By Our Reporters
The day Amama Mbabazi declared his bid for Presidency in late 2015, Gen Kale Kayihura pensively sat with his assistants on the balcony of his (rented) Muyenga home. Coincidentally, it was his wife Angela’s birth day and so the aides and a few friends had come to join him to mark his spouse’s important day. On seeing how her husband Gen Kale (who kept getting instant phone calls from President Museveni who was away in South Africa for the BRICS meeting) was increasingly getting depressed, Angela rang some friends with whom she drove out to have the rest of the evening birth day celebrations from away. She was clearly furious that Gen Kayihura wasn’t devoting sufficient time to his family and that resentment manifested in the way she drove out of the compound.
Gen Kayihura remained behind in his living room with his assistants and friends as they served themselves on drinks including tea, mineral water, sodas and very expensive wines that had been stocked for Angela’s birth day. As they enjoyed themselves on the drinks, with Gen Kayihura mostly taking tea and mineral water, he called each one’s attention saying he had something very stressful to share with them. “I really feel bad for my wife. I think she sometimes wonders why did I marry this man? I’m never there for her and that is how my schedule has been very busy since the bush war days [he recalled being away pacifying Rwanda in the 1990s, DR Congo etc]. Now which type of husband I’m I if I can’t have time for her on her birth day? Anyway that is the least I can do for my president and country,” Gen Kayihura said to them struggling to conceal emotional brokenness. “We gave this country our youth years and we have no other choice but to keep working or else people like Mbabazi and Sejusa are going to mess up the President and we have no country. All colleagues who died in the war will have died for nothing if we allow Mbabazi to erode those gains we made under the President. Let me tell you people we are lucky to have that man [Museveni].
He is a leader many countries wish they had as president. This is why we aren’t going to allow Mbabazi to bring his kimberembere [disturbances]. He is being ungrateful. How do you do such a thing to the President? That he must go. Where do they want him to go and leave Uganda with whom?” These statements showed how loyal Gen Kayihura had always been to his Commander-in-Chief (CiC) and perhaps continues to be even after disgracefully losing his job.
WILL OBLITERATE JPAM:
He told his friends that same evening: “This [stopping Mbabazi] is going to be a fight of our life. We are going to spare no effort to ensure Mbabazi is stopped or else we shall have no country. I tell you young people you have a duty to join me to help the President overcome this man.” He stressed to them that Mbabazi, Gen Sejusa and Col Besigye had to be contained or else “they are going to remove the President and that will be the end of Uganda.” He stressed: “So let’s work together to help the President overcome these people.” What all this shows is that at his prime as the Inspector General of Police, Kayihura was always prepared to defend Museveni’s infallibility even in privacy unlike many who only do so in public but in privacy are very critical of him when talking to their spouses in the dead of the night. Apparently, Museveni was always aware of this loyalty which saw Kayihura shoulder many purely political obligations yet he was expected to be neutral as police chief. We shall give just a few examples. At the height of the Mbabazi challenge, Tamale Mirundi declared war on State House aides Maj Edith Nakalema and Brig Proscovia Nalweyiso after they refused to give him the facilitation money the president had decreed they give him. Mirundi used his radio talk shows to daily demonize the duo. He kept saying they are working for Mbabazi evidence being when ordered to pay JPAM defectors they would act faster than when asked to facilitate the President’s loyal cadres.
Kayihura summoned Mirundi one evening and said: “Ndugu Tamale Mirundi please what exactly is the problem? Why are you fighting the president’s people?” Mirundi told him his version to which Kayihura replied: “Please I beg you to stop and if its money I will give it to you because those wars are actually discrediting the President whom we all serve. This is a very difficult period for him. He needs all of us. It’s not time to fight each other.” Yet this isn’t all; there is much more that Kayihura did clearly showing he was doing NRM political errands than even the NRM Secretary General. Using police classified expenditure budget, Kayihura facilitated more purely political missions for Museveni (including buying off opposition activists and recruiting moles among top FDC and DP leaders) than any other government official. There are many opposition leaders and MPs whose very expensive treatment abroad the Museveni state funded through Gen Kayihura. He would just ring him that please help get money for so and so. There is for instance an opposition MP (names withheld-died recently) who used to go for very expensive brain operation in India every three months. It would cost the MP shs500m per visit to the Indian hospital and Museveni would wire the money through Gen Kayihura. In 2008 when then Mbale Municipality MP Wilfred Kajeke faced arrest over bank loans, its Kayihura Museveni used to bail him out. In a deal mediated by Issa Kikungwe and another cantankerous FDC MP from Acholi, Kajeke reciprocated by resigning his MP Seat resulting into a by-election that brought in Wamanga Wamai. Even the cordial relationship currently existing between Museveni and the very influential Kibuli Muslim faction was arbitrated by Gen Kayihura who is very close friends with Prince Kassim Nakibinge (aka Jjaaja W’obusiraamu/grand father of Ugandan Muslims). The likes of the very influential Sheikh Obeid Kamulegeya, who used to openly campaign for Besigye at Kibuli during Juma prayers, these days receive Museveni with open hands and in fact his suspicious closeness to Museveni, brokered by Kayihura, is the reason Prince Kassim Nakibinge became uncomfortable and sidelined Sheikh Obed Kamulegeya.
