The author argues that the People Power movement in Uganda has reached a point of no return in their efforts to bring about change in the country, but that they would require more coordination and a united front to achieve their objective.  

Typical of Africa’s big-man “liberators”, Yoweri Museveni is unlikely to handover power to another leader. He has reached a point where he believes he alone is qualified to rule Uganda. Contrary to his self-glorification, Museveni is not in power because Ugandans love him. Rather, he has carefully manipulated national politics to enable him to rule for life.

With opposition candidates roughed up, arrested and held in house detention for fear they might ‘disrupt’ the electoral process, the man who once preached that staying too long in power would lead to corruption has been “re-elected” for an incredible fifht term to stretch his 30-year reign - and now himself lives under a cloud of corruption and abuse of power. What can Ugandans do?

Conversations with Ugandans reveal that people at the grassroots see ethnic federalism as one possible way of restoring and guaranteeing both socio-political accountability and economic security in a system that relies too much on increasingly narrow ethnic and political clientelistic networks.