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In Ugandan politics, success is often framed as a function of numbers, party machinery, and public rhetoric.
Yet some political moments are not won by slogans or crowds, but by alliances of trust, identity, and professional solidarity. It is in this deeper, less discussed space that Muwanga Kivumbi needed, perhaps more than anything else, the deliberate support of his Baganda colleagues, particularly lawyers such as Medard Sseggona, Mathias Mpuuga, and Erias Lukwago, rather than the shifting sands of day-to-day politics.
This is not an argument about tribalism or exclusion. It is an argument about political reality, historical context, and strategic depth, things politics alone rarely supplies. Politics mobilizes emotion; law secures outcomes.
Kivumbi’s political battles, especially those touching constitutionalism, governance, and institutional power, were never purely political contests. They were legal struggles disguised as politics.
In such moments, lawyers do more than argue cases; they frame narratives, anticipate institutional traps, and translate moral outrage into enforceable rights. Figures like Sseggona, Mpuuga, and Lukwago understand how power actually retreats, not when shouted at, but when cornered legally.
Without that layer, political pressure dissipates; with it, pressure hardens into consequence. Buganda is not just a region, it is a political system. One underappreciated truth in Ugandan discourse is that Buganda functions as a political ecosystem, not merely a geographic or cultural identity.
Influence in Buganda is built through networks of trust, shared institutional memory, and collective defense mechanisms developed over decades of engagement with state power. Baganda lawyers, especially senior ones, operate at the intersection of cultural legitimacy, legal credibility and political restraint.
They understand when to confront, when to negotiate, and—crucially—when to retreat tactically to preserve long-term leverage. Kivumbi’s politics required that kind of quiet sophistication, not constant confrontation.
One of the least imagined, but most critical, failures in Kivumbi’s moment was the absence of a visible, coordinated professional shield around him. When Lukwago is under pressure, lawyers rally. When Mpuuga is targeted, legal voices contextualize.
When Sseggona speaks, institutions listen carefully. Not because they are louder politicians, but because they are lawyers with constituencies inside systems: courts. Bar associations, civil society, and international legal networks.
Kivumbi’s challenge was not popularity; it was institutional vulnerability. And institutional vulnerability is cured by professional alliances, not political slogans. Political coalitions are transactional and fleeting.
Identity-based professional bonds are long-term and resilient. They survive electoral losses, party fractures, and media cycles. Lawyers from the same socio-political milieu share similar risk calculations, reputational interdependence and a collective memory of state overreach.
That makes their support deeper, quieter, and more reliable than political endorsements. Kivumbi needed fewer microphones and more closed-door strategy rooms. The most uncomfortable truth is this; power does not fear anger. It fears preparedness.
Preparedness for lawyers involves anticipating the next five moves, allies shaping public record and legal arguments pre-written before accusations arise. That preparedness lives with people like Sseggona, Mpuuga and Lukwago, not because they are Baganda, but because they combine identity, intellect, and institutional literacy.
Kivumbi’s moment required a fortress, not a rally. In conclusion, history often judges leaders by what they did publicly. But survival, and eventual victory, is decided by what happens behind the scenes.
Muwanga Kivumbi did not lack courage or conviction. What he lacked was a critical mass of Baganda professional allies, particularly lawyers, who could convert political pressure into structural protection.
In moments of institutional confrontation, those three must converge. When they don’t, even the most principled politics stands exposed. Baganda professional allies, particularly lawyers, who could convert political pressure into structural protection. Politics excites the crowd Law secures the ground. Identity anchors loyalty.
In moments of institutional confrontation, those three must converge. When they don’t, even the most principled politics stands exposed.
The author is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda.
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