By Our Reporters
At the time new IGP Okoth Martin Ochola (aka OMO) removed him, Frank Mwesigwa had been Commandant KMP (overseeing 17 Police Divisions & 5,000 men) for exactly 16 months having been posted in 2016 immediately after elections. 38 year old Mwesigwa now goes to head tourism police which is closely associated to Counter-Terrorism arm of police where he started his policing career in 2007 after being pass out at Kabalye as a police cadet. One could safely say he is back home. Some have called it a demotion but for us that is not our business. We instead want to reflect on how he will be remembered as a police commander overseeing policing activities in the districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Mpigi and parts of Buikwe, Luwero, Nakaseke and Mityana. He has been replaced by his senior Moses Kabugo Kafeero who joined the UPF in 2003 and has been commandant of Senior Command and Staff College in Bwebajja.
DAYS AT KMP;
Mwesigwa, who no doubt was a blue eyed boy of Gen Kayihura, will be remembered for always leading from the front as opposed to commanding from office. He was never an armchair policeman. That is what his personal involvement in containing the chaos at the Makindye Magistrate’s Court in late 2016 exactly says about him. Abdul Kitata had dispatched hundreds of Boda Boda 2010 riders who attempted to beat up Magistrate Mafabi and lawyers led by Erias Lukwago. The lawyers where here to commence Gen Kayihura’s criminal prosecution for the brutality his men unleashed on Dr. Besigye’s supporters at Kalerwe and Entebbe road. The brutality, which Gen Kayihura initially commended, attracted worldwide condemnation for the Uganda Police Force and the Lukwagos moved to prosecute Kayihura under the Prohibition of Torture Act which creates personal liability for security operatives who occasion torture. The Kitata group’s plan that day was to assault and undress the lawyers and the Magistrate Mafabi (RIP) but Mwesigwa personally being on the ground to command his men made the difference. Worse chaos would have ensued had the KMP commander not personally moved to the ground. It was him who stood and formed a human shield between Lord Mayor, other lawyers and the Kitata rioters. Without arresting anyone or firing teargas, Mwesigwa skillfully evacuated the lawyers and later on dispersed the Kitata group. The situation would no doubt have been more complicated.
THE BOBI WINE SAGA;
Yet that wasn’t all. When new Kyaddondo East MP Kyagulanyi Sentamu aka Bobi Wine travelled to the US from where he recorded and circulated an audio bashing Museveni and his Police for banning his musical concerts, the Museveni state desired to have him arrested on the day his supporters planned a procession to receive him back. The assignment came to KMP and, realizing the sensitivity of the matter, Mwesigwa didn’t delegate. He personally drove to Entebbe Airport where he oversaw the dignified confinement of Bobi Wine in a manner that minimized chaos and bloodshed on the street that would have ensued in case the day’s confrontation wasn’t cautiously responded to. Yes the arrest and confinement of Bobi Wine was disturbing but something worse could have happened that day but Mwesigwa’s personal involvement made the difference. Mwesigwa was also very consultative, humble and easily accessible. To illustrate this just one example will suffice. Just last week, a young man (Boda rider) came to our offices seeking assistance for his brother who CMI operatives, investigating a murder crime, had arrested from Kyengera and held him incommunicado. David, the young Boda rider, resides in Kiira where his MP is Semujju Nganda but rides his Boda in the city center. He asked how we could help him link up with other media houses like Bukedde TV. We advised he should involve police and he said “that one I’m already covered because I called Afande Frank Mwesigwa of KMP and he spoke to DPC Nsangi who called me and we have had a meeting in Nsangi.” The young man said the Nsangi police had advised the family to involve the media because matters involving CMI can be very complicated sometimes. We had made for him an appointment with UHRC of Medi Kaggwa through Commissioner Med Mulumba but before they acted, David got back to us saying Frank Mwesigwa’s intervention had saved the day. “My brother is out; we got to him and he wasn’t tortured. The guys at CMI treated him humanely and he was innocent except that he innocently bought a phone that previously belonged to a wrong character. Frank’s KMP office has even helped us transport my brother, wife and children back to Kyengera,” the young man explained praising Frank for his humility and being easily accessible to the ordinary people. Apparently this is something Frank had learnt from his mentor Gen Kayihura. “You must be one of the spies at your stage. How did you get to know Frank that closely?” we teasingly asked the young man. “In fact I’m FDC, Semujju Nganda is my mentor and Frank knows it but he has been addressing us under the Mayumba Kumi neighborhood watch program and he would freely give us his number to call him in case of any emergency and he has always been helpful.” Indeed the Mayumba Kumi model is another aspect in which Frank will be remembered. In less than 2 years as KMP head, he has been to almost all villages and zones in KMP urging local residents to work with police to detect and prevent crime through information-sharing.
