KAMPALA, Uganda — Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the head of Uganda’s military and the son of its longtime president, has abruptly recalled two senior generals from the country’s immigration office following a standoff over the citizenship of ethnic Banyarwanda residents.
The reshuffle, announced through the general’s characteristic mix of social media posts and internal military memos, marks a sharp escalation in a domestic dispute over who qualifies for a Ugandan passport. It also signals the increasing reach of the younger Kainerugaba into the civilian bureaucracy.
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General Kainerugaba, who serves as the chief of defense forces, directed Maj. Gen. Apollo Kasiita-Gowa and Brig. Johnson Namanya Abaho to return to the military’s Mbuya headquarters. Their departure from the Ministry of Internal Affairs follows reports that the officers had refused to issue passports to certain Ugandans of Rwandan descent, despite a presidential directive to do so.
I have decided to remove all the officers in immigration that were making life hard for our Ugandan-Banyarwanda to get IDs immediately, the general wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Others will be appointed soon.
The Banyarwanda, a community recognized as an indigenous tribe under Uganda’s constitution, have long complained of systemic hurdles at the passport office. Members of the group often describe being treated as foreign infiltrators, with officers demanding exhaustive proof of lineage or confiscating national identity cards.
The dispute reached a breaking point this year after President Yoweri Museveni, who has held power since 1986, issued an order intended to protect the community’s rights to documentation. The removal of the generals suggests that even high-ranking military figures are not immune to the political sensitivity surrounding the issue.
This move is viewed as more than a personnel change; it is a consolidation of authority. General Kainerugaba, who has been widely promoted as a potential successor to his father, is increasingly acting as an enforcer of executive policy within the civilian government.
For the Banyarwanda, the general’s intervention provides a rare moment of official vindication. For the country’s security establishment, it is a reminder of the blurred lines between military command and civil administration in modern Uganda.
General Gowa, in a memo to staff, described his time at the ministry as having ended and noted he would await new assignments.
It remains unclear what roles the two officers will take at the defense headquarters or how the immigration office will be restructured under the general’s direction.
