Bizeemu Then and Now:

 Bizeemu Then and Now:

Uganda has been here before.

In December 1980, the country stood at a crossroads, emerging from the wreckage of Idi Amin’s rule and promising itself a return to civilian governance. What followed instead was an election conducted under the shadow of soldiers, decrees, and quiet exclusions. The Uganda People’s Congress did not simply win; it presided over a process in which many of its rivals never made it to the starting line.

Candidates from opposition parties arrived at nomination centers carrying forms, letters of endorsement, and hope. Many left empty-handed. Some were told their English was insufficient. Others were informed their paperwork was incomplete. In some districts, returning officers simply refused to accept opposition nominations at all. In Tororo, seven Uganda Patriotic Movement candidates were barred without a single vote being cast. Across the country, UPC candidates were returned unopposed, not because they were universally supported, but because no one else was allowed to stand beside them.

No public announcement declared the election rigged. There was no single dramatic act. The system itself did the work quietly.

When results were finally announced, they confirmed what many already knew. The opposition protested. The Democratic Party rejected the outcome. Yoweri Museveni, whose Uganda Patriotic Movement had been largely excluded from the process, did not argue for a recount. He disappeared. Toward the bush.

That disappearance marked the birth of a five-year war and a new path to power — one forged not through ballots, but through bullets.

Nearly four decades later, Ronald Mayinja released a song titled “Bizeemu.” It was not a protest anthem in the traditional sense. It did not shout. It did not name names. Instead, it whispered. Bizeemu — things have gone wrong. The song described a country where laws exist but do not protect, where leaders speak of peace while citizens lower their voices, where truth survives best when disguised as metaphor.

The song resonated because it felt familiar.

In 1980, opposition voices were not silenced with mass arrests alone; they were suffocated through procedure. Today, the methods have evolved, but the feeling remains. Opposition rallies are blocked under the banner of public order. Candidates face arrests, travel restrictions, or endless court appearances. Legal frameworks are invoked not to expand participation, but to manage it.

Then, as now, power does not always arrive wearing boots. Sometimes it arrives holding a stamp.

Uganda’s current electoral climate carries the same tension that hung over the tally centers in 1980 — the sense that outcomes are shaped long before polling day. The language has changed. The justifications are more polished. But the effect is similar: a narrowing political space where competition is permitted only within carefully controlled limits.

Bizeemu is not a call to rebellion. It is a memory encoded in music. It reminds Ugandans that when elections lose credibility, people stop believing in ballots. In 1980, that loss of belief led to war. Today, the consequences are still unfolding — slower, quieter, but no less consequential.

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it hums softly in the background, waiting to be recognized.

And that hum, in Uganda, still sounds like Bizeemu.