East Africa's sin capital: How Museveni built a nation on the politics of pleasure

As the recent police actions against 'indecent' and 'revealing' women's dress kicked up a storm in a new puritan push in Rwanda, something that Kigali would consider to be the work of the Supreme Lords of Hell took place in Kampala. The Kampala Style Brunch made its annual appearance in Uganda's capital. The women showed enough leg, thigh, and cleavage to blind an upright Rwandan morality enforcer. And the men — the rule seemed to be that if you have a deeply etched abdominal grid (abs), you don't cover them under a shirt. Their androgynous fashion and look was clearly at odds in a highly homophobic country which not too long ago passed one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world. For all that, the Kampala Style Brunch is still tame by Ugandan standards. The 'semi-nudity' at the Nyege Nyege music festival, now one of the largest in Africa, has outraged cultural and social conservatives for years, and they have tried — and failed — to shut it down a couple of times. Ugandan musician Jemimah Kansiime was unlucky. She didn't survive their rage. Known as Panadol wa Basajja (Pain Medicine for Men), she was arrested and charged for promoting pornography over raunchiness. It followed her release of a provocative dance track titled 'Ensolo Yange ('My Beast'). The music video featured extremely suggestive dancing and lingering shots of wet and soapy backsides. But Panadol wa Basajja was mostly a sacrificial lamb, served up to appease cultural conservatives ahead of election season. Otherwise, the Ugandan political establishment, especially President Yoweri Museveni, is generally reluctant to police bodies and what others might consider wayward and corrupting entertainment. He has spoken naughtily about seeing young women 'throwing their legs in the air' while being driven through Kampala at night, noting that they are 'harmless'. His son, Chief of Defence Forces General Kainerugaba Muhoozi, regularly makes social media posts that scandalise the godly. He has posted about women's derrieres, and joked that those with small tushes should be arrested. He has a constant stream about which African women are the most beautiful, and fantasises about marrying Beyoncé and capturing the sassy Nigerian musician Ayra Starr for himself. In a quickly deleted post on X a few days ago, he said the unsayable about women's body parts. The result of all that is that Kampala, if not all of Uganda, has become East Africa's sin capital, and its reputation for licentiousness and free living is bringing in big money as the city, famed for potholes and dirt, cleans up and a wave of new entertainment spots and restaurants sprouts. A Kenyan friend went to work in Kampala some time back, and together with friends did the famous party scenes in the city all of Friday night; spent all of Saturday (day and night) drinking and immersed in debauchery, and on Sunday morning, when they were returning from dropping off some unfortunate parents' daughters back to Makerere University, they were completely worn out from more than 36 hours of non-stop partying. They stopped their car on a roadside to clear their heads, and zonked out. Unbeknownst to them, they had stopped in front of a police station. The police picked them up and threw them in a cell. They were so passed out they didn't wake up. When the booze and exhaustion wore off, they were surprised to find themselves in a police cell. He swore to me that the devil lives in Kampala's night, and he would never return there, as the place 'ruins souls'. I agreed with him, and was glad that he had come to his senses. Three weeks later, he rang me late at night. He was tipsy and, clearly, was at a rowdy party. I asked him where he was. 'I must apologise. I broke my resolution; I am back in Kampala,' adding, 'pray for my soul.' The permissiveness of Kampala is, ultimately, part of a grand political bargain. The Museveni government allows Ugandans a great deal of freedom for sinfulness, and in return they have let him remain in power for 42 years without revolting against his rule. And this permissiveness has spread far beyond the capital. After the bloody 2013–2014 war in South Sudan, many African foreigners there fled into Uganda. The Eritreans, for one, have built up a lively cultural and party scene in northern Ugandan towns like Lira, which many would be surprised to find upcountry. The lower-level South Sudanese who steal a little oil money and state budget funds and can't fly to Nairobi or Kampala for a weekend of wretchedness drive to Lira or Arua to splash their cash and party. They attract women 'entertainment entrepreneurs' from as far as Ugandan towns like Mbarara, and countries like Kenya and Rwanda, who come to cash in. When I last visited both Lira and Arua two years ago on a writing assignment, I spoke to local women who complained about 'competition from women from neighbouring countries', who had cut into their profit margins. 'We don't go to their countries, why do they come here to spoil our business,' one of them asked in great indignation. The best answer to her would have been: because this is bigger than you, dear. It is the price you must pay for the grand Kaguta project. Kampala doesn't permit sin by accident. It strategically trades the people's outrage for their appetite.