Uganda has had only one president for the last four decades or so the story goes. But there exists another leader, one whose authority was never sworn in, yet whose influence towers over the nation like a political colossus. Dr. Kizza Besigye, the man who has rattled the throne of power without ever sitting on it, is the true architect of Uganda’s resistance. His captors and oppressors may still sign decrees and command battalions, but they remain haunted by a simple truth, in the court of public memory, in the annals of Uganda’s history, it is Besigye who won.
Perhaps fate has a wicked sense of humor. It placed Kizza Besigye in Rukungiri, the land of the defiant and expected him to grow into a man who would bow. What a tragic miscalculation. From childhood, Besigye refused to conform. While other children played in the dust, he read. At Kinyasano Primary School, Mbarara Junior School, and later Kitante High School, young Besigye’s brilliance was obvious. He was not just another student; he was the kind who, if left unchecked, might start asking uncomfortable questions. By the time he made his way to Makerere University, he had perfected the art of unshakable resolve. Medicine was his field of study, but justice was his true calling.
And so, even after graduating in 1980 as a doctor, when he could have opted for a comfortable life treating patients in Nairobi’s Aga Khan Hospital, he instead chose to treat Uganda itself, a nation diseased with tyranny, corruption, and lies. A lesser man would have settled for being just a doctor. But Besigye saw beyond prescriptions and diagnoses, he saw a country in critical condition, a patient whose cancer was misrule, whose fever was repression, and whose symptoms were economic misery.
The year was 1982. Uganda was under the rule of Milton Obote, and Besigye like many other young idealists believed in the promise of change. He did not take up arms for power, money, or personal gain. He was a doctor, a healer yet he chose to leave the comfort of a hospital for the unforgiving jungle of Luweero. As the Junta basked in the glory of conquest, Besigye saw something different. He had seen power corrupt men before, and he was beginning to recognize the early symptoms of a disease the junta swore it would never catch. But for now, he was still inside the system. He could have stayed. He could have played along, enriched himself, and become just another silent accomplice in the Junta’s long reign. But Kizza Besigye was never built for servitude.
It is an unspoken rule in African politics: Those who bring a leader to power rarely challenge him. They benefit, remain loyal and look away. But Besigye was no ordinary politician. He saw it all. And in 1999, he did the one thing no Ugandan soldier had dared to do, he spoke. He wrote a bold document, exposing the regime for what it had become: A government steeped in corruption, a
system built on repression and political deception and a betrayal of the revolution they had once risked their lives to achieve. It was a moment of truth. The Junta could have listened, it could have reformed, it could have honored the sacrifices made in the Bush War. Instead, it made Besigye its enemy.
In 2000, Besigye retired from the UPDF and one year later, he did what no Ugandan had dared to do: he stood against the Junta in a presidential election. The revolution had finally come full circle. He retired from the military, leaving behind the titles, privileges, and power that came with it. Unlike those who cling to power at all costs, Besigye gave it up willingly because his principles were more valuable than his position.
The people had a choice now. They could remain trapped in a system of fear and repression, or they could follow a man who had risked everything for the truth. And so began a new war not with guns, but with ballots, not in the bush, but in the streets. The Junta had built a military empire. Besigye built a democratic resistance. The Junta thought it would be an easy win. It wasn’t. Because while it controlled the electoral commission, Besigye controlled the people’s hearts. And The opposition grew. And for the first time in fifteen years, the Junta felt the ground shake beneath it.
On March 12, 2001, Ugandans lined up to vote. What they didn’t know was that the results had already been decided. The Junta declared itself winner with 69.3% of the vote. Besigye, despite the arrests, despite the violence, despite the open rigging still managed 27.8%. That number terrified the junta. It meant millions of Ugandans had voted against it. It meant the opposition was no longer just a few scattered voices. It meant the junta’s rule was not as solid as it had imagined. After the elections, Besigye became the most hunted man in Uganda. His movements were monitored. His supporters were arrested. His home was placed under constant surveillance. The message was clear: The Junta had “won” the election, but it was still afraid of Besigye. A man who had truly won would have celebrated. A man who had truly won would not have feared his opponent. A man who had truly won would not have needed the military to defend his presidency.
And so, in 2001, he made a tactical retreat not out of fear, but out of strategy. Besigye left Uganda for South Africa. The Junta thought exile would weaken its opponent. It thought silence would follow. It thought Ugandans would forget. But exile did not weaken Besigye it made him stronger. From South Africa, he became a voice that could not be arrested, could not be teargassed, could not be silenced with batons. And the junta, despite all its power, was haunted by a man thousands of miles away. Because dictators can control borders, but they cannot control ideas.
