Why Jimmy Akena’s leadership is not drama, but a revolutionary duty

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OPINION

By Arafat Engena Nekyon

The article titled “Why Jimmy Akena Should Stop the Drama” (New Vision, October 24, 2025) by Mr Joel Okao Tema misrepresents both facts and principles. It downplays a serious ideological struggle within the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC). This struggle is not about individuals; it’s about maintaining the revolutionary spirit of a party that played a key role in Uganda’s independence and political foundation.

Calling Jimmy Akena’s leadership “drama” ignores both history and the realities of political organisation. The UPC is not a platform for entertainment; it is a movement born from the aspirations of a young nation seeking liberation. Akena’s job is to defend the party's integrity, unity, and ideological foundation during a time when politics often focuses on personal gain and convenience.

UPC’s internal challenges did not start with Akena. They arose when opportunism and discipline issues took root. Loyalty to principles was replaced by loyalty to convenience. Akena’s attempts to restore order and assert the party’s identity have drawn resistance from those uncomfortable with discipline and accountability. His critics confuse firmness with arrogance, but Akena is the button that holds the UPC party jacket from falling apart.

Unlike many of his counterparts, Akena has not sacrificed the UPC's values for outside control. He has chosen a tougher path: rebuilding from the ground up, reorganising grassroots efforts, and reconnecting the party to its original supporters, the people.

Those who claim to represent “the true UPC” should remember that the party’s founding philosophy was never about internal conflicts. It was about national unity, social justice, and self-determination. Akena’s leadership aims to revive that purpose, not to cater to factions, but to benefit the country. To label that effort as political theatre is not just unfair but intellectually lazy.

The UPC has faced tougher challenges in the past. It has been banned, persecuted, and misrepresented. Yet, it has always risen again because it is grounded in conviction rather than convenience. Jimmy Akena embodies that same spirit of resilience.

In disregard of the ruling delivered by Justice Bernard Namanya on July 18, 2025, Mr Okao casually dismisses the virtual delegates’ conference held before the expiration of the term according to the ruling, and goes on to criticise Akena for not “amending” the constitution, a function of the same delegates’ conference he already dismissed. Albeit giving the impression that he is well read, and particularly understood the UPC constitution, Mr Okao expresses fear for gambling with his “future” by a leader of a political party he doesn’t belong to. But if you ask me, my fear of a man with one unread book is worse than the fear of a man with one hundred books.

While I give Mr Joel Okao credit for attempting to be the voice of Lango, I must say that his handwriting in his conflicted article is that of what Karl Marx called a “Lumpenproletariate”: an unpolitical lot without interest in revolutionary advancement, but rather only moved by a meal.

It’s the hope of the oppressed majority that the tears of Akena water the tree of social justice, and that each one of his footsteps in the direction of the Third Liberation echoes with the promise that Akena-Obote will not rest until the future bows to the will of the people.

The writer is a member of the public