What began as a disagreement involving two first family members has steadily acquired the characteristics of a political and commercial war.
On one side is Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, chairman of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) and President Yoweri Museveni’s son.
On the other is his brother-in-law, Odrek Rwabwogo, the businessman, presidential adviser and chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID).
For years, their differences have surfaced intermittently—in arguments over politics, governance, business and influence. But in August 2026, the dispute moved into a much more consequential phase.
Muhoozi declared PACEID an “illegal organisation”, threatened arrests of its officials and ordered government ministries, departments and agencies and local governments to suspend dealings with the body.
Then came the reported arrest of Matthew Bagonza, Rwabwogo’s close aide and head of the PACEID secretariat.
And just as the confrontation appeared to be moving towards a direct clash between the military establishment and a presidential advisory institution, Rwabwogo went to see Museveni.
His account of that meeting complicated the picture.
According to Rwabwogo, Museveni told him that he did not know about Bagonza’s arrest and had not ordered it. The President, he said, also had not ordered PACEID to be shut down.
“PACEID is operational and PACEID is lawful,” Rwabwogo declared afterwards.
The dispute has now acquired another dimension: allegations by Kabanda, a prominent Muhoozi ally, concerning Rwabwogo-linked business interests and alleged helicopter supplies to South Sudan.
Taken together, the allegations against Rwabwogo, the attack on PACEID and the intervention of Muhoozi raise a larger question about the balance of power inside Uganda’s ruling establishment—and whether the conflict is really about corruption and accountability, or about competing centres of influence around the Museveni family.
Kabanda, the Kasambya County MP and a prominent figure in Muhoozi’s PLU, has become one of the most persistent public accusers of Rwabwogo.
His latest allegations have brought South Sudan and helicopters into the dispute.
Kabanda has linked Tomosi Farm Company Limited to Rwabwogo and alleged that the company was involved in a claim for payment relating to helicopters, helicopter spare parts and other supplies allegedly delivered to South Sudan.
PLU has demanded that government block an alleged Shs52 billion payment while questions surrounding the claim are investigated.
But the allegation needs to be handled carefully.
There is currently no independently established evidence showing that Rwabwogo personally supplied helicopters to South Sudan.
There is also no verified evidence establishing the more dramatic claim that Rwabwogo registered a milk company in South Sudan as a front for helicopter operations.
That is an allegation, not an established fact.
There is, however, a documented South Sudan connection involving a Rwabwogo-associated agricultural company.
In 2023, Tomosi’s Farm Bwesharire Limited, identified as being owned by Rwabwogo and Patience Museveni, was among companies covered by a South Sudan sovereign-guarantee arrangement.
That history provides a legitimate reason for scrutiny of Rwabwogo’s South Sudan business dealings—but it does not, by itself, establish a helicopter operation.
The distinction has become increasingly important as the political fight intensifies.
Rwabwogo’s best-known commercial interests are rooted in agriculture.
Through the Tomosi/Vital Tomosi operations in Kiruhura District, he has been involved in dairy processing, with the Rushere plant producing the Milkman brand.
The factory was developed with Israeli investment partner Vital Capital Fund and was commissioned in stages beginning in the mid-2010s.
It was promoted as an important link between commercial dairy processing and smallholder farmers.
At full development, the plant’s processing capacity was reported at between 100,000 and 200,000 litres of milk a day.
The business model was straightforward: create a reliable market for milk in an area where farmers had historically depended on middlemen.
But the success story later became the subject of political attacks over whether farmers had actually received all the money due to them.
Rwabwogo has rejected claims that his factory accumulated large unpaid farmer debts.
He has said the business bought more than Shs11 billion worth of milk over a nine-year period and blamed problems in part on an intermediary who was given about Shs800 million to collect milk.
According to Rwabwogo’s account, the intermediary mismanaged the money, prompting the company to change its procurement arrangements and begin purchasing milk directly from farmers.
The competing accounts have not produced a judicial finding establishing that the company deliberately withheld farmers’ money.
The controversy nevertheless became another piece of ammunition in the growing political confrontation.
The most sustained battle has centred on Nshaara Ranch, a government-owned property in Sanga, Kiruhura District.
The ranch covers about 27 square miles and has historically been associated with livestock breeding, multiplication of Ankole long-horned cattle and animal-feed production under the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank (NAGRC&DB).
Its history is complicated.
Nshaara is part of a much older system of government ranches created after communal grazing areas were reorganised for commercial livestock production.
Over the decades, parts of the ranches were subdivided and allocated to squatters, pastoralists, cooperatives and private interests, while government retained substantial acreage.