It was through Kayihura that Museveni detoxicated Kamulegeya’s political hatred towards him & NRM. Many times after 2016 elections, Museveni has been to places like Katwe giving out seed development money to Muslim groups patronized by the outgoing IGP. Kayihura was for a long time until the return of Tumukunde the only general in whose home the President’s son Muhoozi Kainerugaba would comfortably eat or drink something. “I do this only in Gen Kayihura’s home, otherwise it’s hard to find me eating anywhere,” Gen Muhoozi onetime joked to friends as he picked a drink from a fridge in Kayihura’s Muyenga home some years ago before the General from Kisoro began to be sidelined by some influential members of the first family. First Lady Janet Museveni equally loved Gen Kale though she later on closed doors on him reportedly in favor of Gen Tumukunde. She is a staunch Born Again politician and with time became apprehensive and grew very contemptuous of Kayihura largely because of the brutality his men always unleashed on the population. She was reportedly uncomfortable with the excessive loyalty which quite often made Gen Kayihura too docile and submissive before the President instead of looking him in the eye and give him objective advice on certain things. Janet was reportedly very contemptuous of this given that for years Kayihura is the man Museveni consulted on almost everything. The First Lady reportedly prefers Generals who respectfully disagree with the boss and candidly advise him, something Gen Kayihura never had guts to do. Gen Salim Saleh too is understood to have become disgusted with Kayihura who stands accused of using his proximity to always bad mouth fellow senior military officers to the President. Saleh for instance believes the Museveni-Sejusa fallout wouldn’t have escalated if it wasn’t for Gen Kayihura who kept feeding the President with exaggerated intelligence reports clearly inflating the threat Sejusa posed to the regime in Kampala.
KALE-M7 OLD ALLIES
Gen Kayihura, who joined NRA war through Prof Yusuf Lule after finishing his Masters (LLM) at London School of Economics, has always been Museveni’s trusted PA. In fact up to this day he officially remains Museveni’s Military Assistant (MA) with an office at Nakasero State Lodge where he never sits. It’s in that capacity that Museveni tasked him with classified assignments regarding the DR Congo war and the RPF Rwanda war of years earlier. It’s in that same capacity (as MA) that Museveni at some point (in the late 1990s) tasked Kayihura to go pacify smuggling under the Uganda Special Revenue Protection Services (USRPS) which sought to militarize revenue collection in the URA of pre-Kagina era. At some point Gen Saleh wanted him replaced arguing Gen Kale was now too senior to retain that position, a suggestion Museveni rejected arguing he was yet to find someone as loyal. In the NRA bush war Museveni saw Kayihura as an asset because of the big Pan-Africanist profile his father John Kale had built as the UNC Diaspora chief based in Cairo. Wherever Museveni sent him begging arms and other logistics (e.g. in Rwanda, Libya etc) Kayihura was easily recognized because he was Mzee John Kale’s son. He always kept rebel chief Museveni’s personal secrets and would even spy on others for him which explains why liberal-minded rebel leaders like Kizza Besigye, David Sejusa, Tumukunde and others were always hostile to him/Kale. They always felt Kayihura was reporting their private plans to Museveni who Besigye says was always away and rarely with other NRA Commanders in the bush. After the war, Museveni designated Kayihura as his MA and would send him on so many personal errands within Uganda, Africa and beyond. Museveni was for many years also fascinated by Kayihura’s contempt for material things and general respect for authority (we are unsure if these remain his views). Simply put, Kayihura knows so much about Museveni’s private dealings which makes it hard for him to for instance ever be allowed to retire from the military.
ROLE AS IGP
Kayihura became IGP 13 years ago, replacing Gen Katumba Wamala. Museveni wanted a tough military man to take on Col Kizza Besigye whose belligerent politics was militarizing and radicalizing the population. Ironically being too civil and failure to act brutally is the major reason Museveni found Katumba not suitable for the job. Those days the opposition would openly win in all police barracks at election time and Museveni wanted an IGP that would gradually reverse that shame. Kayihura, who has had to be bashed for the pro-Museveni brutality that Katumba resisted, became the perfect candidate for the IGP job as of 2005 and remained so for many years until Sunday evening when Museveni sacked him. “Let nobody deceive you. This is Africa and specifically Uganda. There is no way one is going to be a good IGP handling protesters with kids’ gloves as long as Museveni is president. You Baganda love your Kabaka the way Catholics love their cardinal. I can assure you even if Kabaka or the Cardinal became the IGP, nothing will change as long as Museveni is the President because brutality is what he wants. There is no other way he is going to remain in power without acting brutality on those challenging his grip. Any police chief will have to brutalize Ugandans or else serve for a short time like was the case with K kayihuraatumba Wamala whose reign was deliberately underfunded and had to go begging to buy police cars,” said one of the political pundits we spoke to for this news feature. “What Kayihura’s police have been doing is what qualifies one to be a good IGP in Museveni’s Uganda. Please make no mistake about it. That is reason Museveni will never join you people in condemning Police for acting brutally against his opponents. To him those policemen beating up Besigye fans are doing the right thing and there is no other way to prevent an Arab Spring here.” This source maintained: “Let’s not be simplistic here. For as long as Museveni is president you will get many other IGPs but none of them will end police brutality because that is the only way you can prevent Besigye’s Misrata brigades from grabbing power Arab Spring style. Remember this a leader [M7] who has been there for three decades.” The source maintained that Museveni will never bash police brutality as long as whoever is police chief remains loyal to him as a leader “because that is the only sure way to keep him in power and that is why Kayihura hasn’t been dropped because of police brutality.” Indeed Museveni has always blamed Besigye and other brutality victims for provoking the police.
