Sarah Kagingo: how she became a person of interest

In April this year, president Museveni sent out his first tweet. Twitter was founded in March 2006, so the president’s tweet, in which he saluted Kyambogo University students for overhauling a car engine to use ethanol, came almost eight years after.

Mr Museveni has been in power for at least 28 years. In a matter of hours, the tweet was retweeted by 1,925 followers. In a few months, the 70-year-old’s twitter handle @KagutaMuseveni had more than 70,000 followers while his Facebook page Yoweri K Museveni attracted at least 158,000 fans. A number of parody accounts have since been created.

There was something out of the ordinary for the President, largely seen as a typical conservative African leader. In fact, some media houses would later insinuate the perceived power struggle between the President and his erstwhile political ally for four decades was taking a new twist.

Amama Mbabazi is fairly active on twitter and unlike his boss, comes off as a tech-savvy man, sometimes addressing journalists, then as prime minister, via twitter. So Museveni’s dash to social media was seen as a catch up game to neutralise political ground.

The President was flashed unto our faces every other hour, with images of him driving a car, interacting with children and elders during stop overs littered on Facebook and twitter. But of course the President is too busy to have been tweeting.

The woman behind the tweets
Behind the reinvention of the president’s image was Sarah Kagingo, the Special Presidential Assistant for Communication, now in the news for what appears a do or die rupture of intrigue at State House.

First came the allegations that she was mistreating a maid and paying her Shs5,000 monthly. Police, armed with AK-47 rifles and accompanied with select journalists cordoned the house. The case has never seen the light of day and Kagingo, later clarified that this was a poor attempt at blackmail. The maid police claimed she was harassing, she said, is actually her relative and happily lives with her in Muyenga, a Kampala suburb.

Reports of hacking begin
When dust on that debacle settled, the media again reported that the president’s social media accounts had been hacked. Intrigue, intrigue, intrigue at State House, Kagingo cried out. And that is when the invisible cracks in the wall gave way, this was the tipping point for what made fodder for chit chat in bars and corridors of newsrooms in Uganda

The media went into expose-it-all mode. The presidential press unit (PPU) leadership did not help matters, with Presidential Press Secretary Tamale Mirundi “firing” Kagingo on Facebook. Kagingo would later demand for a termination letter and Mirundi rebutting with the question, “But where is your appointment letter? You cannot deliver a child without being pregnant.” On the other hand, State House comptroller Lucy Nakyobe told the Observer newspaper, “Kagingo was overwhelmed; she needed someone to help her.” This someone is Linda Nabusayi, Mirundi’s deputy who has kept.

Account was hacked... or was it?
Days later, Kagingo went to her Facebook page to announce the President’s account had been hacked. Minutes later, a tweet from the President’s handle @KagutaMuseveni read, “I am still in charge of my accounts. Forgive @SarahKagingo for misinforming you. I will deal with her when I come back.” Museveni was in Rome, Italy.

A day or two later, State House released a press statement indicating the President had personally called Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura ordering him to investigate Kagingo and release a one Joseph Owino whose arrest she had allegedly sanctioned for hacking the accounts.

A day later, Police spokesman Fred Enanga denied police had received instructions from the president. The president had been impersonated by his own.
Police would later make a futile attempt to withdraw Kagingo’s official car, a Pajero, which remained in her possession till yesterday evening. Daily Monitor learnt that her car had been withdrawn.

“I have a recording of people who stormed her gate. When she [Kagingo] asked for their identity they refused to give it to her. When I went there, I asked them to identify themselves and they said they were from Flying Sqaud. They had no search warrant save a letter from the State House comptroller dated November 6. Her employers did not formally write to her. Police and her employers should have been more decent,” Nicholas Opiyo, Kagingo’s lawyer said in a phone interview.

The circus seems headed nowhere close to an end. But when all is said and done, the ordinary spectator of the goings on yearns to know what went wrong. This is an attempt to explain the behind the scenes with sensitive details withheld for legal and security reasons.

Former presidential spokesman Onapito Ekomoloit told this newspaper recently, “President Museveni is generally an informal person. You can never know who your boss is, the person you undermine might be more important to him.” Kagingo, it appears, fell in this trap where she found herself sticking to the reporting lines she was briefed about on day one.
When she was appointed, she set out to start a fully-fledged digital media desk at state house.

She directly reported to Amajo who herself is on a perpetual collision course with Nakyobe, president’s private secretary for secretarial duties Maj Edith Nakalema whom Kagingo has since filed complaints of harassment and assault against with police for physical injuries inflicted on her.

“It is said Nakoybe has her eye on Amajo’s job and is doing everything to undermine and hound her out and those loyal to her. In fact the next person might be Amajo who is also not getting salary and has no appointment letter,” our source says.

Kagingo’s background
For Kagingo, this was an opportunity to serve “a great teacher and intellectual” who, while she was a Senior Two student at Trinity College Nabingo lectured high school students on under development in Africa and made a lasting impression on her.

