In our first part of our ‘verbatim’ coverage of the Democracy in Africa think tank’s ‘The Shadow State in Africa,’ we explored the role of President Yoweri Museveni’s younger brother Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim Saleh.
In their report titled ‘The Shadow State in Africa,’ scholars Dr Nic Cheeseman of UK, Dr Claude Iguma Wakenge (DRC), Dr Lisa Rolls (Uganda), Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa (Zambia) and Dr Phillan Zamchiya (Zimbabwe) have made damning claims against the roles played by several players in these countries’ politics, economics and social spheres.
In the second part on the shadow state report, we explore Muhoozi Project and the people behind it, at least according to the thinktank’s researchers.
President Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986 when he captured power following a five-year bush war.
In January 2021, Museveni won another five-year term at the end of which he will have ruled Uganda for four decades.
Transition from the elderly president remains one of the hottest debates in the country.
First son and Commander Land Forces (CLF) Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba is one of those rumored to be interested in succeeding his elderly father.
Now, Dr Rolls, who the report says is “a long-time research analyst living in East Africa,” has dedicated some paragraphs on discussing the Muhoozi Project and the people reportedly behind it.
In the second part of the series on this report, we publish what Dr Lisa Rolls’ thoughts on the Muhoozi Project, its proponents and their connections to the shadow state in Uganda:
A new media savvy generation of political fixers. At the time of writing, the president’s son, along with a crop of Presidential Guard Brigade and Special Forces Command are at the centre of a dynastic renewal of the NRM shadow state.
This is complemented by the entrenchment of (post) liberation elite offspring and their kin and associates in the economy. This has resulted in a heightened sense of state capture by south-western elites.
Some State House old hands remain but a process of generational change is in full swing. Young cadres and entrepreneurs, many mentored by old State House cadres, vie for the president’s attention, promising to deliver the youth vote. For example, powerful decades-long former personal secretary to the president and trade minister until 2021, Amelia Kyambadde, who is related to Sam Kutesa through marriage, has cultivated a handful of rising cadres.
Kin Kariisa, a former State House information technology consultant and special presidential adviser on internet and communication technology, is married to her niece, Julie.
At present, Kariisa, whose Kin Group oversees interests in media, telecommunications, real estate and ICT, sits on the boards of seven companies and NGOs in Uganda, including Ecobank, and is considered to be part of Muhoozi’s inner circle.
Some Ugandan social media users refer to NBS TV as ‘UBC Lite’, a mockery tying NBS to the government Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC). After similar previous allegations in 2016, Bobi Wine in early 2021 in a letter to NBS protested broadcast of allegedly falsified election results in favour of Museveni.
The minister of gender, labour and development at the time of writing, and a former revenue authority and State House officer, Frank Tumwebaze, is married to the sister of Museveni’s family physician and health Permanent Secretary Diana Atwine.
Awel Uwihanganye, who until March 2021 headed the Government–Citizen Interaction Centre, a social media government PR tool, is close to Amelia too.
Emulating Andrew Mwenda’s efforts to nurture a regime-conformed intelligentsia, Awel founded the think tank, Leo Africa Institute, and, with Amelia’s son Ivan Kyambadde, the Young Achievers Awards, which were strongly supported by the minister.
He is also the driving force behind the Africa Strategic Leadership Institute, which organized the first Africa Now Summit in Kampala in 2019.
Amelia’s son Ivan co-owns Tetea Communications, a company that was accused of inflating costs for building a State House website by 300 times in a rivalry between young State House media operatives.
Young cadres have discovered information technology, surveillance and social media as sectors in which the president needs help and can be persuaded to spend. Overall, the media—whether online, TV or print—plays an ever-growing role in efforts to secure support and control dissent.
Complementing older established and long co-opted media executives such as Andrew Mwenda at The Independent, an array of ambitious emerging journalists are joining the regime ranks, including, for example, Arinaitwe Rugyendo at Red Pepper, a media company.
Another prominent example is Giles Muhame, editor of the popular Chimpreports website, one of the most well-established online media outlets run by this new cadre of journalists who are popularly linked to shadow state interests.
Museveni may have no illusions about the lack of ideological grounding of these ambitious young cadres, but he needs them.
In fact, they reinforce the impetus for a dynastic renewal of the Museveni monarchy for whom a Muhoozi presidency is a steppingstone.
Relationships with their peers, however, in the past were often competitive rather than collaborative.
Recently, though, strategic cooperation between the SFC crop surrounding Muhoozi and the up and coming younger cadres in the ruling party, along with other actors in the business sector and prominent socialites in the same age group, is strengthening in a bid to rally a more broad-based platform upon which Muhoozi can campaign for the 2026 elections.
Attempts at forming a coalition of younger cadres across various sectors and ethnic groups that may serve as a 2026 campaign team crystallized in an official party for Muhoozi’s forty-fifth birthday in April 2019.
Hosted at Sudhir’s Munyonoyo resort, the party brought together tested loyalists and aspiring cadres from the military, government and the NRM, along with the media and the music industry, that are designated key operators in bringing the Muhoozi project about.
Flanking Muhoozi at the table was Lilian Aber, [the then] chairperson of the National Youth Council and one-time opposition student leader turned close personal Muhoozi affiliate, SFC ally and then chief of staff of the land forces, Major General Leo Kyanda, then ICT minister, Frank Tumwebaze, and Rajiv Ruparelia, whose father owns the resort that hosted the event.
One month later, Muhoozi’s spokesperson, Major Chris Magezi, was appointed to the board of the state-owned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), which is being revamped to appeal to youth audiences.
Muhoozi’s friend, Cedric Ndilima, son of a former NRM minister, was also appointed as new head of corporate communications.
[Then] National Youth Council chairperson, Lilian Aber, who helps administer the Youth Livelihood Funds programme, and former State House legal adviser, Hussein Kashillingi, were appointed to the Posta Uganda board, which is the state-owned postal service. On Twitter, Muhoozi hailed the appointment of these ‘youth’.
