On October 22, 2025, Uganda woke up to horrifying news that an accident on the Kampala-Gulu highway had claimed 46 lives. Four vehicles, two of them buses, had been involved in this deadly crash near Kitaleba village.
Cause: initial Uganda Police Force reports indicate the two buses, coming from opposite directions, were simultaneously trying to overtake vehicles in their lanes. Result: head-on collision.
Just like that, 46 lives were snuffed out in an instant. The severity of the accident, coupled with our inadequate medical care, meant that survivors were rushed to the understaffed, under-resourced Kiryandongo Hospital, which almost certainly means the number of fatalities in this accident will rise.
Exactly a year ago to the day, 24 people lost their lives on the same highway in Kigogwa, Wakiso district, when a fuel tanker overturned and exploded. A year later, few seem to remember the tragedy that claimed so many young, striving lives, which were at work in that busy trading centre. This should not be so!
The time has come to declare road accidents a national emergency in Uganda. Joe Walker (Joseph Beyanga) should not remain the lone voice crying for sanity on our roads with his marathon walks.
There is hardly need for novel solutions like requisitioning for speed guns and enacting new draconian laws. Simple, consistent enforcement of current traffic flow rules for all would work wonders on cutting back road carnage in Uganda.
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On February 20, 2016, President Museveni vowed that Uganda would not have an opposition in five years. President Museveni’s declaration, bitter sounding and angry, seemed odd considering that he had just won another term to lead the country in that year’s elections.
Ten years later, we seem to be witnessing a play out of that vow. One by one, all the major opposition figures who gave Museveni a run for his money to retain the seat he marched into Kampala to claim by force of arms in January 1986 are being forced off the political scene.
Dr. Kizza Besigye, the most “troublesome” player on the political chess board since 2000, and a thorn in the 2016 general election is out of the action. Besigye has been incarcerated since November 20, 2024.
The vehicle he used to mobilise so much support for his opposition, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) fractured in 2023. Besigye became part of a select club of Ugandan politicians who found and then away away from their party.
Joining him in that acrimonious walk were longtime loyalists like Kira Municipality MP Ssemujju Nganda, Buikwe South MP Dr. Lulume Bayiga, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Salaam Musumba, Ingrid Turinawe and a host of others. To where? To found the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) in July 2025.
Today, Ssemujju Nganda, an acerbic critic of Museveni’s presidency and spending habits, finds his return to the 12th parliament in doubt after the National Unity Platform (NUP) fronted lawyer George Musisi in that Kira municipality seat.
Lukwago is not certain his 14 year run as Kampala mayor will continue with Ronald Baliwezo gunning for the ceremonial position that has kept Erias one of the most visible faces in the country for a decade.
As Besigye’s lawyer and voice calling out powerful interests encroaching on city land year in, year out, the eloquent Lukwago has been a fly in what should have been lucrative ointment for many in the central government.
Mathias Mpuuga, Medard Sseggona and improbably Allan Ssewanyana find themselves in the same choppy waters that threaten to sink their political careers before they have rowed them to their true zenith.
You could argue that all their current career doldrums are self inflicted. But it seems odd that so many vocal opposition voices who called for change of leadership of the country and came close to seeing it through are suddenly all facing the end of their active political lives at the same exact time.
The 2021 election came to be known as the red wave for the young politicians swept into office off the popularity of NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.
Plot 10 Kyadondo seems to have studied that long and hard and are determined the 2026 elections will be a yellow ocean overwhelming all in its way. Will they pull it off? January 15, 2026 is not too far anymore.
X/Twitter: @davidtumusiime
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