It has been a week of memes, all manner of jokes, and ranting on social media. At the centre of it all was the Ugandan President, HE Yoweri Museveni. Museveni’s remarks were interpreted as ‘laying claim to Kenyan territory using threats of war.’
Interestingly, Museveni was among others emphasising the importance of unity of regional states and African countries in harnessing resources for the prosperity of its people. In this case, the access to the sea by landlocked countries like Uganda for the sake of trade and defence. ‘That ocean belongs to me; I am entitled to that ocean. In future, we are going to have wars.’There is nothing preposterous about what Museveni said if one looks at Article 125 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It grants landlocked countries like Uganda, right to access the sea and freedom to transit through states like Kenya and Tanzania, which border the ocean.
Interestingly, you did not hear as much emotional venom from Tanzania. The country is just fresh from a shambolic election that allegedly ended with the death of thousands of people. Social media being what it is, many netizens picked out what they thought would make a story and ran with it. Even Lee Njiru, the former press secretary of the 2nd Kenyan president, Daniel Arap Moi, chastised Museveni for being ungrateful by ‘issuing war threats.’ He talked about how Kenya and its army assisted him during his war in Luweero, which helped him grab power in 1986.
The Kenyan media and several politicians had their say too. The age of social media and high unemployment is interesting. The world wakes up and lurches on what is trending, comments exhaustively, even if it means taking things out of context. That is, until something new comes up. Museveni, in this case, got the stick for various reasons. He is the father of the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who in the past raised a diplomatic storm by threatening war against Kenya on his X handle. Museveni even apologised to Kenya for his son’s remarks.
Museveni himself is a gunman by profession. He leads a country that has a history of invading and interfering militarily in neighbouring countries like Tanzania in 1979 by Idi Amin, DR Congo, South Sudan, etc. Idi Amin even threatened to annex part of Kenya back in 1976.The charged Kenyans have, from time to time, viewed Museveni with suspicion. In 1987, the Uganda-Kenya border was closed temporarily after armed clashes. Each country accused the other of supporting rebel groups. Kenya’s Moi ostensibly accused Museveni of supporting the underground Mwakenya Movement, which was advocating for the return of multiparty politics. Ugandan youthful leaders, fresh from the bush, claimed that Kenya’s dictatorship was apprehensive that the Ugandan revolution fever would infect Kenya. The remnants of the forces from past armies that the NRA had defeated were allegedly holed up in Kenya.
In 2007, during the post-election violence, it was claimed that ‘Ugandan troops’ had been sent to help the Mwai Kibaki regime, which had just stolen an election from the late Raila Amolo Odinga. Several Ugandan cargo trucks were burnt or looted in Kenya as they transited.
Recently, during the Gen Z uprisings, the accusation against the Ugandan president and army resurfaced. Many young people were abducted, and others shot dead by the Kenyan police. The Gen Zs claimed Uganda was shoring up the embattled Kenyan president William Ruto like it had done repeatedly with Gen Salva Kiir Mayadit’s government in South Sudan.It does not make matters any better that Museveni made the remark at a time when he also lightheartedly disclosed the whereabouts of two Kenyan activists. Museveni said that Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, who went missing for 38 days in Uganda, were actually abducted by the Ugandan security and kept in the ‘fridge.’ That is an ungazetted detention centre where they allegedly found another about 150 prisoners who had never been to court.Over a year ago, in November 2024, Ugandan opposition stalwart Kizza Besigye and Obeid Lutale were abducted in Kenya and handed over to Ugandan security agents. Many Kenyans think there is a conspiracy in the two East African states to suppress the rights of individuals. All of these are unsubstantiated.That said, it is inconceivable that Museveni would contemplate any form of force to access the sea for all reasons ‘national interests.’
This is not just because over the last 40 years, most interests that keep a lot of Ugandans at all levels awake are parochial and personal. That sense of higher purpose and groupthink is waning.It is not practical to force your way through another country to do things like trade, as you would need their physical, economic, and security infrastructure to transit safely.
Coming at the time they did and the way they successfully elicited response and debate, the Indian Ocean remarks should be treated like the metaphorical red herring. In 1807, William Cobbett wrote about using strong-smelling smoked fish to distract dogs from a rabbit trail. Museveni is in an election seeking a seventh term. 40 years after taking office, he can hardly blame anyone for the many things that are amiss in the country. He is the past that he criticised. The terrible roads. The lack of clean drinking water. Children studying under mango trees. Insecurity in some areas. Land grabbing. Nepotism in the allocation of national resources. Corruption. The failure to provide justice in the courts of law. The abduction of opposition supporters and abuse of other freedoms. Bad elections. Hospitals without medicines and medical personnel. The armies of youth without jobs. The visibly high levels of poverty, etc. Museveni is still promising to solve these problems that have persisted for 40 years under his watch.It is difficult to take him seriously. He must reinvent himself, something that he has done over and over again. He has seemingly reached the end of the tether.
He needs a distraction. Something that explains Uganda’s failure to progress. Access to the Indian Ocean and the unity of states is now one of the stumbling blocks to progress. It apparently needs a strong and experienced leader like him to sort it out in the next five years. The hint about war is understandably drawn from the most successful side of him. It supposedly provides hope, for he has a proven track record there. Otherwise, there is nothing serious. Kenyans should relax and enjoy their ugali. Museveni’s Indian Ocean is a red herring for the Ugandan voters.