Was It Ever A Fundamental Change?

(From The Monitor (Uganda) - AAGM)

Byline: Timothy Kayegira

On July 27, 1985 Ugandan President Dr Apollo Milton Obote was over thrown by the military. This was the second time Obote was being overthrown in a coup d'etat but the coup leaders were equally short lived in power as they were pushed out just months later by the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA/M) in January the following year. Upon assuming power, the NRM pledged to create a fundamental change.

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) seized power in January 1986, what has now become a cliché was announced and became the regime's catch phrase: the NRM had come to bring "fundamental change to Uganda."

It was to be a change as no other since independence, re-constituting the state, eliminating the old order inherited at independence, and starting Uganda along the way to economic development.

These extravagant promises were made to the nation in his inaugural speech by the NRA's leader, Yoweri Museveni on January 29, 1986. …