Just weeks after the deadly Gen Z protests that swept Kenya in June, there are signs that Uganda may be on the radar of hordes of frustrated young people fed up with the country’s ongoing crisis that they blame on government corruption.
Weeks of opposition protests have forced Kenya’s President William Ruto to reverse the introduction of controversial taxes.
More than 50 people, mostly young people between the ages of 17 and 35, were killed as Kenya’s riot police responded heavily to the protests.
Uganda’s growing number of disgruntled young people are also sensing bloodshed and have given notice they will take to the streets on Tuesday, despite stern threats from President Yoweri Museveni himself.
An atmosphere of uncertainty hung over Uganda on Monday, just 24 hours before demonstrators were due to take to the streets, after Ugandan police refused to issue a permit for the planned protests, with organizers threatening to go ahead with the demonstration regardless of whether they received a permit.
President Yoweri Museveni has watched with concern what is happening in Kenya, implicitly warning demonstrators that if they go ahead with their planned protests, it will send a message against the rampant corruption that government authorities have made no attempt to deny.
Their protests will target Parliament, where lawmakers will be asked to enact tough laws to root out corruption and the so-called cronyism politics that has come to be associated with Museveni’s government.
Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, is the only president Gen Z knows.
As protesters threatened to march on Tuesday, the president, who turns 80 in September, said in a statement on state television that the leadership would not tolerate trouble on the streets and warned of tough action if protesters ignored warnings and took to the streets.
He said Uganda has used its long history of political and economic stability to generate wealth for its people and protests such as those in Kenya are unacceptable as a disruption to those arrangements.
“You are playing with fire, because we cannot allow you to get in our way,” he warned, accusing leaders of the planned protests of being tools of foreign powers seeking to undo the gains made under his leadership.
Corruption, a bane of their intended protests, has been a pressing issue in Uganda for months since the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, and two other former Museveni aides were named in a corruption scandal.
In April, Speaker Anita Annette Amongu and two other former ministers who worked under President Yoweri Museveni were sanctioned by the British and US governments.
British Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell announced sanctions against her and two other officials, namely Mary Goretti Kitutu, who served as Minister of State for Karamoja Affairs from 2021 to 2024, and Agnes Nandutu, who served as Minister of State for Karamoja Affairs from 2021 to 2024.
Even before she became the Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, she was one of the most powerful and influential women in Uganda.
Britain said the sanctions against the politicians followed corruption accusations that they “stole from Uganda’s poorest people”.
The UK has for the first time applied its global anti-corruption sanctions regime against individuals implicated in corruption in Uganda, subjecting them to travel bans and asset freezes.
The accusations are that Mary Goretti Kitutu and Agnes Nandutu stole thousands of steel sheets used for roofing and infrastructure from a Ugandan government-funded project aimed at providing housing to some of the region’s most vulnerable communities, and provided them instead to prominent politicians and their families.
It is alleged that Amon, who has been chairman since 2022, benefited from the proceeds.
More than 60 percent of Karamoja’s residents live in poverty, and many are suffering the devastating effects of drought and insecurity.
Mitchell said the trio’s “taking aid money away from those who need it most and hoarding the proceeds is corruption of the worst kind and has no place in our society.”
He said Uganda’s courts were right to curb corruption by cracking down on politicians who line their pockets at the expense of people they are meant to lift out of poverty.
Ugandan youths, however, accused the government of lacking the political will to take punitive action against the accused.
WN/as/APA
