Politics & Power Quote by Yoweri Museveni

A eulogy line this bland is rarely just bland. When Yoweri Museveni offers, "May the soul of the late President Milton Obote... a long-time member of this parliament, rest in peace", he is performing the careful, high-stakes choreography of state memory in a country where yesterday's rival can still mobilize today's resentments.

The wording is doing triage. Museveni uses the formal honorific "President" to acknowledge Obote's undeniable place in Uganda's history, but immediately tethers him to the safer, institutional identity of "a long-time member of this parliament". That pivot matters: it folds a divisive strongman into the procedural legitimacy of the state, turning a contested legacy into something the institution can absorb. Parliament becomes the frame, not coups, exile, or the violent ruptures that defined much of Obote's rule and his conflict with Museveni's own political origin story.

The ellipsis is almost a tell, a pause where the speaker could have named accomplishments or controversies but chooses neither. It's restraint as strategy: avoid rekindling the old arguments about responsibility, victimhood, and who "saved" the nation. "Rest in peace" is the minimalist closure line, a noncommittal blessing that signals decency without conceding ideological ground.

In context, this is reconciliation without intimacy. Museveni claims the posture of national custodian - above faction, above score-settling - while quietly recasting Obote as part of the system Museveni now dominates. It's not absolution; it's containment.