By Mulengera Reporters
On Wednesday, the Justice Ministry top management officials converged at the Naguru-based JLOS Towers board room to witness the handover of office by the outgoing Attorney General (AG) Kiwanuka Kiryowa to his successor Dr. Sam Mayanja.
It was a lively session during which Norbert Mao characteristically cracked jokes and caused plenty of laughter. Deputy AG Jackson Kafuzi spoke about the pride that came with deputizing a legal colossus of Kiwanuka Kiryowa’s pedigree during the preceding five-year period (2021-2026). He reminisced how KK was very diligent, incorruptible and hardworking boss who accepted no mediocrity, led with integrity and insisted on team work.
He said the three of them (KK, Mao and himself) had a good time as political leaders at the Ministry because they were a team and agreed on the modus operandi. He said that it had been agreed either him or KK had to attend plenary sessions of Parliament and respond to the MPs’ concerns. It never happened to have both of them sit in the same plenary session.
One stayed in office to oversee the team of 180 attorneys do technical work, as the other represented on the Parliament front. Kafuzi was also grateful to God over the fact that KK was being replaced by Dr. Sam Mayanja who they had been working very well with as the State Minister at Lands, out of necessity.
He also thanked President Museveni for being good at cadre identification and for also having a lot of trust in KK. He predicted that KK was now going to become an even stronger political leader since his new posting at the Mbuya-based Defense Ministry headquarters will make him learn everything about the military.
It was because of KK’s assertive leadership that the Ministry was able to complete the construction of the JLOS House (a project worth over Shs250bn) in the record time of just two years, yet the much more funded Parliamentary Commission couldn’t deliver their own new extension block, which is a much smaller physical infrastructure project.
As a result of that new infrastructure project, all the 18 Justice Law & Order Sector institutions now have a permanent home (a one stop center of some sort) and don’t have to spend billions of shillings on rent.
During KK’s five years as AG, lawyers working at the AG chambers had their welfare concerns acknowledged and were able to learn that there was nothing wrong with coming for work as early as 7am and leaving past 10pm, because that exactly is how the workaholic KK has been working. He ran the AG chambers the way a prudent lawyer runs his or her private law firm.
Former Chief Justice Owiny Dollo one time remarked he had never seen an AG who took his work of defending government as seriously as Kiryowa did. He would personally attend Court to ensure the government cases were done with the required diligence.
Unlike before when they took things for granted, because the AG’s chambers were always synonymous with indolent lawyers, the KK-era AG office deliberately set out to win cases against other litigants in Court. Indeed, many cases were won for government and its MDAs, because of the deliberate hard work KK insisted his attorneys put in.
Now whoever planned to sue the government realized you had to prepare and ensure you have a good case.
Those things of lawyers from AG chambers conniving with litigants to ensure the government loses and is compelled to pay billions in damages, which could end up being shared, were unheard of during KK’s time as AG.
Norbert Mao said that private lawyers in Kampala got the message and whoever dared to drag the AG to Court had to prepare and ensure they had a real good case against government.
Mao recalled how KK ensured that even where government loses a case in the High Court, the matter was appealed to the highest appellate level which is the Supreme Court and this helped to discourage laziness among private lawyers.
This was the outcome of the high performance standards which KK, who came in with a lot of private legal practice experience, insisted on.
KK also personally got involved in helping to shield lawyers from his AG chambers against being pressurized and bullied by the politically powerful especially on approvals relating to huge government public procurement deals worth hundreds of billions.
He would personally take over a matter if pressure became too much for his lawyers to bear-and this quite often caused the powerful mafia actors, desirous to get fraudulent contracts approved, to back off and thereby saving public funds. He urged his successor Mayanja to do this a lot because quite often, the AG lawyers get overwhelmed and stressed by such external pressures pushing them into wrongdoing.
It was revealed during the Wednesday handover ceremony that because of the increased efficiency (things getting approved within a short time and without anyone demanding to be bribed first), heads of government MDAs and local governments registered growing confidence and trust in the AG chambers, which resulted into more work being brought to the AG offices.
PS Robert Kasande, who praised KK for supporting the idea of opening regional offices to increase access without diluting or decentralizing the decision-making processes at AG, explained that the growing number of government MDAs instructing the AG to legally act on their behalf neccessitated the revising of the HR structure for the AG chambers.
KK is leaving an approved staff structure of 500 attorneys whereby only about 200 are currently on the job, implying that another 300 will have to be gradually recruited as funds become available.
It was revealed that in the last two years, no complaint ever came up to top management accusing any AG lawyer of extortion or soliciting to be bribed on anything.
