Yesterday, our presidential candidate, Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert delivered this speech shortly upon being nominated by the Uganda Electoral Commission to run for President of Uganda 2026- 2031
Fellow Ugandans and comrades in the struggle,
I am deeply humbled and profoundly honored to accept your nomination to be the next President of the Republic of Uganda. Thank you for the trust you have continued to place in me since I first offered myself for the presidential office in 2021. Today, my heart is filled with a deep sense of responsibility to deliver on that trust.
Together, we have been everywhere preaching the message of a New Uganda. And today, with this nomination, we start the final phase in our mission to freedom and true independence.
Since our nation was born in 1962, every change of leadership has been written in blood. The blood and sacrifice of ordinary citizens of Uganda and yet the leaders who promise liberation have always delivered oppression.
For 40 long years, one man and a small group of relatives and friends have ruled our country on gunpoint.
They have looted the nation and turned every institution of government into a tool of oppression.
They have reduced the citizens of Uganda into slaves on their own land. They have turned our poverty into a weapon of control.
And yet, Uganda is not poor, Uganda is rich.
Our land is fertile.
Our people are hardworking and enterprising.
We are rich in talent and creativity.
We are resourceful, we’re energetic, we’re young and promising.
Our country is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources. So our problem is not lack of wealth. Our problem is LACK OF LEADERSHIP. Leadership that serves the people instead of exploiting them. Leadership that seeks to uplift citizens instead of enslaving them.
On the struggle for freedom
Sisters and brothers, this is not the first time that we stand before you with a dream of a New Uganda. We made our first attempt five years ago in 2021. Hundreds of our comrades were illegally arrested and many are still in prison as we speak now. Many were tortured, many were killed while others went missing to the present day. And yet we refuse to give up!
I know some of you are already asking: Why vote again after what happened in 2021? Why do we risk it, the teargas, the bullets, the prisons, the torture chambers and even death which is awaiting for us? My answer to you is this:
We risk it all because the alternative is giving up and that’s 10 times worse.
If we give up now; we shall have no moral authority to complain about what happens next. If we surrender now, that means that the fighting spirit Ritah Nabukenya, of Frank Senteza, of Yasin Kauma and many others has been defeated. It means they died in vain. It means betrayal of our comrades who have spent years in prison counting on us who are still ‘free’ to continue fighting for their freedom too.
Therefore, no matter what happens, we must keep moving forward. Even if someone says the chance of winning is only 1%, WE MUST TAKE THE CHANCE and fight!
The protest vote
We have always been telling you about the PROTEST VOTE and today, let me explain it in more detail. We have voted before, we have won before and we have been rigged before. But this election is not going to be your usual election. We are going into this election as a way of protesting against all the injustice that has happened to us for 40 years. We are protesting and that protest begins NOW!
We must use this election season to rally the people of Uganda to express their anger and their hope in the ballot box! We are going in this election to protest legally, constitutionally and NON VIOLENTLY. We must mobilize the people of Uganda to come out vote in very large numbers; numbers too big to rig. We must lay different strategies and make different plans to ensure that we, the people of Uganda, free ourselves in this season.
To the Ugandans in the diaspora
You who send more than two billion dollars to Uganda every year, you’re Uganda’s biggest investors. We know that many of you fear to return home until things change. You fear because some of those who have come back, they have suffered the regime’s brutality.
We know that Sam Mugumya had just returned to Uganda after spending years in a Congolese jail when he was abducted from Mbarara several weeks ago. He remains missing to date.
We know Robert Kayingo Lujja, a lawyer who was recently abducted from the airport, held incommunicado for a month, before being forced back into exile without even stepping foot in his home. And there are many other examples…
But I tell you my friends; We’re fighting so that you can return home to your families in freedom and dignity. To be received with flowers, not handcuffs. We fight so that in Uganda, your children can get the opportunities that you never got. That’s why we fight.
Message to Gen Museveni
I know you don’t like to listen to young people, but at least listen to your friend Gen. Kahinda Otafire. Uganda was here before you, and Uganda will remain long after you are gone. You don’t have to burn it down on your way out.
The best guarantee for your legacy and for your security, and for what you and your people have earned in the last 40 years is to allow a peaceful and democratic transition. That opportunity is available and we are not a vengeful people. We still believe in peace, we believe in justice and we believe in reconciliation.
All we want is a FREE AND FAIR ELECTION, no military violence, no police brutality. Let this be an election, not a military operation.
Over the last five years, your regime has done everything to break our spirit; tried to silence us but we’re even louder. We are not giving up and you cannot defeat people who do not give up.
On threats and courage
Fellow Ugandans, I don’t need to tell you that the 2026 election is already not fair. You have seen Museveni’s son who is also head of the military promising to kill our people to guarantee 80% of the vote to his father. He also said that during these presidential campaigns, we will be forcefully guarded by his private militia, the SFC. The same SFC that is responsible for abducting and torturing our supporters.
