Yoweri Museveni

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician, dictator and former military officer who has served as the ninth president of Uganda since 1986.

Born in Ntungamo, Museveni studied political science from the University of Dar es Salaam where he initiated the University Students' African Revolutionary Front. In 1972, he participated in the abortive invasion of Uganda against the regime of President Idi Amin. The next year, Museveni established the Front for National Salvation and fought alongside Tanzanian forces in the Tanzania–Uganda War, which overthrew Amin. Museveni contested the subsequent 1980 general election on the platform of Uganda Patriotic Movement, though claimed electoral fraud after losing to the unpopular Milton Obote. Museveni unified the opposition under the National Resistance Movement and started the Ugandan Bush War. On January 30, 1986, after the decisive Battle of Kampala, Museveni was sworn as president.

As president, Museveni suppressed the Ugandan insurgency and oversaw involvement in the Rwandan Civil War and the First Congo War. He ordered an intervention against the Lord's Resistance Army in an effort to halt their insurgency. His rule has been described by scholars as competitive authoritarianism, or illiberal democracy. The press has been under the authority of government. His presidency has been characterized by relative economic success and, in its later period, an upsurge in anti-gay activity alongside numerous constitutional amendments, like the scrapping of presidential term limits in 2005 and age limits in 2017.

On 16 January 2021, Museveni was reelected to a sixth term with 58.6% of the vote, despite many videos and reports showing ballot box stuffing, over 400 polling stations with 100% voter turnout and human rights violations. As of 2025^[update], after 39 years of his authoritarian rule, Uganda has been ranked 163rd in GDP (nominal) per capita and 157th by Human Development Index.

Museveni is estimated to have been born on 15 September 1944 to parents Mzee Amos Kaguta (1916–2013), a cattle keeper, and Esteri Kokundeka Nganzi (1918–2001), in Ntungamo. He is an ethnic Hima of the kingdom of Mpororo (now part of Ankole).

According to Julius Nyerere, Museveni's father, Amos Kaguta, was a soldier in the King's African Rifles' 7th battalion during World War II. When Yoweri was born, relatives used to say, "His father was a mu-seven" (meaning "in the seventh"). This is how he obtained the name Museveni.

His family migrated to Ntungamo in 1960s then within the British Protectorate of Uganda. Museveni attended Kyamate Elementary School, Mbarara High School, and Ntare School for his primary and secondary education. He attended the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania for his tertiary education, where he studied economics and political science. While at university, he formed the University Students' African Revolutionary Front student activist group and led a student delegation to FRELIMO-held territory in Portuguese Mozambique where they received military training. Studying under Walter Rodney, among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa.

The exile forces opposed to Idi Amin invaded Uganda from Tanzania in September 1972 and were repelled. In October, Tanzania and Uganda signed the Mogadishu Agreement that denied the rebels the use of Tanzanian soil for aggression against Uganda. Museveni broke away from the mainstream opposition and formed the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) in 1973. In August of the same year, he married Janet Kainembabazi.