Jimmy Spire Ssentongo drew a cartoon of Alan Kasujja, the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre, giving social media bouts of laughter but also sparking a debate on whether he had overstepped the mark.
Mr Ssentongo did not name Mr Kasujja in the cartoon. Cartoonists rarely do, but the reference was clear. The figure is recognisable, and the criticism unmistakable.
Mr Ssentongo would probably never draw the cartoon if Mr Kasujja, a former BBC journalist who was appointed in January 2026, had nothing to do with the NRM government.
But he is effectively the official spokesman of the government—and it has large skeletons in its closet. So, as many of us like to say these days, it is easy to see where Mr Ssentongo is coming from.
I was probably the first person to write about Mr Kasujja’s job in an article that was published in February in my Weekend Monitor column, now the Weekend Monitor.
My argument was that the new job was a career descent, given Mr Kasujja’s background and the government’s excesses. He commented on the article on social media and called it “nonsense”.
While it is hard for people like Mr Ssentongo and journalists not to criticise image-makers of governments such as Uganda’s, critics tend to lose sight of one important factor: what people doing such jobs stand to gain—and what they risk without them.
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Mr Kasujja had worked in Uganda before he joined the BBC in 2012. If there was a good international job, say, at CNN or the New York Times, awaiting him, he would probably think long and hard before taking up a role at the Media Centre.
Leaving the BBC meant settling back in Uganda and, crucially, finding ways of making a living. Many critics of autocratic regime enablers or apologists overlook this factor. But it means a lot. People have to earn, even in retirement.
The late Eriya Kategaya is a good example. After falling out with President Museveni, life outside the government proved difficult, and his eventual return to the NRM government suggests how hard it can be to sustain influence, income and security away from the state.
Mr Kasujja’s job comes with power and protection. Consider this: In Uganda, apart from senior government officials, royals and maybe top clergy or investors such as Sudhir Ruparelia, few can call the police at 2am when they are in danger and get immediate help.
The police will give lame excuses. If, for example, you are being attacked by robbers, they will do whatever they want, and the police will come at daybreak when the assailants are already gone.
Mr Kasujja is in the happy position of calling his hiring managers in the dead of night and getting help immediately if he is under attack. How many Ugandans have that privilege?
The regime has offered many people jobs that come with international travel opportunities, diplomatic passports, vehicles, drivers paid by taxpayers, 24/7 security and medical care.
Critics of autocratic regime proponents are often so focused on the moral question that they overlook the practical one: what it means, in real terms, to turn such an offer down.
If, for example, a job enables someone to travel the world with their family and all expenses are met by the taxpayer, only a saint is likely to say no. Many will accept—and, in doing so, bracket off the regime’s human rights record, repression and other excesses.
This is not to say that such choices should not be criticised. It is to say that criticism that ignores the constraints within which those choices are made risks missing the point.
It is also worth mentioning that autocratic regime enablers have a PR-ish way of framing their working relationship with the government. They say they are Ugandans working for Uganda, not for the regime.
So critics can say and do what they want, but Mr Kasujja and others are not acting in a vacuum. The incentives are real, the perks are enviable and the choices—however uncomfortable—are rarely as simple as they are made to appear.
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🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.