relentlessly on the future our children will inherit in Uganda, not exile.
- Embrace fearless moral clarity. General Sejusa’s life shows the cost and the possibility of breaking the web. He fears neither jail nor death. We must prioritise the long-term freedom of our children over short-term personal safety. Moral regeneration begins when enough of us simply refuse to normalise abuse.
The time is now, Uganda has cycled through this before. Each time the people pay the heaviest price. The current rapid phase; post-election repression, legal weaponsation, elite consolidation amid whispers of succession, reveals a regime that senses underlying fragility. The West’s relative silence, however disappointing, frees us from illusions. No one will save us; we must save ourselves.
Heed General Sejusa: impunity ends only when citizens collectively turn and face it. The bully measures our cowardice daily. Let the answer be collective courage.
Ugandans, stop running. Turn around. Face our fears together. The political abyss need not claim us. It can become the forge of a freer, more just Uganda, if we act with urgency, unity, and the moral clarity Sejusa calls forth from all of us.
The clock is ticking. Every day of silence deepens the rot. Every act of collective courage begins the climb.
Read more about the Author here: Philip Kakungulu
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