A Letter from the Author

The question I am asked most often is: “Why write about a man the world already thinks it knows?”

Growing up in a household where politics was not merely discussed as news, but lived as an everyday conversation, I came to understand early that there are always two versions of history. There is the history written in textbooks and repeated in speeches — the history of monuments, elections, and public declarations. Then there is the quieter history: the one whispered in corridors, debated in university dormitories, and shaped behind closed doors where nations quietly decide their future.

For many years, I watched the public image of Yoweri Museveni become increasingly divided. To some, he was a liberator and visionary. To others, he became a symbol of prolonged power and political contradiction. But as I reflected on the earlier years — the intellectual energy of East Africa, the revolutionary debates in Dar es Salaam, and the uncertainty that gripped Uganda during the 1970s and 1980s — I realized there was a deeper story worth telling.

I saw not only a soldier, but a strategist. Not merely a politician, but an architect attempting to rebuild a broken national structure at a time when many believed the country had lost direction entirely.

I wrote The Museveni I Know not to provide final answers or political judgment, but to explore the making of leadership itself — the ambition, discipline, ideas, and contradictions that shape revolutionary figures and influence nations.

This book is also about Uganda. It is about a country searching for stability after chaos, identity after division, and hope after uncertainty. It is about ordinary citizens whose lives are forever connected to the decisions made by leaders in moments of national crisis.

Through storytelling, satire, humor, and historical reflection, I wanted to create a narrative that invites readers to think beyond politics as performance and instead examine the deeply human drama behind leadership and power.

My hope is that readers will not only better understand the journey of one leader, but also reflect more deeply on the unfinished story of Africa — a continent still wrestling with the promises, burdens, and possibilities of independence.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

— Abel Mwenda
Author of The Museveni I Know