Uganda: Slow Poison - Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State

What the report says

AllAfrica published a review of Mahmood Mamdani’s 2025 book *Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State*, written by Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie and issued by Wits University Press. The review says the book centers on Uganda’s two defining presidents: Idi Amin, who ruled from 1971 to 1979, and Yoweri Museveni, in power from 1986 to the present. It draws on archival material and family sources to examine their lives before office, their governing style, and their longer-term impact on the Ugandan state.

According to the review, Mamdani challenges long-standing portrayals of Amin in western media and argues that some of the most notorious stories about him were propaganda. The book also gives substantial attention to Amin’s 1972 expulsion of Asians, presenting it as part of a broader Africanisation project and a major turning point in Uganda’s political and economic history. The reviewer notes that the book discusses how the expulsion was organized, how property was handled, and how the state treated those forced out.

The review says Mamdani is more critical of Museveni, portraying his presidency as focused on consolidating power rather than advancing reform. It argues that Museveni deepened ethnic divisions and weakened national unity. The book, as described in the review, is important because it revisits two highly contested eras in Ugandan history and seeks to rethink how Amin and Museveni shaped the modern state.