#UgandaDecides2026: fact-checking claims from presidential debate
- Bobi Wine was correct about Uganda's annual birth numbers, though he significantly inflated the share of the national budget spent on debt servicing.
- Nathan Nandala Mafabi's claims on the primary school completion rate and youth unemployment figures were not supported by the evidence.. In contrast, Gregory Mugisha Muntu was mostly accurate in saying that 70% of Ugandans rely on agriculture, but he understated tourist arrivals to exaggerate the gap with neighbours Kenya and Tanzania.
- Frank Bulira Kabinga made several inaccurate claims about the United Arab Emirates, including Filipino migrant workers' pay. Joseph Elton Mabirizi understated the size of Uganda's combined police and military forces.
On 30 November 2025, five of the eight presidential candidates in Uganda's 2026 general election took part in a televised debate, outlining their vision for the East African country.
Three candidates, including incumbent president Yoweri Museveni, who at 81 is seeking another term that would extend his rule into a fourth decade, did not attend.
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Those on stage were Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, of the National Unity Platform, Nathan Nandala Mafabi of the Forum for Democratic Change, ex-military man-turned-politician Gregory Mugisha Muntu of the Alliance for National Transformation, evangelist Joseph Elton Mabirizi of the Conservative Party and Frank Bulira Kabinga of the Revolutionary People's Party.
They addressed the economy, jobs, agriculture, education and other policy issues.
We checked the accuracy of some of their claims.
Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine)
Kyagulanyi, runner-up in the 2021 elections with 35% of the vote, vowed a "new Uganda" and to "start afresh" should he win the 15 January 2026 election.
We asked Kyagulanyi to clarify if he was referring to Uganda's annual number of births or to the total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. (Note: We will update this report if he responds.)
Uganda's total fertility rate is 4.5 children per woman which doesn't match his figure of 1.5. But his use of the phrase "every year" suggests he was referring to annual births.
We then reviewed the data. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics' 2024 census, which is the most recent, reported that 1.5 million births were recorded in the 12 months to census night.
Data from the United Nations' children's agency, Unicef, from 2017 similarly estimated 1.4 million births annually.
Although Kyagulanyi omitted the word "million", his claim aligns with official data showing that about 1.5 million children are born in Uganda each year.
Kyagulanyi claimed that "almost half" of Uganda's budget was used to service debt.
Debt service refers to payments made towards a country's borrowing obligations, including principal, interest and any penalties.
According to Uganda's most recent annual debt bulletin, the government paid US$1.179 billion in external debt service in 2024/25. This is equivalent to USh4.25 trillion at an average exchange rate of USh3,605.80 per US dollar.
Over the same period, domestic debt service cost USh17.36 trillion.
In total, Uganda spent USh21.6 trillion on debt service out of a USh72.136 billion budget. This is about 30%, not "almost half".
For the 2025/26 financial year, the approved budget is USh72.3 trillion, with USh27.2 trillion earmarked for debt service. This represents 36.7% of spending. Kyagulanyi's estimate misses the halfway mark by more than 13 percentage points and over USh9 trillion in real terms.
We rate the claim incorrect.
Nathan Nandala Mafabi
Mafabi, an opposition politician, focused part of his debate remarks on education and jobs.
Mafabi claimed that only two out of every 10 children who start primary school at P1 make it to P7, the final class in Uganda's seven-year primary cycle.
This, he argued, implied an 80% drop out rate.
To assess this, we turned to data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which tracks global school completion using administrative data such as censuses and household surveys.
The completion rate is the share of a cohort aged 3 to 5 years above the official expected graduation age. For example, if a child is expected to reach the last grade of primary education by age 11, the primary completion rate is the percentage of 14 to 16-year-olds who reached that last grade.
Unesco's most recent data on Uganda shows a primary completion rate of 35.4%.
Mafabi's estimate of 20%, or an 80% dropout rate, misses the Unesco figure by 15.4 percentage points. While completion rates in Uganda remain low, which may have been his point, his numbers do not match the available data.
Mafabi said that job creation was urgent, claiming that "60% of the youth are unemployed".
A person is considered unemployed if they have no income-earning work, are actively looking for a job and are available to take one if offered.
Uganda defines its youth group as 18 to 30-year-olds. According to Uganda's 2024 census, youth unemployment is 16.1% for this age group. (It is 16.7% for those aged 15 to 24, which is how the UN defines youth.)
