There is a big, big problem with President Yoweri Museveni forwarding the names of alleged dual citizens to Parliament for vetting as ministers. The appointments have kicked up a huge storm. For me, the issue is that 30 million Ugandans are not dual citizens.
“Mononationalism”, requiring one to be a citizen of only one country, is a form of modern state-sponsored hostage-taking. The Ugandan State, sitting behind heavy iron gates, like many others, demands absolute loyalty while offering shaky public services, and yet tells you that loving another country is treason (as it did in the recent obnoxious Sovereignty Act).
That’s why dual or multiple citizenship for everyone shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for a small elite; it should be championed as the ultimate human right, because it breaks the monopoly governments hold over human lives. The modern idea of citizenship, consolidated in the 19th Century, was designed to ensure states had a compliant pool of taxpayers and soldiers who had nowhere else to go. It’s a political scam. It is a relic that has allowed governments to operate as monopolies. If you carry only the sky-blue Ugandan passport, the State effectively owns your labour, your assets, and your physical body.
It can tax you punitively, herd your children into underfunded schools, or restrict your rights, and your only real low-risk option is to take it. Of course, you can go to the bush and get killed. However, if everyone is a dual citizen, nations must suddenly compete for your residency and loyalty. Governments would have to treat their people like customers rather than captive subjects. If the Ugandan government passes draconian laws or mismanages the economy, citizens can instantly vote with their feet and move to Botswana, Canada, or any destination on their second or third passport. Universal dual citizenship thus introduces market competition into the State project, forcing governments to become more efficient, less corrupt, and more respectful of human rights to keep their tax base and pool of soldiers and police from evaporating.
And there is more. Nationalism thrives on the concept of the “other”-the poisonous idea that the person across the border is fundamentally different and a potential enemy. If everyone holds citizenship in at least two nations, the psychological concept of the nation-state fractures in a healthy way. It becomes more difficult for a demagogue or populist to drum up xenophobia or launch a border skirmish against a neighbour when 30 percent of their own population also holds that country’s passport or identity card. Universal dual citizenship would create a web of overlapping geopolitical loyalties that serves as a permanent, decentralised peace treaty, forcing political restraint by legal default.
Otherwise, the “birth lottery” is the most pervasive, invisible form of systemic inequality on Earth. A child born in a struggling village in Karamoja or a crowded corner of Kisenyi in Kampala faces a lifetime of international mobility restrictions purely because of the GPS coordinates of their birth. Meanwhile, a child born in Toronto or London gets a strong passport, institutional safety, and automatic access to global opportunities. The possibility for everyone to be a dual citizen would level the playing field. It decouples human potential from the tyranny of geography. It turns citizenship from an arbitrary caste system assigned at birth into an adaptable toolkit for human progress
We live in an era of rapid political polarisation, where a sudden shift in the political wind can radically alter the safety and rights of minority groups, scientists, intellectuals, or business owners overnight. Look at the dramatic 2021 military arrest of Lawrence Muganga on charges of being a “Rwandan spy”, which vanished into thin air days later. The only thing that had changed was that Uganda was no longer in an openly hostile diplomatic stand-off with Rwanda. Having only one citizenship means you are effectively a hostage to your country’s political pendulum. Universal dual citizenship provides every human being with an institutional “eject button.” It ensures that no matter how unstable or oppressive your home country becomes, you are never trapped. And that’s why millions of Ugandans should be dual citizens.