He always went to these meetings as opposed to delegating. Indeed the last such meeting he attended was in Matugga days before his transfer from KMP. Wherever he went in the KMP jurisdiction, Frank was courteous and very disrespectful of elected leaders including the very lowest sub county councilors. He always considered them to be his bosses and not the other way round. That exactly is how he related with Wakiso LC5 Chairman Matia Lwanga Bwanika who was petitioned by taxi drivers from the Kyengera/Nsangi stage complaining of being mistreated and brutalized by Kitata’s men at the Kibuye stage. Whenever he got any feedback, clueless Bwanika readily accessed Frank and asked him to intervene. Many meetings were held in Nsangi, Wakiso district headquarters and Frank’s KMP board room until the situation, that was threatening to turn bloody, was resolved. KMP being a juicy posting (one newspaper equated it to being number 3 after IGP and DIGP), Frank always got reports of how so and so at Naguru was undermining him but he always overlooked such things and concentrated on his work. There was a time the rumor-mongers and self-seekers tried to antagonize him with ex-police national spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi by claiming he was using Emillian Kayima (who was KMP spokesman) to undermine him as Commandant KMP. Frank overlooked this and refused to be cajoled into releasing money to fund whatsapp groups to fight back. He is also politically sophisticated but very clandestine. He for instance hosted many youth delegations during the Kyaddondo by-elections.
He would get their views and report to Gen Kayihura who would update the President. Compared to what was always said of his KMP predecessors (it can be materially very tempting because you are dealing with wealthy tycoons), Frank was relatively scandal-free. It was never reported that he extorted or received money from people he was supposed to investigate for improper conduct. His trust and closeness to Kayihura never made him grow wings; he always remained down to earth and never used this proximity to bad mouth colleagues or those he perceived as being competitors or rivals to the KMP throne. Sometimes, being the head KMP, the President would call him directly to ask for the latest security assessment in the city and still he never bad mouthed anybody.
Frank also believed in capacity building for the guys heading the 17 Divisions making KMP and that is how the Kigo retreats for the DPCs became routine. They would retreat to Kigo to plan the month ahead but to also have some refresher training and re-orientation on the new challenges of urban crime. He is naturally a private person (almost shy) and not even the glamor that comes with being KMP commandant changed him. This is the reason his wedding last year (to Monica Kamwinye daughter to Gen Benon Biralo) went almost incognito. It was deliberately not written about in the newspapers to the extent that would be expected and it didn’t attract much controversy. Unlike his predecessors, he came to lead KMP at a time of great financial scarcity. The 2016 general election, which greatly drained the police coffers, had just ended and service providers like petrol stations were turning their back on police demanding to get paid first before supplies can resume. Mwesigwa has many times had to struggle to find fuel to do even the most basic operations. The military has had to occasionally bail out the KMP by meeting their fuel and other logistical requirements. As manifested in the Makindye Court incidence where he put down chaos without using teargas or arresting anybody, Mwesigwa was always frugal and prioritized the cheaper option. That’s how he managed to operate and deliver results on such a miserable (almost nonexistent) budget. Truth is there has been less police brutality during the political or even Makerere riots in his 16 months than during his predecessors.
HIS PROFILE:
Briefly the following can be said about Frank Mwesigwa who as KMP boss has been commanding over 5,000 policemen in the 17 Divisions. It’s a prestigious position because 80% of the policing activities by UPF are in KMP which Mwesigwa has been in charge of for 16 months. He became KMP boss 8 years after joining police and in liking him, Gen Kayihura was motivated of course by loyalty (many leaders do), good track record of excellent performance, training, education and appreciation of the KMP political dynamics. Born in 1980 in Kiruhura district, Mwesigwa had a modest childhood. His father was a low profile Reverend in Church of Uganda. He was economically not very rich but his pastoral work gave him a lot of influence in the community. “It was an area of many rich people but Mwesigwa’s father wasn’t among the very top.
