The fight, flight, or freeze dilemma: The case of maverick ULS chief Ssemakadde

He had vowed to shake things up—and he delivered. His fiery, often unfiltered rhetoric tore through the establishment, with invective aimed at figures such as Director of Public Prosecutions, Jane Frances Abodo, that even the most uninhibited village drunkard might hesitate to utter.

Following his conviction by the High Court, Ssemakadde either went underground in Uganda or fled the country. This week, the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Kampala escalated matters by issuing an international warrant for his arrest.

His predicament revives an age-old question that freedom fighters and anti-establishment activists across Africa—and other undemocratic landscapes—have grappled with for decades: When the oppressor comes knocking, do you fight, flee, or freeze?

There is no single answer. History shows that activists and campaigners have taken all three paths, each with varying degrees of success and sacrifice.

Some have chosen to fight, walking headlong into dungeons and enduring unspeakable torment. Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island did just that—each day he spent behind bars further delegitimised the apartheid government.

Others have opted for exile, believing that staying alive and fighting from afar is preferable to being silenced behind bars or buried in an unmarked grave.

Uganda’s own President Yoweri Museveni chose this route in 1981. After the disputed December 1980 election, he and several of his Uganda Patriotic Movement comrades faced the real prospect of imprisonment.

Museveni could have chosen to sit and wait to be arrested by Milton Obote, as several UPM politicians were. Instead, he took to the bush and launched a rebellion that ultimately altered Uganda’s trajectory for the next four decades.

Then some have frozen—gone quiet, stepped back, or even joined the system, convinced they can effect change from within. This approach is fraught with accusations of opportunism, yet it has been executed with remarkable effectiveness, particularly in Kenya, where co-opting opposition figures has become an art form.

Which path is best? It depends. Often, the answer is shaped by the specific battle being fought.

When Museveni’s rebel National Resistance Army took power in 1986, many believed press freedom would improve. They were mistaken. Journalists continued to be harassed, arrested, beaten—and, in some cases, killed.

Back then, state-controlled media dominated, and independent journalists were rare, making those who defied the system invaluable.

Read: An unspoken contest and why, of all his rivals, Museveni seems to fear Besigye most

Western diplomatic missions and human rights organisations frequently smuggled persecuted journalists out of Africa, providing them sanctuary in Europe or North America, where they found work in media houses, academia, or as authors.

South Africa, in particular, produced exiled journalists like Lewis Nkosi, who fled apartheid-era censorship and settled in New York. There, he wrote Home and Exile (1965), a collection of essays reflecting on South African politics and culture, and later, the acclaimed novel Mating Birds (1986).

But this strategy had unintended consequences. Shrewd regimes learned to weaponise exile, portraying fleeing journalists as reckless opportunists seeking a cushy life abroad.

Museveni’s government, for example, argued that these journalists deliberately provoked authorities, then ran to Western embassies, which whisked them away to comfortable lives in London, Paris, or New York.

At the time, Museveni’s government still enjoyed considerable popularity, making this argument persuasive. Public opinion leaned in support of it.

The impact was severe—Ugandan courts stopped granting journalists bail. Prosecutors simply pointed to the long list of reporters who had absconded while on police bond, painting them as flight risks.

One day, amid escalating tensions between the Ugandan press and the state, three of us—Wafula Oguttu, then editor of the radical Weekly Topic; Teddy Ssezi Cheeye, editor of the hard-hitting Uganda Confidential newsletter; and Amos Kajooba, editor of the pro-Uganda People’s Congress, The People—sat down and made a pact: we would never run.

In the years that followed, we paid the price. Arrests, beatings, threats, and court appearances became routine. I personally notched up nearly 120 court appearances, facing charges that could have resulted in life imprisonment or worse. I turned down over 20 opportunities to flee to a safer—and likely more lucrative—life abroad. Instead, we kept showing up.

Eventually, Ugandan courts began granting mainstream journalists bail again. The exodus of reporters and editors seeking refuge in foreign embassies slowed.

Journalism regained credibility, and public trust in the press surged. A renaissance occurred—journalists became celebrities, and some even became modestly wealthy.

Looking back, we never imagined these would be the outcomes. But they happened, not because we had a grand strategy, but because we simply chose to stay and risk everything.

In later life, we drove around with our “prison bags” in the boots of our cars, packed with underwear, toothpaste and toothbrush, comb, anti-malaria medicine, and vitamins.

Ssemakadde now stands at a similar crossroads. His choice—whether to fight, flee, or freeze—will shape not just his fate, but potentially the future of Uganda’s legal and civic landscape. If history is anything to go by, whatever path he chooses will be costly.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter: @cobbo3