Reading the Uganda constitution A constitution is a good thing for any country to have; it provides structure, declares rights, and outlines the principles by which a society seeks to govern itself. But constitutional ownership is an even greater thing. This is because a constitution only becomes meaningful when the people it speaks for recognise it as their own. They must understand it, see themselves reflected in its promises and then defend it as their own. Without that sense of ownership, even the most progressive constitutional text fails to claim more respect than just as an impressive document on paper. Previously, this column reflected on whether we (as in Ugandans) did truly give ourselves the 1995 Constitution. In this regard, the inquiry went on to interrogate the “we” that appears in the preamble boldly claiming to be the collective voice that authored the Constitution. The subsequent column (on 14/20 January 2026) inquired into the identity of that collective voice, posing a question: ‘but who is this “we”?’ Owning a constitution requires more than agreeing that one exists. It also requires the ability to engage collectively on difficult questions, for example: What are our common problems? What direction do we want to take as a society? What sacrifices must we make to reach that destination? How do we ensure that everyone remains bound by the rules we set for ourselves? To get to that point, we must have attained the necessary patience, trust, and a willingness to place collective interest above individual convenience. Yet it is not always clear that we have reached that point. This is evidenced by the everyday experiences in our everyday life, the choices we make in public spaces, in moments where no law is actively watching. Consider, for instance a scenario in which city road cleaners are daily working under the sun to keep our roads clean. As this happens, the very people supposed to benefit from the cleaning service keep dumping garbage as if in some sort of paid routine. Perhaps the biggest irony, and countless are such cases, is the sight of a driver in a well-maintained Japanese used car lowering the window and casually throwing a maize cob onto the road before driving away. Yet the same driver will likely ensure that their car remains spotless, and the interior will be carefully maintained. I am told some drivers even expect passengers to meet certain standards of cleanliness before stepping inside these cars. But when it comes to a shared public space — the road that everyone uses — the sense of responsibility disappears. In that moment, the burden of maintaining city order falls almost entirely on the lone cleaner sweating under the sun. Such episodes capture something deeper about our national condition. While many of us are deeply attentive and ready to pay any cost to keep our personal spaces and interests clean, we tend to be remarkably indifferent to our collective spaces. I suspect this to be the reason President Yoweri Museveni has often argued that Uganda’s greatest challenge remains its level of social and economic “backwardness.” While the term “backward” can be uncomfortable, we must reflect on the broader point it makes, namely, that societies evolve gradually in their ability to organise around collective goals. Where collective consciousness remains fragile public institutions struggle to command genuine ownership. Beyond everyday civic behaviour, the above pattern is also evident in our political life where, from time to time, influential figures in opposition political parties have appeared at the so-called “dining table” of state power — including accepting positions or entering forms of cooperation to the surprise of their colleagues and supporters. The respective political party structures have countless times quickly distanced themselves from such decisions, noting that they were personal betrayals rather than collective strategy. The very fact that such moments of collaboration appear suddenly and individually, rather than through open internal consensus, reveals something deeper about the fragility of shared political purpose. Thus, even when such cooperation may reflect strategic judgement, the absence of collective ownership by the organs of the political party concerned leaves it contested and mistrusted. Even where the courts of law go ahead to affirm the legality of a political cooperation agreement that is internally contested (as happened recently in the case filed by Hon. Lumu Richard and Ors challenging the Democratic Party’s Cooperation Agreement with the NRM), the matter just gets to be legally resolved, while exposing how difficult it remains for institutions to sustain internal consensus around collective decisions. These dynamics suggest that perhaps what we often interpret as constitutional exclusion is not always the product of state design alone. Perhaps that exclusion also reflects the stage of social and political development at which we as a people are still at: our collective discipline is still weak. Our context makes it difficult to sustain constitutional ownership as happens for other forms of stewardship. This is because constitutions depend on shared discipline, the assumption being that citizens recognise the value of common rules and willingly accept the inconvenience that order sometimes demands. In such circumstances, power gravitates toward individuals or groups who claim either the vision to guide society toward greater coherence, or the coercive capacity to maintain order in the absence of consensus. Indeed, historically, many societies have passed through similar phases before building stronger cultures of collective ownership. Consider, for example, the early decades of the United States after its Constitution was adopted in 1787. Today that document stands as a global symbol of democratic self-government. Yet at the time, political participation remained highly restricted. Large segments of the population – including women, enslaved people, and even many citizens without property – had little or no say in how the system operated. Political power rested largely with a small elite class that believed society first needed stability before wider participation could be expanded. The circle of constitutional ownership gradually widened over generations, through reform movements, constitutional amendments, and intense social struggles. A similar evolution can be seen across many European states such as Britain and France where modern democratic participation did not emerge immediately with the adoption of constitutional frameworks. For long periods, governance remained concentrated in the hands of monarchies, aristocratic elites, or small political classes that claimed the authority to steer society toward stability, sometimes even suggesting that this was a matter of necessity. But after decades of institutional development, broader cultures of civic participation – for instance the gradual expansion of suffrage, the strengthening of local governance, and the growth of civic associations – started taking root. Only then did the constitutional texts in these countries transform into genuinely shared political compacts. Seen from this perspective, the gap between constitutional text and constitutional ownership is not unique to Uganda. It reflects a broader historical pattern in which societies gradually grow into the political systems they establish for themselves. The existence of a constitution may come first. The deeper culture that sustains it often develops much later. While this does not mean citizens should stop demanding accountability or greater participation (those demands remain essential to the evolution of any political system) it reminds us that constitutional ownership develops slowly, as societies cultivate the habits of collective responsibility required to sustain it. This may be the harder but more honest lesson for Uganda. If we truly desire constitutional ownership, the task does not rest with the state alone. It rests equally with us — how we behave in public spaces, how we build consensus within institutions, how we place collective responsibility above personal convenience. In the end, the Constitution can only be as strong as the civic character of the society that claims to own it. kilbrandonjose4@gmail.com The writer is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa.The post Uganda’s constitution and the problem of readiness appeared first on The Observer.