He wasn’t the poorest but still not among the richest. He was an average Reverend who valued education of his children,” knowledgeable sources said of Mwesigwa’s father. Younger Mwesigwa studied at Mbarara High School for 6 years where Comedian Pablo was among his classmates. Pablo was a celeb of sorts as he was the chairman Students Council. Mwesigwa was among the prefects for London House at the school, recalls an OB. “He was generally quiet, hardworking and well behaved.
He was never among the stubborn kids and never participated in bullying the younger ones,” the OB says of Mwesigwa. After the 1994-99 stint at Mbarara High, Mwesigwa joined Makerere (2001-2004) where he studied social sciences. He was on private sponsorship and a resident of Lumumba Hall. After graduation in 2005, Mwesigwa returned to Kiruhura to live at his father’s home as he moved from one town of Uganda to another looking for job opportunities. After months of joblessness, Mwesigwa was given a job as administrator for Alpha Diary in Mbarara. He held this job up to 2007 when a friend called alerting him about a newspaper advert by Public Service Commission for police cadet recruitment.
Whereas only 400 were required, close to 10,000 applied. The interviews were done at Didi’s world Kansanga where many shed tears having failed to qualify. Mwesigwa was among the few who enrolled at Police Training School Kabalye where workaholic Andrew Felix Kaweesi was the Commandant. Actually the Mwesigwa group were the pioneer Cadet trainees for Kabalye training school. His cadet intake had peers like James Ruhweza, Dr. Martin Mugume (head canine unit), KMP traffic boss Norman Musinga and others. Moses Kafeero, who has replaced him, was among the instructors. In the 9 months at Kabalye the recruits underwent military training and the police law. After Kabalye, Mwesigwa’s first posting was Counter Terrorism (CT), a newly created unit, which had headquarters at Naguru and Kololo. The CT had 5 Companies each with 120 officers and men and Mwesigwa was among the 5 company commanders. Abbas Byakagaba was CT overall commander and was later replaced by John Ndungutse. Later high-performing Mwesigwa was elevated to CT Operations Commander which made him 3rd in hierarchy after Byakagaba and his deputy.
He also became CT’s Tactical Response Unit commandant and he oversaw the unit’s deployments, operations and fleet mantainance. Sources say while at CT, Mwesigwa had hands on experience commanding fellow CT operatives to secure key targets like our VVIPs, Parliament, BOU, and tourist and aviation installations. In CT he also did and coordinated a lot of intelligence work. The CT assignments exposed him to training opportunities and to closely work with bomb squads and the US Embassy which is very sensitive when it comes to planning and executing counter terrorism missions. He saw the CT unit grow from 100 to over 800 highly trained personnel. Having liked his discipline and work ethic, his superiors at CT often recommended him for sophisticated training within Uganda and abroad and as we talk Mwesigwa remains among the finest CT officers we have in Uganda. After a stint at CT (2009-2013), Mwesigwa was deployed to Kabalye as Commandant Police training school.
He replaced Moses Kafeero and the 4,000 cadet officers the President passed out immediately after the 2016 elections was the batch whose training Mwesigwa was in charge of. Being among Kayihura’s blue eyed boys in the Force, Mwesigwa has attended many professional and career courses in Ethiopia, Egypt, Botswana, USA and China. His highest training was at the Kigali Senior Command & Staff College in Rwanda from where he returned in 2016. It was a class of about 30 people and information on the College website shows he was the best student in his intake comprising trainees from different countries.
In the whole of UPF, the few officers to have undergone that very empowering strategic course included late Felix Kaweesi, Joel Haguna, IGP’s PA Barooza and Mwesigwa. It’s financially very expensive and it’s for the very intelligent because it requires a lot of reading. Mwesigwa also holds a Master’s degree in Peace studies and conflict transformation jointly awarded by the Rwanda Staff College and the University of Rwanda as part of the Senior Command & Staff College’s 1 year training. His Kigali qualifications justified his elevation from ASP to Police Commissioner at the beginning of the year 2016. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
