NTV PANORAMA: The rise and fall of General Kale Kayihura

Monday June 18 2018

In Nov. 2005, the president replaced Gen Edward Katumba Wamala with Gen Kale Kayihura as IGP in what many observers felt was a decision where loyalty exceeded expertise in the game of Musical Chairs

A model officer who dovetailed his military skills and political cadre-ship edged out other colleagues in a battle of supremacy.

In the eyes of the president, he became the personification of a loyal officer as his projected power was felt in every pocket of the security fabric. Yet he was naive to believe that in the cloak and dagger games, he would remain in charge of his destiny.

Can he now free himself from the shackles of bondage?

As a canny operator, he was able to check the urban protest threat and end what some feared would be Uganda’s own version of the ‘Arab Spring’

As his clout and influence grew, he laid out his security blueprint.

He tore the conventional playbook of recruitment and hired officers on a whim, to execute his key assignments side-stepping senior police officers

Some of them had a history of crime including Nixon Agasirwe. Yet he found them competent to execute his assignments by-passing senior police officers

Crime continues to creep into the police force as some of the senior officers in the force deliberately took part or were complicit in crime.

Yet the force even before Kayihura was appointed IGP had a record of indiscipline and was tainted with graft.

However, his veritable voice gave hope to the grassroots support of the ruling party as he established crime preventers, an NRM cadre affiliate meant to support police fight crime and prop up support for the regime

Despite flak from other quarters, the president chose to reward Kayihura.

On March 14th, 2018, the president wrote to the Speaker of Parliament nominating Kayihura to serve another term as IGP till 2020.

This came at the time crime was spiralling out of control as a spate of high profile murders remained unresolved

But the higher he ascended the greasy pole and eclipsed records, it became apparent that the position he had inherited was a poisoned chalice.

With the role of intelligence gathering returning to their traditional roles under the Internal Security Organisation and the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, Kayihura’s star began to diminish.

The president relied more on the CMI boss Abel Kandiho, Kaka Bagyenda of ISO and another consummate military/political strategist, then Security minister Lt Gen. Henry Tumukunde.

In February, the president called a meeting at State House Nakasero, attended by other security chiefs which sealed the fate of the former IGP.

Armed with a dossier, the president was angry that the state security apparatus had been penetrated by foreign agents and some police officers were vital cogs in this infiltration.

Kayihura was no longer indispensable and in March 2018, he was fired.

By the time, a meeting was held at State House Entebbe, it was largely for the president to seek consensus with his security chiefs on how to carry out a carefully-calibrated arrest of Kayihura to fit the public expectation

Kayihura has now changed places.

He is no longer presiding over the arrest of the president’s implacable adversaries, he must now fight his own corner.