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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025
In an explosive speech delivered to a charged crowd of supporters at Barifa sports stadium, the National Unity Platform Presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi laid out his vision for a new Uganda.
Projecting a country in which President Yoweri Museveni and the First Family will be out of the governance picture, Kyagulani painted a country that would be prosperous and united under NUP.
“You have seen us moving from Karamoja to Kisoro, from Kampala to West Nile and we are moving everywhere mobilizing the people to get united,” he said.
Kyagulanyi added: “99 percent of you have never seen another president. I’m older than most of you here. You have seen freedom, you have never seen another leader, so, you think it is okay to be without drugs in the hospital. You think it’s okay for these young people to be without jobs.”
The opposition leader said all that can change and all that is going to change with the coming elections if people turn up to vote and protect their votes.
“I’m here to present myself to you to ask for your permission and make be become the next president. My mission is not just to become president because you have been calling me president for 20 years I have been coming to Arua,” he said of his escapades as pop singer before veering into politics.
“I want us the young people to take charge and this generation takes over the management of our country,” he said to the crowd composed of the frustrated youths who were visibly not willing to listen to any other person other than Kyagulani.
They even threw caps, empty water bottles and shoes at NUP officials who were trying to curtain raise for the former pop singer commonly known by his alias, Bobi Wine.
Majority of the disgruntled crowd was drawn from the crammed suburbs of Arua City and Arua district and most of them kept smoking marijuana, cigarettes and drinking liquor as they listened.
They left atrail of destruction inpeoples crop fields as they retreated from the rally grouds from Barifa to town, marching through gardens of beans and potatoes.
In his biggest promise to the supporters, Kyagulanyi promised poverty eradication, paved roads and functioning hospitals stuffed with medicines.
“Kenya and Tanzania are not richer than Uganda. Do you know that the biggest gold deposit in the world is found in Uganda? But Museveni has made this gold his own. Each year USD$3b of gold is taken out of this country. All the gold and mineral deposits have been taken over by Museveni and his family. This wealth can be used to develop Uganda,” he said.
At least seven million Ugandans leave below the poverty line according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics housing and population census survey of 2023/2024.
This is the population that does not earn USD$1 in a single day and Karamoja, Bukedi and West Nile have the highest poverty index according to regional disaggregation.
In his reference to gold, Kyagulanyi was repeating a claim originated by government technocrats from the ministry of energy and mineral development which has also been cited by President Yoweri Museveni that they have discovered the largest gold deposit in the world estimated at about 31 million metric tonnes of gold ore which could yield 320,000 tonnes of refined gold.
However many international geologists and mineral experts have questioned the accuracy of this claim, stating that it would require an extraordinary level of concentration of gold in the ore and novel technology for refining that is superior to the existing technology to achieve such a yield of gold in Uganda.
The World Gold Council which ranks countries based on the official reserves of gold held by the central banks has paid deaf ear to the Ugandan claim.
Its list of top ten countries with the largest gold reserves in the world are United states of America, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, China, Switzerland, Japan, India and Netherlands.
Still Kyagulanyi thinks if Museveni is out of the picture, Uganda’s claimed gold potential can recreate an opportunity for fresh start comparable to the Independence Day euphoria.
“Now we have a chance and 2026 can be our 1962 (Independence year) once again. In 1962, all our elders from all over Uganda (West Nile Acholi, Lango, Karamoja, Ankole, Buganda etc) united to defeat the colonialists,” he asserted.
“We can do the same and defeat Museveni. As soon as we remove Museveni, there will be no more dictatorship in Uganda. Museveni will be the last dictator. There will not be another president who will rule us for 40 years. It will be the end of family rule,” he emphasized, appealing to the soul and mind of his audience the bulk of whom are the section of Ugandan languishing at abject poverty
New Uganda
Kyagulanyi said in the new Uganda, instead of buying bullets, the government will buy medicine to stock hospitals, instead of riot control vehicles for police and army, they will buy ambulances.
He reiterated that in the new Uganda to get a job will not depend on your tribe but it will depend on your curriculum vitae.
“There will never be a special tribe in Uganda, every Ugandan will be equal regardless of tribe, religion or wealth,” he added.
Kyagulanyi said: “in new Uganda our roads shall be tarmacked. Our teachers shall be paid equal salaries, our police and army shall be paid better and on time. We have the money.”
Kyagulanyi then attacked the government and president Museveni of corruption through which sh10 trillion is lost every year according to government records.
The Inspectorate of government report that Kyagulanyi based his address on puts the cost of corruption at an equivalent of 44% of the total domestic revenue of 2019, just before Covid distorted a lot of things.
The IGG specified areas of loss through corruption as environmental protection involving loss of resources and degradation estimated at sh2.8 trillion, public sector absenteeism where sh2.3 trillion is paid annually to absent civil servants in health and education sector, bribery in judiciary where sh763 billion is paid in bribes to judicial officers, sh614 billion lost in red tape in procurement and budgeting and corruption in natural resource royalties amounting to sh868 billion in losses.
This pervasive corruption significantly impacts public service delivery, stifles economic growth and erodes pubic trust in institutions, the IGG noted.
Kyagulanyi said that money is enough to tarmac all roads in Uganda to first class roads in three years and construct Airports.
“Right now if you want to fly to DR Congo, you have to drive seven to eight hours to Entebbe because it’s the only international airport, an airport that was there before Museveni came to power and is still the only one after 40 years of him at the helm as president,” he said to the amusement of the crowd.
Kyagulanyi also envisaged increased cross border trade where DR Congo and South Sudan will be key partners based on mutual friendship.
“DRC and South Sudan shall be our permanent friends. We shall not be at war with Congo, we shall be in business,” asserted Kyagulanyi.
Historically, relations between Uganda and DR Congo, formerly Zaire has been oscillating between friendly and acrimonious since 1960’s, bubbly recently in 1998 when Uganda Peoples Defence Forces invaded former Zaire to oust Mobutu Ssesseseko in support of Laurent Kabila.
Currently, the UPDF is jointly conducting antiterrorism operations against the Allied Democratic Forces under the operation Shujaa together with the Congolese army.