What is remaining is the perception whereby someone will assume his contract documents delayed to be or were not approved at all because the lawyers concerned wanted something. KK said he had lately realized that this negative perception quite often results from absence of communication to such clients, something he implored Mayanja to address as a matter of urgency.
Mao spoke about a KK with whom they had a harmonious working relationship to the extent that he is one of the few people with whom he sat to discuss his Speakership bid weeks before he went public about the same.
Mao said when it came to Cabinet matters, KK would represent him any day any time in case he was unable to personally be there, and vice versa. Whoever was unable to attend in person would call the other on phone imploring him to be there for him.
The same applied to Parliamentary business. Kafuzi said they had a very excellent relationship with KK to the extent that the outgoing AG personally funded his 2026 reelection as Kyaka County MP.
In his speech, the Solicitor General Pius Perry Biribonwoha ran through things which made KK tick as the country’s AG. He reminisced how KK always reminded them of the AG chambers’ obligation to deliberately contribute to Uganda’s socio-economic transformation agenda under the NDP4, as opposed to merely excelling at pro-government lawyering.
He always focused them on the need to be adaptive while reflecting on the rapidly-evolving technological advancements. The Solicitor General assured the new AG Mayanja of full technical support of the team of lawyers that he leads.
Mayanja explained how he has known Kiryowa for decades having been together in the early 2000s as they founded Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) along with Elly Karuhanga though KK, who was a very tiny young man as of that time, left them and went to engage with something else.
He also made complementary reference to KK’s great grandfather Jolly Joe Kiwanuka, about whom he revealed he is currently writing a book. Besides being an icon of Uganda’s Independence struggle, Jolly Joe Kiwanuka was also a big actor in Express FC.
Mayanja also enumerated some of the President’s personal legal errands they worked on together as private legal practitioners. He also shared about the good times they have shared in Cabinet in the last five years.
Mayanja always sat on the row immediately behind Kiryowa’s. He predicted that he won’t fail because he is inheriting a strong foundation Kiryowa has cultivated at the AG chambers in the last five years.
KK, who joked about moving from a Ministry that is synonymous with legal persuasion to one (of defense) which is synonymous with coercion, assured Mayanja of unconditional support should he need to consult him on anything.
He advised him to maintain an open door policy so that the young lawyers at the AG chambers can always access to confide in him all manner of information, including personal professional challenges so that they get advised on the mitigation measures.
The two men spoke about keeping each other’s personal phone numbers, which haven’t changed in the last more than 20 years. There was simply a lot of complementarity from both of them.
Jocular as always, Norbert Mao caused laughter when he reflected on the confrontational approach with which Dr. Sam Mayanja went about his duties as State Minister for Lands in last five years, while vigorously pushing back against land grabbers across the country.
Joking about the endless ‘locus visits’ Mayanja made in a bid to resolve land wrangles across the country, Mao imagined an intellectual like Mayanja spending five years of his valuable time driving across the country loudly arguing with rogue-minded RDCs and DPCs.
He said Mayanja, gratefully, was able to deliver plenty of relief for poor Ugandans who hitherto used to have no voice against land grabbers who in most cases tend to be the mighty. He is the reason scenes of vulnerable bibanja owners being evicted have been rare across the country in the last five years.
He thanked Mayanja for shielding millions of such Ugandans everywhere in the country. He casually advised Mayanja to now take back seat and leave the firefighting bit, both in the media and in Parliament, to him.
He urged the new AG to now concentrate on the technical work of leading the government’s law firm (namely the AG chambers).
Mao advised that doing both (that technical work and personally taking on wrongdoers) will have the effect of physically and emotionally exhausting Dr. Sam Mayanja beyond redemption.
Mayanja assured the lawyers at the AG chambers of a very good time provided they continue approaching their work with zeal, integrity, fidelity, promptness, urgency and integrity the way they have been doing under KK, with whom he said he shares the attribute of being an avid reader, researcher and workaholic at the same time.
Because both Mayanja and KK are ex-officios, they had to first take oath in Parliament whereafter they had to drive to the Naguru-based JLOS Towers where the handover ceremony ended past 4pm.
They had to rush to the Defense headquarters Mbuya (for KK’s case) and the Lands Ministry along Parliamentary Avenue for Mayanja’s case, to attend similar hand over ceremonies.
Mayanja had to hand over to Harriet Ntabazi yet KK had to formally receive his new office as Defense Minister from his predecessor, Jacob Oboth-Oboth who is now the Speaker of Parliament.
