Combo: First son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba and his brother-in-law, Odrek Rwabwogo
Last Sunday, September 15, President Museveni marked his 80th birthday with a celebratory rally at Semutto in Nakaseke District.
It was a political event for reasons that this article will explain.
His family, led by his daughter Natasha, organised a retrospective of photos, videos, and articles of state to celebrate what to them is a heroic life well lived and for which they and Uganda will be forever grateful.
At Semutto, some NRM party officials declared that he should rule Uganda for another 40 years.
In Uganda in recent years, thanksgiving events, “homecomings”, awards nights, and anniversary commemorations of crumbling traditional schools, institutions, and companies have become a substitute for real accomplishment.
If nothing in the country is working, just celebrate 20 years of this or 50 years of that as a show of unity amid vulnerability or as a form of escapism.
Following the announcement by Investment minister Evelyn Anite that “mafias” (sic) within the government were threatening her life, she retreated to Koboko and threw a “homecoming” intended to rally her ethnic kith and kin behind her as well as a gesture of defiance.
When the Speaker of Parliament Anita Among came under political pressure that reportedly included death threats from inside the deep state, she too staged a “homecoming” in her Bukedea area to rally the home base, re-state her loyalty to President Museveni, and put on the appearance of not being intimidated.
Similar vulnerabilities were portrayed by the Museveni family in last Sunday’s “homecoming” in the early 1980s NRA operational base of Semutto.
The question of what comes after Museveni, many guess, weighs heavily on the minds of the First Family.
The public display of celebrating his birthday might have been a self-conscious effort to heal or at least to smooth over the tensions in the family.
It’s one thing for Museveni’s rule to be approaching 40 years, an unusually long time in today’s more democratic and pluralistic 21st Century.
But can an increasingly restless and bitter Ugandan population tolerate another 10 years of the NRM, never mind 40?
For the 25 years leading up to 2022, the answer to this question appeared straightforward: After Museveni comes his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
These scenarios of a smooth handover from father to son were scuttled in 2022 when Muhoozi started a two-year period of dramatic (many would say erratic) posts on social media.
The problem with these tweets was not just that they reminded an amused public in Uganda and across Africa of the 1970s President Idi Amin’s hyperbolic grandiosity. It embarrassed the President.
In several of them, Muhoozi without realising it was giving away secrets of a strained relationship with his brother-in-law Odrek Rwabwogo.
Why would Muhoozi suddenly be at loggerheads with Rwabwogo?
This leads us to another sub-plot. Muhoozi’s jaw-dropping tweets as well as other aspects of his conduct that we won’t get into here, led to some kind of soul-searching.
President Museveni with a spear and shield at a function
This Sandhurst-trained army general was unexpectedly showing the indiscipline that Museveni disapproves of.
The reason Museveni sacked his loyal and influential brother, Maj Gen Salim Saleh as army commander in 1989 was indiscipline by Saleh.
This might explain why Rwabwogo is increasingly moving from private business to taking on more and more roles as a kind of presidential emissary to foreign governments, investment negotiator, and party mobiliser.
After the United States suspended Uganda from the Agoa US-Africa tariff-free arrangement, who was sent to try and plead for Washington to reconsider? Rwabwogo.
Who is it that has been flying to Serbia to flesh out coffee production and marketing deals for Uganda? Rwabwogo.
On the same day that Muhoozi held his Masaka rally, Rwabwogo flew to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to deliver a message from President Museveni to Prime Minister Aby Ahmed. Ostensibly, Rwabwogo had only accompanied the minister of Justice Norbert Mao, but anyone who knows Museveni’s NRA modus operandi knows that real power is usually disguised in deputies.
In NRA-RPF doctrine, the chairman of the party is the face to appeal to popular sentiment (Yusufu Lule, NRM chairman, 1981, Alexis Kanyarengwe, RPF chairman, 1991), while the real power is in the hands of the vice chairman (Museveni, 1981, Paul Kagame, 1990).
Since it obviously would be awkward for Rwabwogo to head a delegation to Addis Ababa when he does not hold a formal government position, Mao was sent as the Lule-like head of the delegation.
Muhoozi understands the significance of Rwabwogo taking on this new role as President Museveni’s roving ambassador and minister extraordinary.
This cultivation and trialling of Rwabwogo in various official roles could be interpreted as a Plan B, but which Plan B naturally threatens the long-standing pole position Muhoozi had enjoyed.
And so, back to last Sunday’s 80th birthday rally.
As already stated, in Uganda today when things are not working out well, arrange a celebration or homecoming.
Sensing that his position as President-in-Waiting was under threat, Muhoozi in April 2022 announced a very public birthday celebration and follow-up rallies intended to mark out his territory and warn off rivals.
So, why did Museveni, who has never been one to publicly celebrate his birthday and who privately disapproved of Muhoozi’s birthday extravaganzas, follow in Muhoozi’s footsteps by also holding a political birthday celebration and public rally?
To make a public show of celebrating birthday No. 80 and, from the point of view of the Museveni children, hope it unites your family, and government, and wards off the sense of foreboding over the hands of fate that seem to be closing in on you.
In the 2026 General Election, don’t be surprised when Museveni’s vote tally is announced as 80 percent, that’s if the current moves to revert to a parliamentary system have not been finalised by then.
When things are not going well, throw a party and celebrate.
