When President Yoweri Museveni unveiled his latest campaign slogan, “Protecting the Gains,” it landed less like a battle cry and more like a bedtime story. For a man who once promised “fundamental change,” the new mantra sounds suspiciously like “let’s not break the furniture.” It is a slogan that hums in a lower key — cautious, reflective, even nostalgic. If slogans had moods, this one would be sitting by the fireplace, sipping porridge, reminiscing about the good old bush war days.
The choice of words is telling. “Protecting” implies that the best days are already behind us, that the task now is not to conquer new frontiers but to guard the trophies on the shelf. It’s a shift from revolution to retirement planning — the political equivalent of locking the gate before sunset. In the language of governance, it signals a regime that has moved from creating history to curating it.
Of course, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) faithful will tell you that the gains are many — peace, roads, schools, electricity, and stability. And indeed, Uganda today is not the chaotic battlefield Museveni inherited in 1986. But for the restless youth in Kampala’s slums or the unemployed graduates pacing the streets of Gulu, the slogan feels like a rich man’s hymn to comfort. What exactly are we protecting, they ask, when the price of everything keeps rising except hope?
The comedy of the slogan lies in its irony. After nearly four decades in power, the NRM still campaigns as though someone else has been running the country all along. The same government that has commanded every ministry, budget, and district for generations now warns citizens to guard the achievements — from whom, exactly? The opposition, which can barely hold a rally without a police escort? Or perhaps from the creeping possibility of change itself? It’s a bit like a man eating a mango alone, then standing up to announce: “No one should touch my fruit!”
At the rallies, the slogan is delivered with gusto. There are dancers, drums, bright yellow shirts, and the familiar chorus of praise. Yet even in the jubilation, one senses the weariness of a system that has danced to the same tune for too long. The rhythm is there, but the melody feels recycled — a remix of a hit song from 1986, performed by an artist whose voice now carries the gravel of time. The crowd still cheers, but not as wildly; the applause feels more polite than passionate.
In political psychology, slogans like “Protecting the Gains” often mark the sunset of a long regime. They are less about inspiring the future and more about embalming the past. They say, in essence, “We may not change much, but let’s not lose what we already have.” It’s a message of continuity wrapped in caution — a pitch for patience, stability, and the reassurance that the captain, though grey-haired, still has his hand on the wheel.
Yet history warns that when governments begin to speak in the language of protection rather than production, decline often hides beneath the rhetoric. A country that becomes too busy guarding its achievements may forget to achieve anew. The obsession with preservation risks turning politics into museum work — dusting off old portraits and insisting that they’re still fresh.
Still, the slogan is clever politics. It allows Museveni to recast the coming election not as a contest of ideas but as a moral duty — a patriotic defense of “our gains.” It positions the president as the custodian of Uganda’s story, while painting his challengers as potential vandals. It’s the kind of framing that demands loyalty, not scrutiny. And in a society weary of instability, that emotional appeal can be disarmingly effective.
But slogans, like seasons, reveal their own time of day. “Protecting the Gains” is not the language of dawn. It is the language of dusk — of a leader watching the sun lower gently over a long political landscape, determined to hold on to the light a little longer. The revolution that began with the fire of youth now speaks with the careful voice of age. The battle cry has become a bedtime tune.
And perhaps that’s the unspoken truth hidden in the slogan’s calm rhythm. Every long-serving ruler reaches a point when the greatest enemy is not rebellion, not opposition, but the quiet tick of history’s clock. The longer one stays, the louder that clock sounds. In that sense, Museveni’s slogan may be the most honest he has ever chosen. It’s not a promise of a new Uganda — it’s a plea to preserve the one he built, and perhaps the one he cannot imagine living without.
In the end, “Protecting the Gains” is both a campaign theme and an epitaph in waiting — a reminder that even the most powerful revolutions eventually grow old enough to worry about themselves. And as the music of the rallies fades into the evening air, one cannot help but wonder if Uganda is still dancing forward — or merely dancing in circles, under the long, familiar twilight of its own making.
The Author is a political commentator, researcher, and social worker with a focus on governance and youth civic engagement.