By 2005, Besigye decided to return. The junta had just removed term limits from the constitution, one of Africa’s classic moves for leaders who don’t want to leave. The message was clear: Uganda was no longer a democracy, it was a monarchy in everything but name. And so Besigye came back, not as a fugitive, but as a challenger. The junta had learnt something from 2001: Rigging elections wasn’t enough. Harassing the opposition wasn’t enough. As long as Besigye was free, he was a threat. And so, instead of facing him at the ballot, the junta decided to fight him in the courtroom. Within months of his return, Besigye was arrested and charged with: Treason (because wanting democracy in Uganda is apparently a crime), Rape (a desperate attempt to smear his name) and terrorism (because questioning a dictator is obviously an act of war). Besigye had entered the courtroom as a prisoner. He walked out as a hero.
By 2006, Besigye was no longer just a man challenging the junta, he was a symbol of defiance. Fresh from dodging fabricated treason and rape charges, he hit the campaign trail with one simple message: Uganda deserves better. And Uganda responded. For the first time in two decades, even those who once fought alongside the junta began questioning their allegiance. Even Uganda’s own Supreme Court admitted there was rigging but in a move that would make even the most shameless dictators proud, they still upheld the results. In other words: Yes, the election was fraudulent. Yes, there was voter intimidation. Yes, the process was flawed. But the junta would still remain in charge. Because in Uganda, courts don’t check power. They serve it.
For the third time, Dr. Kizza Besigye stood against the junta in what was meant to be a democratic contest. And for the third time, the junta “won” But this time, something was different. Because when the junta thought the election was over, Besigye showed it that the real fight had just begun. And in April 2011, Besigye did something that shook the regime to its core. In a country where the president moves in convoys of heavily armed soldiers, Besigye decided to make a statement. He walked. It was a revolution on foot. Besigye, along with other opposition figures, walked to work to protest the high cost of living, rising fuel prices, and government mismanagement. And Ugandans followed. From Kampala to Masaka, Mbarara to Gulu thousands joined in. The junta’s response? Pure brutality. A 55-year-old man was tortured for walking. And yet, he did not stop. He kept walking. He kept speaking. He kept exposing the regime’s failures.
In 2016, he ran against the junta for the fourth time. He lost, not to voters, but to the machinery of a dictatorship. But this time, he did something that had never been done before. He swore himself in as Uganda’s true president. By 2016, Ugandans knew the script: the junta controls the Electoral Commission. The military ensures “the right” winner. The courts bless the fraud. This time around, Besigye declared himself the legitimate winner and, held his own swearing-in ceremony. And what did the junta do? Exactly what cowards do, it panicked. A man taking an oath in a small, private ceremony terrified a whole government. Within hours, Besigye was arrested, isolated, and locked in his home under heavy military surveillance. Meanwhile, the junta, wrapped in military protection, was being sworn in for the seventh time to lead a country that no longer wanted it.
By 2017, the junta had already spent 31 years in power, and the Constitution was the last thing standing between it and a life presidency. As Parliament prepared to scrap the age limit, Besigye and his allies fought back. They organized protests, mobilized activists, and exposed the sham for what it was: a dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. What followed was a scene only possible in a regime allergic to dissent: Opposition MPs were beaten and dragged out of Parliament. Security forces stormed opposition meetings. Protesters were tear-gassed, arrested, and brutalized. The junta got its amendment. But it also got something else; a permanent stain on its already battered legacy.
The greatest threat to any dictatorship is not an armed rebellion, but a man who refuses to be owned. In 2021, the FDC, the party Besigye had built into the leading opposition force, was infiltrated and compromised by the junta’s money. His former confidants, the very people who once stood with him, turned against him. They insulted him with the same arrogance as the regime he had fought for decades. Instead of breaking, Besigye walked away, gathering true patriots at Katonga Road and refusing to be part of a puppet opposition. The junta had successfully purchased a party, but it could never purchase the resistance.
In November 2024, when they realized even his own party could not be used against him, they abducted him from Kenya. A court martial was assembled, determined to try him as a soldier even though he had left the military 24 years prior. But Besigye did what Besigye does best, he refused. He rejected their illegal trial, standing firm that he was a civilian, not a soldier. Under intense pressure, the Supreme Court was finally forced to deliver a long-overdue ruling on the Kabaziguruka case, declaring that civilians could not be tried in military courts. The judgment, handed down on January 31, 2025, was not just a personal victory for Besigye, it was a triumph for every Ugandan and the posterity.
The ‘baby junta’ was enraged, cornered and humiliated, declared that Besigye would be hanged on a tree they had planted in Gulu on Heroes’ Day. But Besigye, the man they could never break, responded in the only way he knew how, with defiance. He launched an eight-day hunger strike, refusing to eat until he was brought before a civilian court. The pressure became unbearable. The international community, the Ugandan people, and even some within the government could not justify what was happening. Last week, Besigye was finally transferred to a civilian court.
If leadership is measured by titles, then the junta reigns. But if it is measured by impact, integrity, and the ability to inspire generations, then Uganda’s greatest leader never needed to swear in. History will remember him not as a man who ruled Uganda, but as the man who ruled its conscience. And that, in the end, is a victory far greater than the presidency itself.
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The author is a lawyer and an advocate for good governance
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