The Power Bubble In Uganda’s First Family Bursting Into Bitterness

By Black Star News

Photos: YouTube Screenshots|Facebook||Wikimedia Commons

The battle for the Gen. Yoweri Museveni succession has burst into an open bitterness from within the inner circle: The First Family.

It was just last year when the First Lady Janet Museveni intervened in an attempt to quench the fire in the feud tearing apart her son-in-law, Odrek Rwabwogo and Museveni’s only known son, the Chief of Defense Forces, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Gen. Muhoozi had referred to his brother-in-law Rwabwogo as “Uganda’s biggest thief”. Rwabwogo chairs the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID) which was launched by Museveni on March 16, 2022. On May 25, 2022, PACEID was placed under the Office of the President.

 But Gen. Muhoozi on August 26 declared PACEID an “illegal organization” and started arresting some of its members beginning with Chairman Rwabwogo’s personal assistant and head of the PACEID Secretariat, Matthew Bagonza. “PACEID is an illegal organization. We shall start arresting its members immediately. We are going to arrest ALL the members of PACEID involved in corruption.”

Gen. Muhoozi would later follow through his promise with an evidence of a bare-chested, hairy and bulky Bagonza’s picture posted X replete with the caption; “We have this one. Learning Kiswahili,” Muhoozi wrote on the former twitter microblogging platform. 

In a terse warning thereafter, Gen. Muhoozi then ordered all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to stop conducting business with PACEID. “No government agency is allowed to do any business with PACEID,” he directed. He also declared that media houses that host PACEID will face yet undisclosed consequences. And, according to Rwabwogo, he only learnt about Bagonza’s arrest while seeing off international visitors whom PACEID hosted last weekend. “I quickly went through all the security agencies — police, DIS [Directorate of Intelligence and Security] and SFC [Special Forces Command]— and I wasn’t able to find where he was, so I drove to Entebbe and met the President,” Rwabwogo told the press. “The President told me that he was not aware; [he] had given no order for the arrest of this officer, and that he was going to try to find out the circumstances of his arrest. What was important is that he [Museveni] did not order this and he wasn’t aware,” Rwabwogo said. Gen. Muhoozi (below) neither revealed where Bagonza was being held, the security agency detaining him nor the charges preferred against him.

“My brother @OdrekRwabwogo is very lucky and privileged to have immediate access to @KagutaMuseveni. Now pity those without! How do they get heard or attended to? SAD,” the past-immediate longest-serving Museveni’s government spokesman, who is now Elderly People’s MP on the ruling party ticket, Ofwono Opondo, said on August 26 in an apparent reference to the unwarranted citizen arrests, abductions and disappearances. Allegations of incommunicado detentions and torture are now widespread in the country.

“AGORA’s position is clear: If Bagonza is suspected of corruption or any other offence, Bagonza should be charged and brought before a competent court, and any evidence against him or other PACEID officials should be tested through lawful, transparent and fair proceedings. Political, institutional or family disputes cannot justify abduction, incommunicado detention or punishment outside the law.

“We call for the immediate disclosure of Bagonza’s whereabouts, access to his lawyers, family and medical care, and his prompt production before a competent court or release,” the human rights research center said on August 28.

AGORA reiterates its broader call for the whereabouts of all forcibly disappeared persons to be disclosed, for the release of political prisoners and others held without lawful basis, and for the restoration of the rule of law and due process in Uganda.

What is now clear is that the crack down on dissenting views is in full gear. Additionally, anyone viewed as a stumbling block to Muhoozi’s ambitions to succeed his father is in for arrest and torture. One such Ugandan harbouring presidential ambitions is whispered to be Rwabwogo. Muhoozi declared his presidential intentions in 2022, but again “I will stand for the highest office in the land in 2031. And we will win by the grace of Almighty God,” Muhoozi vowed on August 25.

In the August 27 press conference, the head of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) Chairman’s Office, Daudi Kabanda claimed that Rwabwogo made several trips to the US to meet undisclosed members of Congress and US government officials; claiming this was to pitch himself as Museveni’s successor, undermining Gen. Muhoozi and that it explained recent US Senate attacks on Uganda. Idaho Senator and Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jim Risch has been leading the onslaught against Uganda’s human rights record and electoral violence.  PLU is a political outfit chaired by Gen. Muhoozi. Yet Uganda’s laws prohibit serving military officers from participating in partisan politics.

PLU now demands that the government puts a full-stop on paying $14 million allegedly tied to Rwabwogo. According to Kabanda, the Finance Ministry and other State agencies should stop dealing with PACEID until questions about its establishment, staffing, funding and accountability are resolved.

The payment in question is an alleged claim related to Tomosi Group Ltd which is said to be a company associated with Rwabwogo to supply helicopters, spare parts and other accessories delivered to the Government of South Sudan. “If you supplied the government of South Sudan and you are not in the original agreement, why don’t you go to South Sudan and ask them to pay you?” Kabanda asked on behalf of PLU Chairman Gen. Muhoozi during the August 27 Kampala press conference. Kabanda ordered the Finance ministry’s technocrats said to be processing the payment to suspend it in order to give investigations way.

In a statement signed by its Chairman Rwabwogo, meanwhile, PACEID urged calm and said it will not be diverted. “We have instructed our lawyers to establish where he [Bagonza] will be presented, understand any charges against him and ensure that the law is followed,” Rwabwogo said.

The statement said PACEID is mandated to help identify and address bottlenecks constraining Uganda’s export and industrial potential while bringing together producers, exporters and relevant Government institutions to develop practical solutions.

“Claims that PACEID is an ‘illegal’ entity are, therefore, incorrect,” Rwabwogo stated. PACEID’s priority remains supporting Uganda to increase exports, promote value addition, strengthen industrial development and improve access to international markets.

The statement said the country needs reliable international markets and buyer connections, compliance with quality and international standards, sufficient and consistent volumes, processing and value addition, export infrastructure, export financing and stronger coordination among producers, exporters and Government institutions.

 “To our exporters, farmers, buyers and partners: remain calm and stay focused on the opportunity. Uganda’s export opportunity is too important to be lost in public exchanges. The work must continue,” the statement said.

However, the bubble-up continues: “There’s mafia [and] there’s Mafioso, Rwabwogo is both! Rwabwogo used a company that had been contracted to supply dairy products to South Sudan to instead supply helicopters [and] that company appears on the list of entities the GOU [Government of Uganda] is set to compensate USD 14m,” Kabanda claimed on August 28.