KAYUNGA RIOTS:
Sources familiar with the duo’s historical relationship reveal that Kayihura won more trust in around 2009. That year two politically very significant events happened namely CBS closure and Kayunga riots. Kayunga rioters overwhelmed security and took everybody hostage-burning police stations-for five days. And in a subsequent National Security Council (NSC) meeting, Museveni looked restless and was there rebuking everybody. “What are you generals for?” he angrily asked a group of top security agency chiefs. Sejusa was in that meeting as was Gen Aronda (then CDF), Elly Tumwine and others. Kirunda Kivejinja was the internal affairs Minister. Museveni accused generals of betrayal wondering why they were handling rioters with kids’ glove. Sejusa suggested the riots had entered critical stage and there was no way you could reverse them without ending at ICC. He proposed, as Aronda and others concurred, that Museveni abdicates power and a government of national unity is formed ahead of 2011 elections. Whoever he told to take charge crushing the rioters refused fearing personal responsibility for the deaths that could result into ICC indictments. Gen Kayihura offered to risk and his police force led efforts along with military police to reverse the rioters that were on the verge of toppling Museveni. In many other subsequent meetings, Kayihura always joined Museveni in voting for hard line positions against political opposition. This is something Museveni liked about KK’s loyalty. Then came the equally very exhaustive walk to work. All security agency heads declined to take overall command and the responsibility fell on Gen Kayihura’s police after Aronda declined to have his UPDF lead the crackdown. This was after Otunnu and JPAM had connived to get Ocampo investigate Ugandan military officials over the Kayunga massacres. The Walk to Work effort was spearheaded by police officers who had been recruited and empowered during IGP Kayihura era. These included publicists like Judith Nabakooba, Simeo Nsubuga and commanders like Andrew Felix Kaweesa, Siraje Bakaleke, James Ruhweza, Norman Musinga and others.
THE MASIRO RIOTS:
We also had the Masiro riots of 2010. Reliable intelligence sources say, having personally been to the scene where he was attacked and heckled prompting his escorts to shoot some dead, Museveni called his NSC generals and told them things were bad. Kayihura was away in Turkey where Museveni summoned him from to take overall command of Kampala deployments in the days that followed after all the other Generals refused to spearhead the crackdown fearing that Ocampo’s ICC investigations were already underway. Kayihura took the risk and won more Museveni trust. Then came the Sejusa explosive issue of May 2013. Sources say Gen Kale was in South Africa when it exploded and Museveni sent him his jet to urgently come home. Kayihura oversaw the annihilation of the Sejusa threat winning more Museveni kudos. In fact Museveni even promoted him to full General after Sejusa ranted saying Kayihura was too junior to arrest a 4 star general like him. Then came the Mbabazi threat that many thought was going to obliterate Museveni coupled with Besigye’s defiance-both of 2016. It was Kayihura who patronized and coordinated all the anti-Mbabazi operations prompting Jacqueline Mbabazi to contemptuously christen him as Afande Teargas. On the eve of 2016 general elections, Kayihura’s crime preventers program physochologically emboldened Museveni while cowing his opponents because it portrayed him as starting with an additional 2m votes even before hitting the campaign trail. It’s a combination of these and many other factors that explain why Museveni always tolerated Kayihura’s shortcomings and kept him IGP for more than a decade. Even when he has been fired its very unlikely Gen Kale will cause any trouble for the President. Kayihura knows the consequences of politically challenging Museveni having seen 1996’s PK Semogerere, the 2000s’ Besigye and later on Mbabazi try unsuccessfully. In any case being personally hated and discredited is an attribute Museveni likes in his protégés because it means you have no potential or support for a power base to threaten his grip on power. But all said and done, there must be a lasting solution (could be a comprehensive political dialogue) to the Besigye-inspired riotous defiant mood that is fast engulfing much of Uganda’s young jobless population. And short of that we might end with a politically very explosive situation on our streets someday that could see many of our political and security leaders end up at the ICC or in some jail having to answer for crimes against humanity. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
