Betrayed by My Leader: The Memoirs of John Kazoora

However, the book is not as explosive as it seems. I found it to be funny, informative and bitter all at once. However, most of all, much of it was highly readable.

The book covers the life of Rtd. Major John Kazoora from 1958 to 2012.

The author joined the Ugandan Bush War in 1982 after completing a degree course at Makerere university and later held varied posts (as well as experiencing various postings) in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government.

These posts were Special District Administrator of Kabale and later Kampala, Director in the Internal Security Organisation (ISO).

Later, when he was on his way out of the NRM, he was elected Member of Parliament for Kashari from 1996-2006.

In 2005, before completing his term as MP, he jumped ship to become a founding member of the opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), after opposing the elimination of presidential term limits.

As implied by the title, the author argues that NRM, particularly its leader President Yoweri Museveni, have betrayed the founding principles which anthologised its listed grievances against regimes which came before it.

In the fun parts of the book, Kazoora was positively appalled (he claims) by the way President Museveni moves political players like chess pieces in a chess game already won by him.

“James Wapakhabulo had effectively chaired the Constituent Assembly. He had won the hearts of the delegates, many of whom had now joined the 6th Parliament and no wonder he was overwhelmingly voted in as Speaker.

Museveni’s character is such that he doesn’t want anybody to be popular except himself, so when he thought Wapakhabulo was becoming influential on the national political scene, he plotted his downfall.

Museveni’s first strategy was to move Wapakhabulo from Speaker and appoint him to the post of the defunct National Political Commissar on the pretext that he was going to mobilise the entire country with a view to succeeding him,” Kazoora wrote.

The book is an interesting insight into the workings of an NRM government long passed its use-by date, yet is able to hold sway in Uganda like no other political force in the country’s history.