The result has been a recurring conflict over who should occupy, use or control the land.
In 2007, police reportedly evicted hundreds of pastoralists from parts of Nshaara, destroying houses and cattle structures.
By 2018, government officials were reporting that encroachers had taken about two square miles of the ranch.
Some occupants reportedly claimed to have presidential authority for their presence, although such directives were not always formally verified.
The problems did not disappear.
Reports in subsequent years referred to stolen fencing materials, destroyed hay gardens and cattle theft, while government repeatedly attempted to secure the ranch.
One of the earlier controversies involved a retired captain, who was accused of taking part of the ranch and subdividing it for sale. The allegations prompted a request for investigation by the Ministry of Agriculture and the State House Anti-Corruption Unit.
It was against this unsettled background that Kabanda’s allegations against Rwabwogo gained traction.
Kabanda has alleged that Rwabwogo obtained approximately seven square miles of Nshaara land after presenting a dairy and livestock project to Museveni.
The allegation is that the land was intended for activities such as dairy development or bull fattening but was subsequently put to different commercial uses.
Kabanda and his allies have alleged that parts of the area were occupied by Chinese contractors, sub-leased or targeted for titling, while local cattle keepers lost access to grazing land.
Rwabwogo has rejected the allegations, describing the development at Nshaara as an agro-industrialisation project rather than a land-grabbing scheme.
His account points to an industrial park incorporating several activities, including a coffee farm associated with a company called Rise, a meat-processing facility and plans for milk value addition.
He has also cited practical difficulties that slowed the project, including shortages of cattle, export certification requirements and the disruption caused by Covid-19.
There is no completed court determination establishing that Rwabwogo illegally acquired the seven square miles alleged by Kabanda.
But the allegations have gained traction because Nshaara itself has a long and complicated history of contested allocations.
The Rwabwogo-Kabanda dispute also reaches into another politically sensitive area: public financing of Uganda’s coffee sector.
In 2023, controversy erupted over a Shs37 billion allocation connected to coffee promotion and export development.
Opposition politicians questioned the relationship between PACEID and the public money.
Rwabwogo rejected the suggestion that PACEID had received the funds, arguing that the money had gone elsewhere.
Subsequent accounts associated the programme with a consortium of 21 coffee companies led by Nelson Tugume rather than with Rwabwogo personally.
That episode nevertheless became another part of the political case built against PACEID.
And it is precisely PACEID that Muhoozi has now placed in his crosshairs.
On August 25, Muhoozi made his most direct attack yet.
“PACEID is an illegal organisation. We shall start arresting its members immediately,” he wrote.
He subsequently said arrests had begun and claimed that President Museveni had told him to pursue PACEID officials accused of corruption.
The statements did not identify the specific corruption cases, nor did they explain the legal instrument under which Muhoozi considered PACEID illegal.
That omission became central to Rwabwogo’s response.
PACEID was commissioned by Museveni in March 2022 and operates under the Office of the President.
Rwabwogo therefore challenged the notion that an organisation established through a presidential process could simply be rendered illegal through a social-media declaration.
“We were commissioned on 16 March 2022. Institutions begin through a process and, if a mandate is ever changed, that too must happen through a due process,” he said.
For Rwabwogo, the dispute was no longer merely about accusations against individual officials.
It was about the authority to dismantle an institution.
The confrontation escalated when Matthew Bagonza, the head of the PACEID secretariat and a long-time Rwabwogo aide, was reportedly arrested.
Muhoozi later confirmed Bagonza’s detention publicly and posted a photograph of him.
He also warned Rwabwogo against contacting security officials without his approval.
“The next time Odrek dares to call any security officer without my approval he will be arrested,” Muhoozi wrote, according to reports.
That threat transformed the dispute.
Until then, Muhoozi and Rwabwogo had largely fought through public statements and political accusations.
Now the confrontation had entered the security arena.
Rwabwogo responded by going directly to Museveni.
According to his account, the President told him he had neither ordered Bagonza’s arrest nor known about it.
“If there is a case on anyone, let it be brought before a competent court and tried fairly and impartially,” Rwabwogo said.
He also demanded that evidence against Bagonza be tested in court.
“Let the evidence be tested. Matthew Bagonza can defend himself and the institution he works for. And let the law take its course,” he said.
That response is significant because it places Rwabwogo’s defence not against Museveni, but against the manner in which Muhoozi’s intervention is being carried out.
The personal relationships make the confrontation unusually sensitive.
Rwabwogo is married to Patience Museveni, one of the President’s daughters.