The census also reports that 50.9% of youth aged 18 to 30 and 42.6% of those between 15 and 24 are "not in employment, education or training" (NEET). "These are the youth who are idle and disconnected from economic opportunities," the national statistics agency said.
Mafabi may have been referring to this much larger NEET group to show youth unemployment. But while NEET is a helpful indicator for youth unemployment, it is broader and often misinterpreted. It is not the same as unemployment and his figures do not align with official unemployment data.
Gregory Mugisha Muntu
Muntu, who ran for president in 2021 and finished fourth with 0.65% of the vote, is again on the ballot. We examined four of his claims on agriculture and tourism.
Muntu said that 70% of the people in Uganda work in agriculture, including crop and dairy production and fisheries.
According to the 2024 census, 62.3% of Uganda's 10.7 million households "were engaged in agriculture". This referred to crop production, livestock keeping, aquaculture, forestry and woodlots.
The census noted wide regional variation, with the Teso sub-region highest at 87.1% and Kampala, the capital city, lowest at 12.1%.
Other credible sources also show a high level of agricultural involvement.
The Food and Agriculture Organization describes Uganda as a "predominantly agrarian economy", saying agriculture employs over 70% of the population.
The International Labour Organization estimated 66% of employment in agriculture in 2023 while Uganda's agriculture ministry put the figure at 65% in 2017.
Given this range of estimates, Muntu's figure is supported by publicly available data.
Muntu claimed that Uganda attracts only about half as many tourists as Kenya and Tanzania because it does not "advertise itself" aggressively.
He appeared to be referring to the annual tourist arrivals reported by Uganda's statistics bureau and tourism ministry.
According to the 2024 statistical abstract from the bureau, Uganda received 1.274 million tourists in 2023.
Tourism ministry data released in March 2025 shows that 1.37 million tourists visited in 2024.
Muntu's figure of 1.2 million relies on older numbers and understates the most recent data by roughly 100,000 tourists.
We also checked Muntu's claim that Kenya and Tanzania each attract 2.5 million tourists annually.
Kenya's tourism sector performance report showed the country recorded 2.4 million visitors in 2024, its highest total in five years.
By the end of September 2025, the national statistics bureau reported 1.88 million visitors, averaging about 208,000 a month. If this trend continued, Kenya could reach 2.5 million tourists for the year.
We rate Muntu's claim mostly correct.
Tanzania's tourism ministry publishes an annual statistical bulletin. In 2024, the country recorded 2.14 million international visitors, its highest total in a decade.
While Tanzania did attract more tourists than Uganda, its arrivals have not reached 2.5 million.
Muntu's figure overstates the latest official number by at least 350,000.
Frank Bulira Kabinga
Bulira claimed that "there was a time when Uganda was far ahead of" the United Arab Emirates.
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He went on to allege that the desert Gulf state imported its productive agricultural soil from Uganda, and that the Philippines government had secured better deals for its migrant workers there. The UAE is a major destination for migrant workers.
We checked both claims.
Bulira claimed that the UAE imported its productive agricultural soil from Uganda, but provided no evidence to support this.
Africa Check consulted Dr Emmanuel Odama, a Ugandan soil fertility scientist, who said he had never encountered such a claim and described it as "weird".
Soil studies in Dubai, one of the seven emirates, make no reference to imported Ugandan soil. Dubai already recorded 73,606 acres of agricultural land in 1986, long before any supposed soil imports.
Today the UAE has 3,917 square kilometres of agricultural land, or nearly 968,000 acres. Importing soil at a scale large enough to alter this land area would require well-documented operations. No such records exist.
We found no evidence that the UAE imported soil from Uganda to mix with its sand.
We have contacted the UAE's Emirates Soil Museum and soil experts in both countries and will update this report when they respond. But based on the available evidence, the claim is implausible.
Joseph Elton Mabirizi
Mabirizi argued that because Ugandans far outnumber security forces, any election interference would provoke resistance.
"When you add policemen and the soldiers, we have 106,000 gunmen," he said.
According to the office of the prime minister, the Uganda Police Force had "51,961 men and women" as of March 2025.
For the military, 2021 defence ministry data put the number of active Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) personnel at 45,000, with an additional 35,000 reserves. Together, the police and military total have approximately 132,000 personnel.
We rate the claim as understated.
Mabirizi cited the 2024 national census to show how Uganda's population far outnumbers its security forces.
According to the data, Uganda's population is 45.9 million people.
We rate this claim correct.
