Muhoozi for President claims.
President Yoweri Museveni has rubbished claims that he is grooming his son Lt. Gen. Kainerugaba Muhoozi to succeed him as president.
Former chief of intelligence agencies Major Gen. David Sejusa in 2013 opened the conversation that there is a project aimed at grooming Lt. Gen. Muhoozi to take over from President Museveni.
Major Gen. Sejusa then fled the country to Britain for a year in self-imposed exile. However, he was later was arrested for insubordination in 2016. Unrepentant, since 2014, he remains unretired but with no deployment.
In an interview with Radio France, President Museveni dismissed the allegations as ‘they are not serious’.
The President blasted: “They are not serious. Why should I groom my son? The people of Uganda are there. They will select whom they want.”
Muhoozi military career
Muhoozi joined the army in 1997, recruiting about 100 university graduates who were trained as part of the Local Defence Unit (LDU): quasi trained soldiers, armed with sticks not guns.
He graduated from the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2000 and was deployed in the then Presidential Protection Unit (PPU).In 2002, he attended a company commander/battalion commander’s course in Egypt. When he returned a year later, he was appointed commanding officer of the fledgling motorized infantry battalion of the Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB), formerly PPU.
In 2008, he graduated from Fort Leavenworth, the US Army Command and General Staff College.
During that same year, the PGB was reorganised and renamed Commander Special Forces Group (SFG). Muhoozi, who had returned from the US, took over as the first commander. As the elite unit rapidly grew in size, it was renamed Special Forces Command (SFC).
Muhoozi stepped down as SFC commander in 2017 and was appointed senior presidential advisor for special operations. Three years later, he was reappointed to lead the SFC.
Away from guarding his father, he has led special military operations in South Sudan, Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Strengthening SFC
With an approximated 10,000 soldiers, SFC has become the most potent branch of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF).
During the last week of April, after a passing out parade of more than 1000 soldiers, President Museveni confirmed the upgrade of the commando battalion to a brigade. (A brigade has between 4,000 to 5000 soldiers).
SFC is also in charge of guarding oil fields in the Albertine region and other strategic government installations.
As the name suggests, SFC is in charge of special operations in the army.
President Museveni said its commandos were deployed to Kampala during the 18 November riots that resulted in deaths of more than 50 people.
Politics
Muhoozi has always dismissed talks of his presidential ambitions, even though there were heightened speculations that he would join politics in 2017 when he was removed from commanding SFC.
Asked if the new position of presidential advisor was preparing him for politics, he said: “I know, and most people know the path to politics. It’s different from the one I am on right now. If I retired and went and stood in my constituency, then you would say, now he is taking on a political career.”
If politics could interest him in future is a hypothetical question that Muhoozi has said he does not want to discuss.
Award winning journalist and writer who has worked as a stringer for a couple of acclaimed South Africa based German journalists, covered 3 Ugandan elections, 2008 Kenya election crisis, with interests in business and sports reporting.