Muhoozi is Museveni’s son.
They are therefore brothers-in-law.
But the relationship has not prevented public attacks.
In 2024, Muhoozi publicly referred to Rwabwogo as “the biggest thief in Uganda” in an X post that was later deleted.
The feud has since moved far beyond insults on social media.
PACEID is now under attack.
One of Rwabwogo’s closest aides has been detained.
Kabanda is demanding action against Rwabwogo-linked interests.
And Rwabwogo is publicly insisting that PACEID remains lawful.
The allegations against PACEID cannot simply be dismissed because they are coming from Muhoozi’s camp.
Public institutions and politically connected bodies should be open to scrutiny.
But accusations of corruption require evidence.
Muhoozi’s declaration that PACEID is illegal does not itself establish criminal conduct.
Likewise, Kabanda’s allegations about Nshaara, coffee money or South Sudan-linked businesses do not become facts merely because they have been repeated.
That is particularly important in the helicopter controversy.
The strongest defensible account at this point is that Kabanda has made allegations about a Rwabwogo-linked company and alleged helicopter-related supplies to South Sudan, while the underlying transaction remains unverified.
The more sensational claim—that a milk company was deliberately established as a front for helicopter operations—requires documentary proof before it can be treated as fact.
There is another layer to the conflict that neither side can easily escape: succession.
Muhoozi’s political ambitions are not new.
He has previously publicly expressed interest in becoming President, and the PLU has developed into an important political vehicle around his camp.
Speculation about Rwabwogo’s own political ambitions has also periodically surfaced, although he has denied that he intends to inherit his father-in-law’s office.
That history means every confrontation between the two men is inevitably interpreted through the question of who might wield influence after Museveni.
It does not prove that the PACEID crackdown is a succession battle.
But it helps explain why the dispute has become so politically charged.
PACEID gives Rwabwogo an institutional platform dealing with exports, industry, investors and international partners.
PLU gives Muhoozi an expanding political network.
The military gives him command of the UPDF.
And the two men occupy powerful but fundamentally different spaces within the same ruling establishment.
The fight over PACEID therefore looks increasingly like a contest over political space as much as a dispute over corruption.
The most revealing development may be Museveni’s reported conversation with Rwabwogo.
If Rwabwogo’s account is accurate, the President did not tell his son-in-law that PACEID had been shut down.
He also did not acknowledge ordering Bagonza’s arrest.
That creates an extraordinary institutional contradiction.
The CDF is publicly declaring the presidential advisory body illegal and threatening its officials.
The chairman of that body says the President who created it has not ordered its closure.
The same chairman says the President did not know about the arrest of his close aide.
And the President’s son is publicly saying he is acting against corruption inside an organisation headed by the President’s son-in-law.
The unanswered question is therefore no longer simply what did Rwabwogo do?
It is also who has the authority to decide what happens to Rwabwogo, PACEID and the people who work there?
The allegations surrounding Rwabwogo now stretch across an unusually wide landscape.
There is Nshaara Ranch and the question of public land.
There is the Rushere dairy factory and disputed claims about farmer payments.
There is the Shs37 billion coffee controversy.
There are documented South Sudan business connections.
There is now the unverified helicopter allegation.
And above all there is PACEID, the institution that has become the latest and most consequential battlefield.
The temptation is to treat each controversy separately.
But politically, they are increasingly being woven into a single narrative by Rwabwogo’s opponents: that a politically connected businessman has accumulated too much influence through family proximity, state institutions and commercial ventures.
Rwabwogo’s counter-narrative is equally clear: that his critics are attempting to destroy legitimate agricultural, export and industrial projects through political attacks and unsubstantiated accusations.
The truth will ultimately depend on documents rather than political allegiance.
Land titles can establish who owns or leases Nshaara acreage.
Corporate records can establish whether Thomas Farm Company Limited has any legal relationship with Tomosi’s Farm Bwesharire or Vital Tomosi.
Contracts can establish whether helicopters were supplied.
Payment records can establish who received money.
And a competent court or independent investigation can determine whether criminal wrongdoing occurred.
Until that evidence emerges, the war between Muhoozi and Rwabwogo remains a battle of allegations, institutions and influence.
But one thing has already changed.
What was once a private First Family disagreement is now playing out publicly across Uganda’s political, military and economic institutions.
And PACEID, the export body created by Museveni and chaired by his son-in-law, has become the ground on which the next phase of that battle is being fought.
Meanwhile, Odrek Rwabwogo has told Muhoozi to go to court after he met Museveni. (See Details Here).
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