Why Museveni has taken this year’s National Heroes Day commemoration to Lyantonde
In choosing Lyantonde for Heroes Day 2025, Uganda isn’t just hosting a national function, it’s correcting the record. It’s shifting the spotlight from podiums to porches, from generals to grandmothers, from rifles to resilience.
As Uganda prepares to mark its 36th National Heroes Day, an extraordinary story of sacrifice, loyalty, and resilience quietly takes center stage. Not in the flashy national ceremony, but in the dusty, blood-soaked soil of Lyantonde.
This year’s commemoration will be hosted at Lyantonde Technical Institute, not merely out of rotation, but in powerful recognition of a district that has stood tall for decades as a silent powerhouse of the Bush War revolution.
“To the people of Lyantonde, the NRA struggle was personal. It wasn’t just a fight led by generals in fatigues, it was a fire lit in homes, hidden in granaries, and whispered through banana plantations,” declared Milly Babalanda, Minister for the Presidency, as she unveiled plans for the national celebration.
Indeed, while the nation salutes the prominent faces of the liberation struggle, Lyantonde’s farmers, mothers, teachers, and youth are emerging as the real unsung heroes, the lifeblood behind the bullets, the meals behind the marches, and the voices behind the whispers of resistance.
With over 98% electoral loyalty to the ruling NRM government since 1986, Lyantonde’s political commitment is not blind allegiance, it is earned trust forged in fear, fire, and faith. This district was not just a corridor for rebel recruits, it was a sanctuary, a supplier, a source of spiritual and material strength when the tides of war turned deadly.
“People were disappeared, tortured, and killed for being sympathetic to the cause,” Babalanda emphasized. “Lyantonde residents paid the price with their lives, their land, and their peace.”
Names of legendary contributors, both fighters and civilians, now rise from the shadows: Lt. Gen. Pecos Kutesa, Capt. Ben Muhanguzi, Mzee Bujanjara, Madam Akiiki Mugeiga, and scores more who offered not just food or shelter, but unshakable hope in Uganda’s darkest hour.
Their legacy runs deeper than medals and monuments. Today, Lyantonde thrives as an agricultural force, embodying Museveni’s mantra of chasing poverty from homesteads. Yet, its greatest riches remain the courage and loyalty etched into its hills and homesteads.
In choosing Lyantonde for Heroes Day 2025, Uganda isn’t just hosting a national function, it’s correcting the record. It’s shifting the spotlight from podiums to porches, from generals to grandmothers, from rifles to resilience.
