SATIRE
When given an opportunity to ask the President and give a vote of thanks during the presidential engagement with digital influencers at State House, social media influencer and media personality Daniel Katende alias Kasuku humorously resurrected a nostalgic conversations: The “Museveni-turns-into-a-cat” tale.
Remember the childhood folklore starter pack like “don’t whistle at night” and “if you misbehave, kalondoozi will take you?” Aww! then there was a president who became a cat, at least in our childhoods.
For a certain generation of Ugandans, childhood came with a peculiar civic lesson: the President (Museveni) could turn into a cat. And Kasuku resurfaced the nostalgic conversation when in his great sense of humor said: “Growing up, they told us that Museveni yali afuka Kappa nabulawo” Literally meaning that President Museveni would turn into a cat and disappear mysteriously.
Not metaphorically. Not politically. Quite literally. The story usually arrived unannounced, whispered in dormitories after lights-out or exchanged at village boreholes as dusk fell. President Yoweri Museveni, children were told, had the ability to change shape, most commonly into a cat allowing him to roam the country at night, listening, watching and, presumably, correcting homework.
Adults rarely confirmed the tale. They didn’t need to. Their silence did the work.
In these stories, the cat was no ordinary animal. It did not chase rats or fear dogs. It perched on fences during late-night conversations, sat calmly on verandas during whispered political complaints and appeared suspiciously whenever someone said, “But surely, he won’t hear about this.”
The implication was clear: he would.
Anthropologists might describe this as folklore. Political scientists might call it myth-making around power. Children simply called it survival knowledge. You did not throw stones at cats. You did not insult leaders at night. And you absolutely did not ask why the same man had been president since before you were born.
The cat, after all, had ears.
Like most childhood beliefs, the story served multiple purposes. It explained the inexplicable how one man could appear everywhere, know everything and outlast headteachers, head prefects and several generations of chalkboards. It also discouraged bad behaviour. A voter who believed the President might be watching from the mango tree was less likely to support a rival political group or ask hard questions.
In retrospect, the myth said less about supernatural powers and more about how authority was experienced. Power that feels distant, permanent and unchallengeable tends to acquire mystical qualities. When institutions are opaque, imagination steps in to provide clarity, even if that clarity has whiskers.
By adulthood, most Ugandans quietly abandoned the idea of feline presidential patrols. Reality intervened. Cats were revealed to be just cats: indifferent, aloof and primarily concerned with food. The President, meanwhile, remained very much human, visible on television, at rallies and in official photographs—always in daylight, always in the same form.
And yet, the story refuses to die. It resurfaces on social media, in nostalgic conversations and in jokes shared between people who grew up learning not to speak too loudly after dark. It has become less a belief than a cultural shorthand, a humorous way of acknowledging how power once felt omnipresent and unknowable.
No one today truly thinks the President prowls the night as a tabby. But many remember what it felt like to believe that he could. The myth endures not because it was convincing, but because it was useful.
In a country where politics often feels larger than life, perhaps it was inevitable that it would borrow from folklore. Every society creates legends about its rulers. Some imagine divine kings. Others invent benevolent founding fathers. Uganda, for a time, opted for a cat.
Quiet. Watchful. Always there.
And like all good childhood stories, it leaves behind a lingering lesson not about animals or magic, but about how power is seen when it stays too long in the same place, long enough for children to grow up around it, and for imagination to do the rest.
Who else was told about this tale?😄 You’re not alone. That story was part of the Ugandan childhood folklore starter pack, but it says a lot about how power is perceived. When leadership feels distant or untouchable, people fill the gaps with legend.
In short, you weren’t told that story because it was true. You were told it because stories travel faster than explanations.
