Ubuntu Broadcasting

One of the biggest obstacles to true African unity isn’t always external — it’s internal. A growing trend across the continent shows sitting presidents placing their sons and close relatives in powerful military and security positions. This quiet but strategic move tightens personal control, weakens institutions, and creates political dynasties that divide nations rather than unite them.

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has promoted his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba through the military ranks, culminating in his appointment as Chief of Defence Forces in 2024 — a move widely seen as grooming him for succession.
In Chad, power shifted not through elections, but through bloodlines. After Idriss Déby’s death, his son Mahamat Déby was installed as head of the Transitional Military Council, bypassing constitutional order and consolidating power through the army.
In Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has positioned his son Sean Mnangagwa in the elite Presidential Guard, while his cousin-brother General Phillip Valerio Sibanda leads the Defence Forces. His family’s growing visibility within the military points to a carefully controlled power structure.
In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame’s son Ian Kagame serves in the elite Presidential Guard, a prominent role that reflects growing family influence in state security.

When armies are led by relatives, national institutions become family property, and loyalty shifts from constitution to clan. This fuels political polarisation, undermines trust between states, and weakens the foundations needed for continental cooperation. Instead of building strong, democratic states that can unite under shared goals, countries become trapped in personalised rule — where power is guarded by blood, not by law.

For African unity to be real, the military must remain professional, neutral, and accountable to the people, not extensions of presidential families. True unity cannot grow in a continent where leadership transitions are decided by family trees and armies act as private insurance policies.

The vision of a united Africa demands strong institutions, not strongmen.
It requires constitutionalism, not dynastic militarisation.
And it calls for collective trust, not inherited power.

Do you think this trend is being taken seriously enough across the continent?

Maponga Mara-Rah III ChangaMbire - "Farmers of Thought"
Economic Freedom Fighters
African Union
PLO Lumumba

In 1781, the British slave ship Zong carried over 470 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. When sickness and dwindling supplies threatened profits, the crew murdered 133 people by throwing them overboard—later filing an insurance claim for their lost 'cargo. This atrocity, exposed in the 1783 court case Gregson v. Gilbert, became a rallying cry for abolition.

The Zong massacre reminds us: colonialism commodified human life, but it could never extinguish resistance. At Ubuntu Broadcasting, we honor those stolen ancestors by unearthing hidden histories and amplifying voices of justice. Their truth lives in our memory. Their fight continues in ours.