By Our Reporters
It has always been thought and speculated that Blaise Kamugisha, the national coordinator for Crime Preventers Forum, is IGP Gen Kale Kayihura’s son. But in a bid to establish how the two came to be close, this news website has established that nothing would be further from the truth. For a start, Blaise Kamugisha hails from Isingiro where he was born and raised in a poor man’s typically peasant home.
The year was 2013 when the rumor that then Prime Minister and NRM Secretary General Amama Mbabazi was planning to upstage President Museveni ahead of the 2016 general elections. Ofcourse there was nervousness given the influence and power JPAM wielded at that time. Just like his boss Museveni, Gen Kayihura became desperate for allies that would be relied upon to neutralize Mbabazi’s plans in case he had any. Makerere University is one area that Museveni and Kayihura feared Mbabazi would choose to epicenter his political activities when time came.
This is so because students are numerically strong, anti-government, easily excitable and represent almost the whole country because of the vastness of the places they each come from. It’s also true there was despondence in both students and staff having always supported Kizza Besigye without taking power. Being new on the scene, the duo’s fears were that JPAM would create a new wave of excitement at Makerere and thereafter spread his Go-Forward gospel to the rest of the country.
THE BIG DILEMA:
For Museveni it had to be Kayihura to do the job given that previously MUASA bosses had grown very fond of him after he took them directly to the President several times where other leaders had either refused or failed. Gen Kayihura also had had some interaction with students and Museveni rightly believed he would be the best person to send to do business with the same students. “Having had history of involvement in resolving both staff and students strikes, the President rightly believed Gen Kayihura had a good starting point rather than sending someone totally new,” explained a knowledgeable government source. Those who know him well say Kayihura can be restless when assigned by the President as he always fears to disappoint his CiC by reporting failure.
“And in this case, the situation was even very desperate because Kayihura knew it had to be him as nobody else would be trusted as the president wasn’t sure who was still with him and not gone with JPAM,” the source further explained. “Yet the biggest dilemma for Kayihura was finding students’ leaders that could be trusted having been defrauded before. He had experiences of students selling to him fake intelligence, real NRM people being taken to him as defectors wanting to see Mzee. So he had to be very careful with the people he worked with to tame Mbabazism at Makerere lest he let down the president on such a very sensitive assignment.”
BLAISE COMES IN THE PIX:
By that time Blaise, a law student, was the chairman NRM Makerere chapter and was using the position to build political capital to become guild president. The guild security ministry organized a security week to which Kayihura was invited for closing ceremony. Blaise got a moment to confide in him and handed him a document that had his phone contacts.
The document was articulating how students would be harnessed into police allies to stamp out violent crimes like rapes and robberies that were becoming rampant on campus at night. Kayihura put his spects as he prepared to make his speech and told Blaise Kamugisha “this is very good Ndugu [he likes that word] in fact I’m going to call you with your team for further discussion.” In the subsequent meetings they discussed how to implement this plan.
It was agreed that for the start, the holiday that was upcoming can be taken advantage of. Kayihura doubted any students would forfeit going home just to stay behind for police training. Blaise Kamugisha assured him he would mobilize a minimum of 500 students to remain behind for at least 2 weeks to undergo police training in basic self-defense tactics.
“All we need is you helping us talk to the University to allow us use Livingstone Hall for this two weeks training. They always ask for money which we don’t have,” Blaise reportedly told Gen Kayihura who did as requested. Kayihura ordered police to provide other logistical requirements for the training such as refreshments, meals, mattresses for accommodation, the music, the writing materials and certificates each trainee got at the end of the training. Police also sent instructors for the 2 week course.
MEETING CLOSES:
In the end, Kayihura who only came for closing ceremony was surprised even opposition Lumumba guys he always knew as diehard rioters attended the course with enthusiasm and promised to change. Kayihura couldn’t believe a student leader (Blaise) would accomplish all this with minimum facilitation. Especially female students began demanding they want a more comprehensive course and even learn shooting the gun at Kabalye. The number had even grown; many more who had missed the two weeks training wanted to come on board because it was the long holiday (May-August). Many travelled back from upcountry having realized participation is such things boosted their defense abilities but most importantly came with exposure to opportunities in government. Kayihura spoke to the President who supported the idea of taking a bigger group to Kabalye police training school. This is how Blaise Kamugisha’s clout began growing amongst his peers but most importantly before Kayihura who later introduced him to Museveni.
