President Yoweri Museveni’s younger brother Caleb Akandwanaho aka Gen Salim Saleh, the retired military commander who has been entrusted with finding a way out of the political standoff surrounding Dr Kizza Besigye, has revealed that he hopes to reach an understanding with the detained opposition leader within the next three to six months.
Saleh, the Senior Presidential Adviser on Defence and Security and Chief Coordinator of Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), disclosed that he had re-established contact with Besigye after years of political estrangement and was now attempting to bridge the differences that have kept the two former allies apart.
His remarks offered a glimpse into a behind-the-scenes effort to address Besigye’s prolonged detention, with Saleh suggesting that the next few months could be critical in determining the way forward.
“I hope we shall convince each other in the next six or three months to have a combined outlook of the Uganda you guys want to have tomorrow,” Gen Saleh said.
He was speaking while addressing heads of parliamentary committees at Kapeeka in Nakaseke District, where he also challenged legislators to consider how Uganda could overcome political divisions inherited from previous generations.
Saleh traced his renewed involvement in Besigye’s affairs to a public intervention by Chief of Defence Forces Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who, on August 25, directed attention to the retired general as the person expected to handle the opposition politician’s situation.
“Recently, I got a tweet on August 25 from the CDF that Kizza Besigye’s problem is my problem. I am the one to sort it out,” he said.
The assignment, Saleh suggested, has also brought him back into contact with a man with whom he once shared close political and military associations before their paths diverged.
“Because of politics, I had lost touch with Kizza Besigye completely,” he said.
Their relationship dates back to the National Resistance Army struggle that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power in 1986. Besigye, who served in the NRA and later became one of Museveni’s most prominent political challengers, has spent much of his post-military career opposing the government he once helped establish.
Saleh said his renewed engagement with Besigye had already taken him to the hospital where the opposition leader was receiving treatment while in custody.
He described the first priority as ensuring that Besigye received medical attention at a facility capable of handling his condition.
“My first action was, take him from the prison to a proper medical centre. I took him to where I would be if I was under intensive conditions, at the Joint Clinical Research Centre,” he said.
The retired general indicated that medical concerns had to be addressed before the broader political discussions could progress, suggesting that the effort would require patience and a willingness by both sides to reconsider their positions.
He framed the initiative as more than an attempt to resolve the predicament of one opposition politician, arguing that Uganda’s younger generation should not be forced to inherit disagreements that have persisted among leaders who participated in the country’s earlier political struggles.
“We are carefully examining what needs to be done so that you don’t inherit our generational quarrels, and I hope God will help us to achieve it,” he said.
Besigye has been in detention since November 2024, following his arrest in Nairobi, Kenya, and subsequent transfer to Uganda. He faces treason charges alongside his aide, Obeid Lutale, and Capt Denis Oola.
His continued incarceration has remained a major point of contention between the government and opposition, with questions surrounding his prosecution, health and political future drawing sustained attention.
Saleh’s latest comments suggest that the government is exploring a political engagement alongside the legal proceedings, although he did not explicitly announce a release date or say that a decision to release Besigye had already been reached.
The three-to-six-month timeframe he mentioned was presented as a period within which the two sides could persuade each other and develop a common understanding of Uganda’s future.
Beyond Besigye’s case, Saleh used the meeting in Kapeeka to draw attention to proposals by Prof Ogenga Latigo Otunnu on concessional democracy, a political arrangement that seeks to manage deeply divided societies through power-sharing and cooperation among competing groups.
He encouraged legislators to examine the proposals, arguing that elements of such an approach had featured in Museveni’s political dealings with rival groups and former insurgent movements.
The retired general also revisited disagreements that emerged among the original National Resistance Army members after the 1986 takeover, describing some of the divisions as avoidable.
He pointed to the composition of the first government formed after the NRA captured power, noting that it included members of the Democratic Party rather than being exclusively populated by individuals who had fought in the bush war.
For Saleh, that history offered a lesson for a younger political generation: the struggle to govern a country cannot be sustained by military or political victory alone, but requires accommodation of people with competing interests.
His appeal for cooperation came as he described the effort to reconnect with Besigye as an attempt to prevent old political disagreements from defining Uganda’s future.
Whether the engagement will lead to Besigye’s release remains unclear. But Saleh’s public remarks have introduced a three-to-six-month horizon into efforts to resolve a standoff that has persisted since the opposition leader’s arrest in Kenya.
You can read the latest heartbreaking update on Besigye’s heath condition Here.
