Nairobi — Unlike word-lazy Americans whose love for acronyms such as WMD (weapons of mass destruction) is legendary, in Uganda, we prefer spelling out our phrases in full.

However, in recent times things seem to have changed, or at least to be headed in that direction with the intrusion into our political lexicon of two acronyms: W2W (Walk to Work) and A4C (Activists for Change).

A4C is a loose and headless grouping of young, politically savvy individuals.

At some point they decided it was time to bring out into the open what other Ugandans were until then discussing in private, often in muted tones, supplemented by newspaper articles here and there and a few phone-in radio talk-shows: The high and rising cost of living and what many see as the runaway profligacy of an increasingly imperious, self-regarding, self-righteous, and insensitive government.

They urged the public to show their discontent by shunning motorised transport and walking to work.

The power of their campaign soon became evident in the rapidity with which key opposition parties and their leaders, never ones to join someone else's initiative, embraced it, and in the mindlessly savage way the government responded.

It is possible the government was panicked into gratuitous violence and claiming that W2W was about regime change by the lessons emerging from events in North Africa and the Middle East.

However, lest we forget, it is not too long ago that they were caught napping by the three-day-long Buganda riots of September 2009.

According to reliable sources, police and army elements on the ground ran out of bullets, found themselves severely short of anti-riot equipment, and had to be beefed up by reinforcements from across the country.

It is also worth remembering that Uganda's current rulers first ascended to power through violence and have not been shy to use it liberally to keep themselves in place and to remind whoever seems to have forgotten, that they are fighters.

Ironically, it is in this very dependence on guns that lie some of their inner fears: Someone out there may be planning to emulate them.

The resultant nervous hawkishness must explain why every sign of protest looks and smells like a regime-change-inspired armed rebellion in the making, one which must be crushed in its infancy.

The view that there are plotters all around them was recently well articulated by famously mouthy Information Minister Kabakumba Masiko who claimed that some Western countries sought "to disorganise Uganda" and "topple the government".

There are many aspects of W2W which analysts will examine and argue over for some time.

Certainly one of the most striking was how clear it seemed to become, once again, that the police, which in years past were famed for their collective hostility to the Museveni regime, have, in the public's imagination at least, been transformed into one of its most visible agents of repression.

Now if you live in Uganda, you will have heard stories or even seen evidence to the effect that not all people who wear designated police uniforms are civil police personnel.

One could therefore argue that outside elements parachuted into the force are the ones soiling its image.

Claims of the marginalisation and disempowerment of the mainstream police and the force's "militarisation" often receive support from what in different circumstances might pass for innocuous happenings.

Consider, for example, the participation in the harassment and arrest of opposition politicians by people said to work for paramilitary groups, and their transportation to detention facilities in vehicles bearing number plates associated with the Office of the President. Why should police vehicles be inappropriate?

Although whispering about the militarisation of the force started with the widely acclaimed appointment of Lt-Gen Katumba Wamala as Inspector-General of Police in 2001, they intensified with his replacement in 2005 by former presidential assistant and head of the much-maligned and now disbanded Revenue Protection Service, Maj-Gen Kale Kayihura.

While given to acting like Museveni's clone by meddling in every matter big or small, Kayihura must be credited with trying to equip and modernise the force, make it more people-friendly, and bring an end to their pathetic working and living conditions.

However, stories persist of deepening militarisation, sectarian recruitment practices, and images of unarmed civilians, old and young, being shot and infants and pregnant women teargassed raise serious questions.

Kayihura's own image has of late not been helped by President Yoweri Museveni's proud boast in which he publicly praised him and his more zealous underlings as "good cadres" of the ruling party.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Social Research, Makerere University