ENCOUTERS M7:
The Kabalye training had many big people from government, including then LoP Wafula Oguttu, coming to address students to change their mindset. In the end Museveni also came and praised the initiative and promised support. He referred to the possibility of eventually decreeing that 10% of future cadet recruits must at every intake come from this group. This eventually became the position and even in programs like YLP, the President’s view is a quota of the money should be ring-fenced for crime preventers.
Even the President’s son Muhoozi Kainerugaba, equally surprised Makerere would embrace government in such a big way, drove to Kabalye and addressed students prompting them on the opportunities in the SFC he then led and elsewhere in the armed forces. Museveni and Kayihura believed this was the best opportunity they had to galvanize Makerere and at least diminish the damage JPAM would have caused using University students. What made them even more excited was that the young people would overlook quick monetary gains in favor of anything else like networking and improving on their ideological understanding of their country’s political and security problems.
Each time they reflected on all this, credit inevitably went to Blaise Kamugisha who was the vision bearer of it all. The Kabalye pass out got good publicity and students elsewhere got to know about it. Blaise began getting phone calls from fellow students’ leaders in other Universities rebuking him for leaving them out. They demanded their own Kabalye and more interaction with the President and IGP, meetings which Blaise Kamugisha duly organized. “There are many things that worked to favor that boy [Blaise] including luck but most importantly the timing for his thing was the best. Museveni and IGP were desperate to galvanize the youth as part of their broader efforts to frustrate JPAM. Blaise Kamugisha effectively exploited that opportune timing and the rest is history,” says a long serving NRM youth activist.
MORE MEETINGS:
In many other subsequent meetings between Blaise, Museveni and Kayihura it was resolved to turn this into a countrywide movement. Museveni advised the movement should embrace both educated and uneducated youths because the crime they wanted to combat was rampant both in Kampala and upcountry. That is how the Crime Preventers’ Forum was born. People were sent to many countries for benchmarking trips and the subsequent reports indicated this would be a good way to deepen the community policing model in which Gen Kayihura had already invested a lot of time and resources.
As vision bearer, Blaise Kamugisha had to be the pioneer overall head for the group. As of now, the group which the opposition dismisses as nothing but voting machines for Museveni boosts of 11m members countrywide. In each district is a coordinator below whom are many others based at Sub County, Parish and village level. The district coordinators report to NCPF Secretariat in Kampala.
They previously had two national offices in Naguru and Wandegeya which was closed after activities diminished with the ending of election season. “We are volunteers but the advantage that attracts people to this is the connections and the network. Many of our well qualified members have used this as a platform to access job opportunities. You get to know big people and they also get to know you and if you are qualified, they consider you when the opportunity comes,” says one of the key leaders deputizing Blaise.
Many of the members are lawyers, engineers, architects and highly qualified in other fields like ICT. They also have a SACCO under which they sometimes compete for sub contracts. The example are the police quarters being constructed in Naguru where the contractor agreed to employ close to 300 crime preventers on the site in different capacities. Besides the modest pay they are getting, these young people most importantly are getting experience which has always been a major inhibition for them to get jobs. Tactifuly Museveni was made the group patron and this helps the IGP escape parliamentary scrutiny regarding his relationship with crime preventers.
The group has grown to influence elections including the one of Western youth MP Mpaka Mwine against Amanya Tumukunde in Fort Portal. Ex-Communications manager Sylvia Ahumuza stood for national female youth MP and today she works with NIRA. The group volunteers always participate in campaigning for NRM flag bearers especially in by-elections. There have also been betrayals whereby some members have had to leave after failing to have their monetary expectations met. It’s common for young people to be overly ambitious and to have very high expectations regarding materials rewards, positions and meetings with big people.
BUT WHO IS BLAISE KAMUGISHA?
In his 20s, the skinny young man hails from Isingiro and has always been in leadership since school. He studied at Justice Keneth Kakuru’s Eden International School Mbarara before joining Mbarara High School for his A’levels. He was active in the association uniting all school prefects in Ankole and became its chairman. At Mbarara High School, he was chairman Students Council. On joining Makerere, he made uprooting opposition his major pre-occupation and it appears he only diminished their support but didn’t totally succeed.
The much demanding job of coordinating 11m crime preventers made him too busy and diverted him from his original mission of contesting for guild president Makerere. Close pals say that all he has always wanted in these positions is the platform to have audience and interact with big people which the Crime Preventers Forum has exceedingly accorded him. Blaise Kamugisha considers himself a kingmaker because it’s through him that the police leadership, acting on the President’s behalf, has always participated and influenced electoral outcomes in especially by-elections.
