By Crystal Kabajwara

My thoughts in this season are based on the book of Nehemiah – 2:16.

“The city officials did not know I had been out there or what I was doing, for I had not yet said anything to anyone about my plans. I had not yet spoken to the Jewish leaders — the priests, the nobles, the officials, or anyone else in the administration.” – Nehemiah 2:16.

As a student of leadership, I was advised to read the book of Nehemiah.

It centres on the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem had been in ruins for over 140 years. The walls were broken; the gates burned, yet there was still a full administration.

That is what perplexed me.

While Jerusalem lay in ruins, an entire government existed—priests, nobles, officials, and leaders who presided. They held titles. They collected taxes. They settled disputes.

They presided.

However, they presided over ruins.

When Leadership Learns to Manage Dysfunction

That image should haunt us in Uganda today.

We have no shortage of leadership structures. We have ministries, authorities, commissions, boards and task forces. The last estimate we had during elections stated that there are about 1.5 million elective leadership positions here.

We have budget framework papers, strategic plans, and launch ceremonies. On paper, the system is complete.

However, on the ground, we live among ruins.

We preside over roads that turn into rivers when it rains and still commission them. We preside over hospitals where patients bring their own gloves and bedding, and we call it healthcare. We preside over schools where children sit on the floor for seven years, and we celebrate Universal Education. We preside over a justice system where a file can disappear longer than a sentence, and we speak of the rule of law.

The problem is not a lack of leadership. The problem is what our leadership has learned to do: to manage dysfunction instead of ending it.

When ruins stay long enough, they become normal. The abnormal becomes a budget line. 

We no longer ask, “Why is there no medicine?” We ask, “How do we manage without medicine?” 

We no longer ask, “Why is the road impassable?” 

We ask, “Which alternative route should we advise?” The leader’s role subtly shifts from builder to manager of brokenness.

Nehemiah breaks into this cycle with three disruptive lessons.

Rebuilding Requires a Burden, Not Just a Position

Nehemiah was not a priest or a city official. He was a cupbearer in Susa, comfortable, secure, far from the ruins. But when he heard about Jerusalem, he wept, fasted and prayed. He was burdened.

Much of our leadership today is not burdened. It is positioned. A position asks, “What will I gain if I maintain this?” A burden asks, “What will we lose if this remains?”

Uganda does not need more people who want positions over ruins. It needs people who carry a burden for restoration – in the civil service, in business, in the church, in the classroom, in Parliament. A burden is what keeps you awake when protocol tells you to sleep.

Real Leaders Inspect at Night

Nehemiah went out at night, with a few men, and inspected the walls himself. He didn’t rely on official reports from the officials overseeing the ruins. Those reports would have said, “The situation is normal.” He wanted first-hand truth.

How many of our leaders have ever sat in a public hospital queue at 6:00 a.m.? How many have ridden a taxi from Matugga to the city after a downpour?

Before the current widely publicised crop of cabinet ministers, did you ever hear of one visiting a government school without prior notice? 

We govern by files and briefs prepared by those who believe their job is to make ruins look presentable.

You cannot rebuild what you have not honestly inspected. You cannot honestly inspect from a convoy window.

The Call Is to Build Together

Nehemiah didn’t come to complain. 

Complaining about ruins is easy. Everyone in Kampala is an expert at it. 

Instead, he came with a simple call in Nehemiah 2:17: “Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” 

He turned spectators into builders.

That is leadership.

The tragedy of a nation presiding over ruins is that its citizens also learn to preside. We complain on the radio, on X, in the market, but we have stopped believing we can build. 

We wait for the government to do what only a people can do together.

The call to rebuild is not partisan. It is not for one party or tribe. A broken health system does not ask for your party card. A pothole does not discriminate. 

Rebuilding will require teachers who refuse to teach in ruins, doctors who refuse to normalise lack, public servants who refuse to sign off on shoddy work, and citizens who refuse to applaud the commissioning of ruins.

Nehemiah faced fierce opposition from Sanballat and Tobiah — men who profited from the broken status quo. Every attempt to rebuild will face the same. There are people whose contracts, relevance and power depend on things remaining broken.

Yet the wall was rebuilt in 52 days; not because resources were abundant, but because the people had a mind to work.

From Presiding Over Ruins to Rebuilding

The question for Uganda today is not whether we have leaders. We do. 

The question Nehemiah 2:16 forces upon us is: What are they presiding over? Do we have the courage to stop administering ruins and start rebuilding the nation?

I have been following the rebuilding that Solomon Serwanjja, the LC1 Chairman of Bamutakudde Village in Mukono District, is doing in his village. 

I love that he has approached leadership at the lowest level with purpose and conviction, and the results are already showing, turning a hitherto unknown village into a national conversation on leadership.

We need more builders like him and not custodians of ruins.

What are you going to be? What are you going to preside over?

Crystal Kabajwara is a leader working at the intersection of leadership, justice and faith.