Taking on the master

Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde has divided opinion by making it public this week that he intends to consult over a possible bid for the presidency come 2021.
The former spymaster becomes the latest ex-Bush War fighter to dare President Museveni, the man who led them into the improbable mission through the jungles of Luweero Triangle in the early 1980s.
Gen Tumukunde treads a well-travelled path, which many of his former co-fighters have taken, with differing levels of success.
None of them has tasted the ultimate success to date, and President Museveni is still up and running, readying himself for a sixth defence of the presidency at the polls slated for next year.
Dr Kizza Besigye, who treated many of the elite fighters during the Bush War, including Gen Tumukunde himself, is still standing, with his fight against his former boss well into its third decade, and has welcomed Gen Tumukunde to the battlefield.
Gen Tumukunde first dared President Museveni in the lead up to the 2005 removal of term limits for the presidency, which earned him confinement and a seven-year battle in the military court.
He acquiesced to the system, and in particular his former commander-in-chief, and was ‘rehabilitated’, reabsorbed, and helping to flatten former prime minister Amama Mbabazi’s bid for the presidency in 2016.
President Museveni, happy with Gen Tumukunde’s performance, appointed him Security minister after the 2016 General Election, and the ex-spy master set his sights on criminal gangs in Kampala, commonly known as kifeesi, and often conflicted with former police chief Gen Kale Kayihura.
President Museveni sacked the two men from their respective positions on the same day, in March 2018.
Gen Tumukunde did not seem so distraught at the sacking, continuing to work underground and campaigning for the ruling party, especially during the Rukungiri Woman MP by-election, which came two months after his sacking.
He then outlined ambitions of his own, sending indications around Kampala that he intended to challenge Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago in the coming election. That now looks like a red herring Gen Tumukunde used to cover up a bigger ambition from exploding into the public domain before he intended it to.

Sam Kalega Njuba, the pioneer
The first major fallout was between Mr Museveni and the late Sam Kalega Njuba, who had joined politics in 1980, at the prompting of Mr Museveni.
Njuba, who had taught law at Makerere University in the 1970s, became a member of the external wing of the NRM/A in Nairobi, Kenya, and was instrumental in recruiting fighters, most notably Dr Kizza Besigye.
After the war, he was appointed minister for Constitutional Affairs and charged with setting the stage for the drafting of a new Constitution, but soon afterwards he fell out with Mr Museveni, who sacked him in 1993.
“I had served as a minister for long and I knew I could not be a minister forever. My only regret is that the struggle has been derailed,” Njuba told the media in a 1999 interview.
He did not personally challenge President Museveni, but he was one of Dr Besigye’s most trusted confidants as the former Bush War physician to President Museveni challenged for the top office. Njuba and Dr Besigye co-founded the Forum for Democratic Change and Njuba was its chairman at the time of his death in December 2013.

Augustine Ruzindana
An attempt had been made to force Mr Museveni not to overstay in power by sneaking a clause in his 2001 manifesto that he would not contest again after 2006, but by 2003, it had become clear that he was not about to quit.
Mr Ruzindana, a former Ombudsman, then tried to use the Parliamentary Advocacy Forum (PAFO) to fight against lifting of presidential term limits, but that failed, compelling Mr Ruzindana, who was then the MP for Ruhaama County, to become one of the founders of FDC, where he became the secretary general. He lost the Ruhaama seat and Mr Museveni has since accused the former Fronasa member of having a history of fleeing from liberation struggles.

Dr Kizza Besigye
In 1999, Dr Besigye wrote a paper, “An Insider’s View of How the NRM Lost the Broad Base”, in which he concluded that the Movement had lost its way. He was threatened with an appearance before the General Court Martial for airing out his views in a wrong forum, but elders from Rukungiri brokered a deal whereby the charges were dropped in return for an apology to the President. But on October 28, 2000, he announced his intention to contest for the presidency.
Mr Museveni accused him of going about his intentions in an “indisciplined and disruptive way” and accused him of having had a hand in purchasing junk choppers for the army. Since then, Dr Besigye has contested four times against Mr Museveni and he remains one of the latter’s strongest critics.

Eriya Kategaya
Kategaya, who had been an associate of President Museveni since their secondary school days at Ntare and the University of Dar-es Salaam, was also part of Mr Museveni’s Front for National Salvation (Fronasa) and a founder of Uganda Patriotic Movement, the fore runner of NRM.
Following the launch of the bush war, Kategaya served as a member of the external wing of the NRM/A.
Kategaya, who represented Rwampara in Parliament and served as National Political Commissar (NPC), and also held various Cabinet portfolios, had been considered Mr Museveni’s Number Two until May 2003, when he was dropped from Cabinet for speaking out against the removal of presidential term limits from the 1995 Constitution. The two later reconciled and he was named Deputy Premier and minister for East African Affairs, posts that he held until his death in March 2013.

Amama Mbabazi
The former prime minister and secretary general of the ruling NRM, who had previously held so many Cabinet posts that he was referred to as a “Super Minister”, had until his sacking in February 2014, been seen as next in an imaginary queue to replace Mr Museveni.
However, following the endorsement of a resolution by NRM MPs who had gathered in Kyankwanzi, which adopted Mr Museveni as their sole candidate, he was forced to append his signature to the same document. Six months later, he was sacked as Prime Minister. In June 2015, he announced his decision to contest for the Presidency.
He came third with 1.39 per cent of the vote cast.
Though he initially kept a low profile, he has lately been seen hobnobbing with Mr Museveni.

