By: Mahir Balunywa
Center for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis
As we anxiously await the launch of Mahmood Mamdani’s critical book Museveni’s Uganda: Worse than Amin, set for October 14th, early readers have already welcomed it as a long-overdue script.
Mamdani appears to be saying something extraordinary to ordinary readers. Some even believe he is offering something that others have not dared to say—perhaps because he speaks from the “academic tower.”
When Mamdani first wrote his maiden book Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda in the early 1970s, the West embraced it, placing it prominently on billboards, despite the fact that Mamdani held the West complicit for Amin’s crimes in Uganda. In that book, Mamdani demonized Amin in the Western imagination, calling him the “Hitler of Africa,” and argued that the West was entirely complicit in Amin’s rise and reign. He claimed that Amin came to power with the blessings of Britain and the West, who supported him because he allowed them to continue extracting resources and labor from a neocolonial Uganda. According to Mamdani, the West helped Amin militarize the economy.
What Mamdani did not disclose was his personal grievance: he was criticizing Amin largely because of the expulsion of Indians—a caste to which Mamdani himself belonged. Nor did he mention that Amin had, in fact, secured scholarships that helped many Indians, who then rose to professional prominence thanks to their labor in Uganda.
Today, Mamdani returns with a new title: Museveni’s Uganda: Worse than the Amin Era.
I personally see Mamdani’s narrative as a rehash of a common parlance that has been in the public domain for over three decades. Many have used the same script and later abandoned it once they joined the “eating” system.
When Apollo Nsibambi was still fighting for Buganda’s FEDERO demands, which later seemingly materialized through his appointment as Prime Minister, he sang the same chorus. A good number of UPC members also compared Museveni to Amin—and even to Hitler. However, once integrated into the Movement (NRM) system, after receiving ministerial or ambassadorial appointments, many of them abruptly abandoned that narrative. Members of the Democratic Party (DP) behaved similarly.
Mamdani has simply picked up the same old script, redesigned it, added a new publication year, and signed his name as the author.
We must remember that no one criticized Amin more sharply than Mamdani and Henry Kyemba. If one wanted a critical account of Amin, one turned to Mamdani’s Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda.
What Mamdani does not disclose today is that he was once a mentor to Museveni and to NRM ideology during their exile in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Professor Nabudere once described him as the ideologue of FRONASA during those days. Mamdani introduced the Resistance Council system and strongly supported the early neoliberal reforms of the NRM government.
Mamdani promoted the decentralization policy in Uganda, which led to the “clusterization” of small ethnic groups—something he now criticizes. He was a frequent academic at NRM secretariat events and at Kyankwanzi cadre courses. He joined Museveni in embracing the Washington Consensus and never criticized privatization, decentralization, or other neoliberal reforms.
In fact, Mamdani actively participated in setting up the Resistance Councils and was once elected as an LC1 leader at Makerere University, boasting that he wielded more power than the Vice-Chancellor.
Ironically, it is Museveni’s Uganda—which Mamdani now criticizes—that restored his Ugandan citizenship. Amin had canceled Mamdani’s passport and expelled him. Museveni’s regime reinstated his citizenship, allowing him to reclaim his native rights in Karamoja.
Moreover, under Museveni’s direct influence, Mamdani’s contract as Director of MISR was unconditionally renewed—contrary to standard public service regulations. Many of us were, at different times, victims of Mamdani’s reign at MISR.
One must wonder about the timing of Mamdani’s new book. After being part of, and benefiting from, the NRM system for decades, why criticize it now? Has Mamdani turned into one of those professors (like Nsibambi) who spoke boldly until they secured their share? Is his book a result of broken personal relations? Has he failed to secure something he wanted from Museveni, and now seeks revenge through writing? Or is he simply switching allegiance to a “government in waiting”?
Does Mamdani have the moral authority to criticize a system he benefited from for four decades?
If Museveni’s Uganda is the poison Mamdani describes, then Mamdani himself must be seen as one of the poison’s manufacturers.
The final question remains: What is worse—the poison or its manufacturer?
In light of this, Mamdani should be the least critical of his student, Museveni.