So, as we go for this campaign, it’s like walking into the valley of the shadow of death. But I say this to you comrades, fear no evil for the Almighty God is with us. We shall walk but not get tired, will suffer but we shall not die. It will be painful, but we shall win in the end. We shall reach a New Uganda.
A Uganda where you will move in town and not see guns on the streets. A Uganda where security will protect the people, not terrorize them. A Uganda where teachers, soldiers and health workers are paid decently and promptly. A Uganda where the farmer earns fair income for their produce. A Uganda where traders do not suffocate under an exploitative tax regime. A Uganda where citizens can demonstrate on the streets about injustice and the response of the Government will be to listen to their grievances, not shooting them dead. A Uganda where jobs are not for the connected few, but for all those qualified and willing to work. A Uganda where leaders serve the people, and not the other way round.
What NUP has done
In the coming days, we shall unpack the details of that New Uganda in our Manifesto and we shall paint a clear picture of what Uganda will become, starting from January next year. But I can tell you my friends, that that New Uganda is possible in our lifetime.
As the National Unity Platform, even with the little resources we have had in the last four and a half years, we have already demonstrated that we are able to use less to achieve more. We have managed to acquire the biggest political party headquarters in Uganda. We launched the first Leadership School of its kind and we have groomed leaders at no cost to them; leaders that will uphold our values and offer leadership to the next generation. We have supported the families of political prisoners and missing comrades. We have refused to compromise our principles even when that has come at great personal cost. We have pursued and secured sanctions against those who steal from, and oppress our people. We have kept the struggle alive and we are only growing stronger.
To the international community
Uganda’s freedom is not only for Ugandans. If Ugandans are not safe, neither are our neighbors nor the western countries that receive us as asylum seekers. A free Uganda is a stable East Africa and a prosperous Africa. A free Uganda is an asset to the international community but Uganda under dictatorship is a liability to all nations. So, please, stand with us as we stand for democracy and human rights.
Tributes
To our senior comrade Dr. Kizza Besigye; To comrades Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, Bobi Young, Eddie Mutwe, Achileo, Machete, Gadafi, and all political prisoners: WE HONOR YOU. To your families, and every other Ugandan affected by this struggle: please do not lose hope. Your suffering will never be in vain.
Message to Campaign Team
And, finally to the comrades I will be moving with during our campaigns; the foot soldiers and the ordinary citizens who have nothing else to offer to their country but themselves: First of all, I want to thank you. From day one, we have stood together. Through tear gas, through bullets, through beatings, through abductions, through courts, through prison walls, and through funerals. You have been my shield, my eyes, my ears, my courage, my strength. You have been my friends, my real friends!
Today, as we go into what is likely to be an even more violent campaign, I will rely on you more than ever. We are embarking on a long walk to freedom. Whatever lies ahead of us is going to test everything we are and everything we stand for. But freedom has never come easily.
Our grandparents shed blood for independence 62 years ago. Our parents shed blood for what they thought was a liberation 40 years ago. Our comrades, in this generation, are in prison for this very struggle; they have shed blood for this struggle. Many of them are missing and they don’t even have graves, for this struggle. Let us carry on their mission. The same courage and discipline that have kept us going since 2017 until today, should carry us through this campaign.
Your duty in this campaign will not be to protect me. It will be to protect yourselves. To protect each other. To protect the people who will come for our rallies. You must be vigilant in every village we shall enter and at every rally we shall hold.
Be very solid and be very sober. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Be careful but never show fear. Fear is the weapon the dictator wants to use against us.
And, please, understand what we are fighting for: We are fighting for a better country. We are fighting for the farmers, for the boda boda riders, for the young graduates without jobs, for the ghetto youth whose future is being taken away in exchange for a few shillings, for the children growing up to an empty future.
We are fighting for that police officer who is ordered to brutalise you because you’re fighting for their children’s future and afterwards they have to return to their uniport without any health insurance for their family. Please don’t see them as enemies, they’re victims too and deep inside, they also wish that things can change some day.
If we succeed, this country will finally be free and things will never be the same again. Unfortunately, if we don’t succeed, not one will believe that we did our very best, which means we will be condemning our children to more slavery.
Therefore, comrade brothers and sisters, failure is not an option. We must get our freedom or die trying to get our freedom.
I don’t know how much danger is awaiting us on the campaign trail, but I know that we shall have to keep moving forward with hope and faith. We’re carrying the hope of our entire generation and this is a historical responsibility.
So prepare yourselves, hug your loved ones one final time and tell them that we are going to war. A war we never chose but was imposed on us by our oppressors.
We’re facing an enemy armed to the teeth but we are bare-handed. Only armed with the truth and God. We’re fighting for our God-given right to live like full human beings in our country.
We will never give up until we are free. And we shall be free in the end.
We shall be in charge of our country and we shall be the ones to determine our destiny. This is not a question of “if,” but a question of “when”.
Let us be strong and keep the hope alive. In the end, everything will be alright and if everything is not alright, then it will not be the end.
People Power — Our Power!
