President Museveni has revealed why he promoted former UPDF Land Forces Commander, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba to full General, even after he (Muhoozi) made threatening tweets to Kenya.
Just a day before his promotion, Gen Muhoozi posted on his official Twitter Account that it could take his Army only two weeks to capture Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
“It wouldn’t take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi. I’m happy that members of our district in Kenya, have responded enthusiastically to my tweet. It’s still 2 weeks to Nairobi! After our army captures Nairobi, where should I live? Westlands? Riverside? My Kenyan brothers, we are going to be one country. Any war against us will end quickly! Union is a MUST!,” Gen Muhoozi tweeted.
On Tuesday this week, just a day after his “threatening” tweets, President Museveni who is also the Commander In Chief of the UPDF, dropped Gen Muhoozi as Land Forces Commander, and replaced him with the now Lt Gen Kayanja Muhanga, the Commander of Operation Shujja, the UPDF operation fighting Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Although, he dropped him as Land Forces Commander, President Museveni promoted Muhoozi to Full General (four star), the highest rank in Uganda People’s Defence Forces.
In his statement to the public on Wednesday, Museveni justified his decision to promote Muhoozi to Full General saying that although he (Muhoozi) had made a mistake to threaten Kenya, he had done a lot of positive work for Uganda, and therefore deserved a promotion.
“Why, then, promote him [Muhoozi] to full General after these comments? This is because this mistake is one aspect where he has acted negatively as a Public officer. There are, however, many other positive contributions the General has made and can still make. This is a time-tested formula – discourage the negative and encourage the positive. Very sorry, ndugu zetu Wakenya,” said Museveni.
The President then apologized to Kenya and the Uganda public for the comments made by Gen Muhoozi.
“I ask our Kenyan brothers and sisters to forgive us for tweets sent by General Muhoozi, former Commander of Land Forces here, regarding the election matters in that great country. It is not correct for Public officers, be they civilian or military, to comment or interfere in any way, in the internal affairs of brother countries. The only available legitimate forum is the Peer Review Mechanism of the African Union or confidential interactions among us or EAC and AU fora – not public comments,” he said.
“Also sorry to the Ugandans who could have been annoyed by one of their officials meddling in the affairs of brother Kenya. I know for a fact that General Muhoozi is a passionate Pan Africanist. However, the correct method for Pan Africanists is confidential interactions or using the available fora (EAC and AU), especially if you are a Public officer. I have conveyed all those views confidentially to H.E. Ruto, the President of Kenya,” he added.