Social media is playing and increasingly large role in Ugandan politics, even after Facebook was banned, writes Solomon Winyi.

Ugandan politics is in a digital maze. Platforms, regulation, and a tweeting general have become ingrained in the country’s political, as well as digital, landscape.

X has become the most actively used platform for political action in the country. Posts include satire as activists use of humour or ridicule to expose and criticize vices of politicians. One hashtag, #KampalaPotholeExhibition, created a digital depository of poor governance and broken promises.  Meanwhile, the Chief of the Ugandan Armed Forces is using X to garner support worldwide.

In Uganda, X has become the competitive online space between the opposition and the regime after the closure of Facebook. One of the most prominent users is Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, a university professor and satirist. He uses humour to force the government to heed demands for political accountability and the provision of services. He created an online public sphere that shaped public opinion about the poor state of roads, health, and security sectors, among others across Uganda.

One of the striking features of the Ugandan online public sphere is common concerns and a disregard for status. The campaigns became sites of communicative and deliberative interaction. They feature citizens turning their attention to collective problems and democratically legitimate solutions. The campaign about the state of potholes led directly to government action to address the problem.  

The #UgandaPotholeExhibition, made President Yoweri Museveni to respond by directing the Ministry of Finance to release about £1.2 million for emergency road repairs. Similarly, the networked society depicted the dire state of Uganda’s health sector by posting pictures on social media. According to the Evidence and Methods Lab study, the posts reached 10 million followers who voiced their pressing healthcare concerns and expectations, thereby sparking public discourse. The outcome was an alternative space to make the government accountable and instantly get feedback with immediate solutions to avoid.

From Facebook to X

Social media has been a contentious space between the Ugandan regime and youth. Following the Obama campaign and the Arab Spring, the Ugandan regime used social media regulation to curtail political dissent. In the 2021 general elections, Facebook was banned after it appeared to selectively ban officials from the ruling party on accusations of altering public opinion during the general elections. At the time, Facebook was the most commonly used platform in Uganda.

X has reignited social media use for political ends in Uganda. It has attracted users through live audio conversations hosted by popular spaces such as Agora Discourse, a digital public square promoting human rights, public accountability and social justice. The spaces are also individually hosted by popular journalists such as Solomon Serwanjja and Canary Mugume. X was initially a topical platform for the elites in Uganda; however, this has changed in recent years, especially since the closure of Facebook.

X’s popularity has been due to broader changes in how political parties, politicians and activists engage with the public. The rise of social media and the growing importance of grassroots movements have amplified the voices of those who can mobilise the masses. The energy and passion brought by superstars with large followings, such as musicians including Bobi Wine, now the leading opposition politician, have brought a new life to Ugandan politics.

The Tweeting General

It’s not just musicians or opposition forces taking to social media. Uganda’s Chief of Armed Forces General Muhoozi Kainerugaba has taken social media by storm. His profile has sparked debates on how public officials use the online space for official or private communication. Popularly known for his weekend tweets in the early mornings and late nights.

Gen. Kainerugaba graduated from the UK’s elite Sandhurst military academy and devoted his time to the military by playing a pivotal role in forming the Special Forces Command. Until recently, his military career kept him invisible to the public domain. This was until he took to social media in March 2023 and announced his intention to be President after his father.

Through X, General Muhoozi – commonly known as the Tweeting General by the media – has earned a massive following of over a million people, as local and international mass media also propel him as they discuss his controversial tweets. The tweets have sparked debates in the Ugandan parliament, ministries, foreign affairs, and the populace, making him a known figure in most households in the country and abroad.

Like Donald Trump, the General is setting the news agenda with early and late tweets that always set news agenda for days, weeks and months. Because of the command he has over his X audience in Uganda, the General has also altered public opinion when the government is faced with controversies because his sensational tweets overshadow current events.  The Ugandan general is always playing  the Russian roulette on his X account—sometimes invoking fear among opponents, engaging in light banter with the public, or lightly tantalising the security establishment and Uganda’s neighbours.

The creation of the alternative political space by the Ugandan regime has helped to recapture the social media space from the opposition. In so doing, he has influenced the media narrative about the government and the public discourse about the country.

He has done so with a strategy that breaks with the conventions of strategic communication. He sometimes acts out of character and, counteracts his own perceived agenda by directing attention away from his political ambitions.

At first glance, his strategy is a non-strategy. He tweets in all directions, and his feelings rather than thoughts appear to guide the communication. This scattergun controversy has become his trademark. X, to him, therefore, is more than a social media platform; it is a direct line to Ugandans aided by traditional media locally and abroad, but it also has come to define him.

The strategy of online space control should be acknowledged as applicable in the general’s pursuit, exercise and retention of political power. His analogies of Bachwezi power and storytelling should not be undermined as political agents recognise that they are storytelling beings in both their actions and practices. The better story, not the more rational argument, often determines electoral support or success. We may not intuitively equate Gen Muhoozi’s idiosyncratic and impromptu tweeting style with finely calibrated, politically impactful rhetoric, but he has created a social media maze in Ugandan political space.

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