By Our Reporters
It has reliably been revealed that Gen Kale Kayihura and Maj Edith Nakalema (both of whom have since been sidelined from Museveni’s innermost circle) have been strong allies for a long time. Reliable sources have revealed to this news website that Maj Nakalema’s loyalty to Gen Kale pre-dates her time in State House where she, until 2017, served as defacto PPS as the substantive PPS Mary Amajo slept on the job. We had indicated in our earlier story (titled How Kayihura Built Powerbase) that Maj Nakalema used her period in State House to always ensure negative petitions against Gen Kale never reached the President but reliable State House sources got to us saying there was much more between the General and workaholic Major. “She didn’t only ensure bad reports didn’t reach Mzee; she also spied on disgruntled senior police officers who came to secretly meet Mzee without the knowledge of the IGP and that is how Gen Kale always got to know the negative reports such police officers would give Mzee about him,” said a State House source that has for long served Museveni along with Gen Kale and Maj Nakalema. It will be recalled that until Molly Kamukama came and became PPS, Maj Edith Nakalema was simply the most powerful assistant around the President. Exploiting Amajo’s laid back and almost fearful character, Nakalema stepped forward and did many of the roles meant for PPS-a thing that only increased her influence in the President’s entourage. In the same period, Gen Kale was equally powerful as IGP and Military Assistant (MA) to the President.
THE GENESIS:
The source, whose narrative was later corroborated by several others we spoke to for verification, further disclosed that the close relationship between Kale and Nakalema began way back in the late 1990s. Back then, fully serving as MA to the President, Gen Kale took on an additional assignment of overseeing the fight against smuggling that the then URA leadership was too inept to stamp out on its own. President Museveni sought to militarize the government response against armed smugglers especially on lakes and other water bodies. This is how his MA Gen Kale conceived the formation of Special Revenue Protection Services (SRPS) which for some time acted like the military/enforcement wing of the URA. Gen Kale headed it himself. In his work plan, he indicated to Museveni he required a special team of at least 100 specially trained graduate officers to constitute the core SRPS team. So in around 1997/8, the powerful people in the system were asked to recommend names to constitute this team. Instead the number in the end exceeded the 100 officers that were required. “There were many others who had been recommended by powerful people in government who weren’t taken on for SRPS and their disappointment was managed in a manner Gen Kayihura proposed. He convinced the President that they should be taken to Kimaka in Jinja and trained under a special cadet intake,” narrated the source adding that Maj Nakalema was among those rejectees taken to Kimaka. They were codenamed “intake 6 of 1999” and even officers like Brig Muzeeyi Sabiiti, Kakono now of Masindi Artillery and others were part of this intake. “It was a privilege to be in that intake because even Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba joined that intake on return from Sandhurst because he needed a specially packaged training that would properly integrate him into the Ugandan military system. It wasn’t an intake for every Tom, Dick & Harry,” knowledgeable sources told us. As MA, Gen Kale was tasked to on behalf of the President supervise this Kimaka special cadet training whose chief instructors were Gen Peter Elwelu (then Captain) and Afande Igumba. While there undergoing the rigorous training, something strange happened that further fermented the bonding between Edith Nakalema and Gen Kayihura who eventually became like her foster father.
The daily physical training drills became too intensive for Maj Nakalema and at some point she considered petitioning Uganda Human Rights Commission accusing Elwelu and other instructors of torture. In fact sources say she even quit at some point “but Gen Kayihura got involved as MA and she was marched back into the cadet training, something that some instructors furiously protested insisting she can’t rejoin the training but because her godfather Gen Kayihura was very powerful and the President’s points-man supervising this training, she was allowed back.” It’s not clear who of Maj Edith Nakalema’s people had approached Gen Kale begging him to help out but sources maintained that the Major, who always looked to be not physically very strong, joined that special cadet training on his advice and prompting. “The cadet training all over the world is very rigorous, painful and torturous. It’s never for the faint-hearted and that is what Maj Nakalema painfully learnt during the Kimaka training,” the source explained. One of her fellow trainees in the Kimaka intake said Nakalema, who we later came to know as very abrasive, was never talkative or extroverted during the Kimaka training. “She was always quiet and incognito. In fact it’s possible some colleagues left Kimaka without knowing her that much. She was almost timid and shy and never directed hostilities, that later came to be associated with her, at anybody. While at Kimaka, she was as cool as cucumber,” recalled her very chatty course mate.
The sources added that, whereas there are many other peasant’s children that joined the special Kimaka intake on the recommendation of Gen Kale, very prayerful Nakalema turned out luckiest because she was among the few that were selected to join the PGB (later SFC) that guards the President. And it’s while there that she won the trust of commander Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba who later elevated her to be the financial controller or manager for the elite force guarding the President. Of course while there, she remained very close and loyal to Gen Kale who continued working with her when she eventually was appointed to head the President’s secretaries, the substantive position she used as a stepping stone to become defacto PPS as Amajo slept on the job. She headed the secretaries following Miriam Kakunda’s controversial departure and the President badly wanted somebody tough and strict in his entourage to fill the vacuum the departure of Amelia Kyambadde and later on Kakunda had created. “It seems her [Nakalema’s] prayerfulness worked because she unexpectedly also won the favor of the first lady and that is how she consolidated herself in things for all those years. While in that powerful position, she never forgot what Gen Kale contributed to her career and she reciprocated as much as she could,” the source concluded. This now explains and answers people who always grumbled about Gen Kale’s indifference whenever anything was reported to police against Maj Edith Nakalema. The two simply had a history clearly pre-dating Nakalema’s ascendance to great power in Museveni’s State House. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