Gen David Sejusa
Gen Sejusa first started exhibiting an independent streak during the Constituent Assembly (CA), when he opposed the automatic extension of the Movement system of government, but was forced to apologise and retract his comments during a meeting of the Movement caucus and even promised to henceforth not express any opinion of a “constitutional or political nature” without the “authority of the appropriate organs of the army.”
In 1992, after the President rejected his attempt to resign from the army, Gen Sejusa ran to court, which ruled in his favour, but the ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court, forcing him to back down and apologise to the President.
In May 2013, the former Coordinator of Intelligence Services penned a letter in which he called for an investigation into an alleged plan to assassinate senior government officers, who were allegedly opposed to plans to install Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as his father’s successor.
He fled into exile in the United Kingdom, where he announced the formation of the Freedom and Unity Front Party in November 2013, and declared his intention to resist Mr Museveni “by all means necessary.” He also acknowledged harbouring presidential ambitions, saying “a four-star general without ambition is in a wrong place.” He returned to Uganda in December 2014, and has been keeping a low profile.

Jack Sabiiti
Fondly known as the “Lion of Rukiga, Sabiiti, a graduate of Makerere and Dalhousie universities, worked in the ministries of Local Government, that of Defense and that of the Presidency, before serving as district commissioners in various parts of Uganda. He fled to Kenya, from where he went for military training in Libya in 1982.
In 1985, he served as spokesperson for Uganda Freedom Movement during the peace talks. He later returned to Uganda and participated in the CA. The former Rukiga County MP is one of the founder members of FDC where he once served as the party’s treasurer.

Amanya Mushega
Col Mushega had enrolled for a Doctor of Philosophy Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science, but abandoned it to join the NRA in 1981. After the Bush War, the man who had done his Bachelors’ degree at the University of Dar- es Salaam held various ministerial posts, including that of Local Government, Education and that of Public Service, while also representing Igara East in Parliament.
In 2001, he was named Secretary General of the East African Community (EAC), but in 2005, following the scrapping of presidential term limits, Mushega, who was opposed to the idea, became one of the founder members of FDC and rose to the position of vice president for western Uganda.
He, however, had a sharp disagreement with Dr Besigye over the latter’s decision to contest the 2016 General Election on an FDC ticket. It is not clear whether he has since quit FDC.

Maj John Kazoora
Maj Kazoora had been the director of political affairs in the Internal Security Organisation (ISO), but he was in March 1991, arrested on accusations of terrorism and embezzlement of Shs12m. On September 3, 1991, he was found “guilty” and sentenced to five years for embezzlement, but the decision was overturned by the High Court on June 18, 1992.
It would, however, seem that it was events prior to overturning the sentence that set him on a collision course with his former boss. In his book, Betrayed by my Leader, the man who was commissioned to the rank of Major in 1987, details how efforts to have President Museveni revisit the charges against him were thwarted and how he had been annoyed by the President’s decision to go headhunting for people to contest against him in Kashari, even after he had retired from the army. It was following those events that he later joined FDC. Kazoora has since been living a low profile.

Mathew Rukikaire
Once Mr Museveni made the decision to launch a war against the Obote II government, it was necessary to find a place where soldiers could assemble prior to the start of the war. It was to Mr Rukikaire’s home in Makindye, Kampala, that he went. It was from his compound that the Mercedes Benz truck that took the fighters to Kabamba set off from.
Mr Rukikaire was to later flee into exile in Kenya, where he too became the chairman of the external committee of the rebel movement.
He, together with Museveni, Njuba and Ruhakana Rugunda, travelled to Libya and managed to convince the late Muammar Gaddafi to support their cause.
Mr Rukikaire, who was to later help smuggle guns that had been acquired from Libya for fighters in the jungles of Luweero, served as minister of State for Privatisation after the fall of the Obote II and Tito Okelo regimes, but resigned in 1999 amid threats of censure from Parliament over allegations of corruption in the privatization process. He later fell afoul of Mr Museveni over links between him and Dr Besigye.

Gen Benon Biraaro
Gen Benon Biraaro fled from Makerere University where he had just completed his studies to join the Bush War in June 1982. Gen Biraaro, who held several positions in the bush, including that of secretary to the High Command, was to become the first Deputy Principle Private Secretary to the President after the Bush War.
In the late 1980s, he was instrumental in pacifying parts of eastern Uganda, where the NRA was battling rebels of the Force Obote Back Again (FOBA), who were active in parts of Bukedi region, before serving in, among other posts, as Commandant of the Military Police, director of training in the UPDF, and Commandant of the Uganda Senior Command and Staff College at Kimaka.
Gen Biraaro, however, fell out with his former boss following his retirement from the army in 2013. He subsequently formed the Farmers Party of Uganda, through which he often called on Mr Museveni to step down and prepare for a peaceful transfer of power.
Gen Biraaro, who died on February 12, contested for the presidentcy in the 2016 General Election and also made attempts to broker dialogue between Mr Museveni and Dr Besigye.

Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu
The National Coordinator of the Opposition Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), Maj Gen Muntu rattled the feathers of his guardian, President Milton Obote, when he fled from Makerere to join the NRA. After the capture of Kampala, he became a Division Commander and later Army Commander after training in Russia.
His disagreements with President Museveni emanated from what he perceived to be the President’s tolerance of corruption in the army. The former Army representative to the CA was fired from the office of Army Commander and offered a Cabinet job, but he turned it down. He later participated in the formation of the FDC, which he headed for some time. It was after he was defeated by Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi that the former member of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) moved to form ANT in May last year.