Kagingo later turned down an offer to pursue pharmacy for a degree in Library and Information Science. In 1997, she stood with 10 other contestants in a hot race for the presidency of the students’ guild.

Her cabinet had East African legislative Assembly MP Nusura Tiperu, minister without portfolio Richard Todwong and police’s Flying Squad boss Charles Kataratambi was justice minister. Her outlook to life was shaped by NRM and Museveni specifically.

“In my cabinet, I copied President Museveni’s idea of a broad based approach. I had members from all regions. I remember welcoming president Bill Clinton at the airport. When mzee came to Makerere newspapers headlines read, ‘The Two Presidents Meet…’ I enjoyed Makerere,” she says.

In 1996, as a first year student, she was at the frontline of the anti-Ssemogerere propaganda at the university, giving wrong information on the days he was going to Makerere and flashing Museveni’s posters and slogans the moment the former Democratic Party president started to campaign. Thus is her deeply entrenched attachment to the NRM, she admits she admires Museveni for having prescriptions to Africa’s challenges.

In all this however, what endeared both haters and admirers of Museveni to Kagingo is her non-confrontational approach. Often time, top opposition figures shared or commented on her posts. Uganda People’s Congress ideologue Joseph Ochieno once wrote that the president has a new kid on the block who is different from all his propagandists.

“I believe that difference in opinion should not be a quarrel. You can still make your point without being impolite to anyone,” she told this writer in an interview. This attracted positive feedback from the region, with media teams of other presidents in East Africa personally reaching out to her. On working with Mr Mirundi, she said, “I am grateful to him because he stands by me whenever social media desk is under attack by cliques. He is a good guy.”

President Museveni, who appointed Kagingo has not yet spoken or formally communicated his position to her but for now, she admits to have tactically withdrawn and awaits the President’s word. Meanwhile the President’s social media accounts continue to receive torrents of ridicule over the kind of language used.

Did Kagingo try to outshine her masters? It is said the president often praised her in meetings and among guests, at the expense of her peers’ ego. Is she being hounded and haunted for sensitive information she has and social media being used as a scape goat? Was it her fault at personality level? Why is Museveni keeping mum? Your guess is as good as ours.

How Kagingo came into the picture

In 2013, as the National Resistance Movement MPs retreated to Kyankwazi, Kagingo, who was employed by a private company that deals in value addition of agricultural products, attended and relayed on social media the discussions.

From ministers being put on the spot over performance to status updates on the implementation of the NRM manifesto, her updates demystified the mystery of Kyankwazi to critics who associated the retreat with nyama choma and pombe (food and drink).

The President was impressed by the reaction from the public. Seated on her couch at home, playing with her daughter, her phone rang. The number was strange. On the other side of the call, an elderly, commandeering voice asked, “Is this Sarah Kagingo? This is your president.”

That phone call, left her tongue-tied, led to a late evening appointment in State House Nakasero where the President instructed his principal private secretary Mary Amajo to appoint, with immediate effect, “this daughter of mine as my special presidential assistant for communication. Get her a desk and she reports to work tomorrow.” This meant she was joining the President’s inner core staff that includes his two personal doctors, aide de camp, PPS, four escorts, private secretary for secretarial duties and a communications assistant who is outside the mainstream PPU structure.

She immediately resigned her private sector job that came with a seven-figure pay cheque, at least five times more than state house would pay her. Amajo penned the appointment letter and forwarded it to the State House comptroller, Lucy Nakyobe who technically, is meant to forward it to Ministry of Public Service. That was not done.

To this day, her appointment was never formalised, with complaint after complaint to the President leading to Nakyobe shifting blame to public service for not responding to her. That of course means Kagingo has never been paid a salary. So how has she been surviving? She clung on a thin thread of hope as days turned into weeks and weeks into months and months into a year.

Our sources in State House and military, who are familiar with goings on at the State House said, “The problem is that she was seen as close to Salim Saleh. The cliques there do not want anyone close to Saleh because they imagine they will spy on them and the President takes Saleh’s word.” Asked to respond to this, she said, “Afande Saleh is a pacifist, he comes to resolve a conflict as a peace maker, not to take sides and so he has no role in state house politics.” PPU also reportedly saw Kagingo, who needs between Shs6,000 and Shs15,000 on internet bundles daily, as a stumbling block to what they had proposed to the president would cost between Shs400m and Shs600m quarterly.P East Africa Legislative Assembly.

Bio
Born in 1978 in Kajara, Ntungamo District, Sarah Kagingo went to Trinity College Nabingo for O-Level and Mt St Mary’s College Namagunga for A-Level. She was admitted for a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy but turned it down for a degree in library and information science at Makerere University where she became second female guild president in 1997.

She later worked with Divinity Union, a non-government organisation as a research assistant and later public relations officer. The single mother of two children worked as a director research and development with a local company that deals in value addition. The businesswoman has also unsuccessfully vied for MP East Africa Legislative Assembly.