When three powerful figures in Uganda’s political and military establishment gathered at Kapeeka for a meeting intended to settle a disagreement, the expectation was that the conversation would focus on the tensions that had brought them together.
President Yoweri Museveni had reportedly called for reconciliation between Water and Environment Minister Kahinda Otafiire and Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces, after their differences spilled into the public arena.
Gen Salim Saleh (Caleb Akandwanaho), Museveni’s brother, was assigned to chair the meeting.
Andrew Mwenda, a political commentator who says he travelled with Muhoozi to the gathering, has now offered an account of what happened behind closed doors, describing a meeting whose opening moments were dominated not by the dispute itself, but by a history lesson from one of Uganda’s veteran political figures.
The meeting, Mwenda recalled, took place against the backdrop of growing tension between Otafiire and Muhoozi, with Museveni concerned about the public nature of their disagreements.
According to Mwenda, the President’s position was that senior figures serving in government should not engage in public confrontations.
“It is not good for two senior people in government to fight publicly,” Museveni reportedly said.
“So, he asked Salim Saleh to chair a meeting between MK and Otafiire,” Mwenda narrated.
But before the discussions could begin, the delegation accompanying Muhoozi had to wait.
“Otafiire made us wait for one and a half hours,” Mwenda recalled.
The delay was only the beginning of what would become an unusual opening to a meeting intended to address a disagreement involving some of the most influential people in the country.
A journey back to 1974
When Otafiire eventually began speaking, according to Mwenda, he did not immediately turn to the dispute with Muhoozi.
Instead, he took those present back several decades, recounting his early experiences in the political and revolutionary circles that would eventually shape Uganda’s leadership.
Mwenda said Otafiire began by reminding Saleh of his first journey to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974.
“He started by giving his history, reminding Salim Saleh that the first time he went to Dar es Salaam in 1974, he was a boy of 14 and that Muhoozi was a few months old baby,” Mwenda recalled.
Otafiire reportedly went on to speak about his experiences in Moshi and his involvement in mobilising alongside Museveni.
The recollections placed the minister’s political journey alongside the history of the struggle that preceded the National Resistance Movement’s rise to power.
For Otafiire, the account also established the considerable difference in age and experience between himself and Muhoozi, who was only a few months old when the minister made his first journey to Dar es Salaam in 1974.
Yet the meeting had not been convened to discuss the minister’s biography or revisit the history of the liberation struggle.
There was a more immediate question to address: how a disagreement between two senior figures connected to the same political establishment had become a public affair.
The question that brought the meeting back to its purpose
After the historical recollections, Mwenda said, the meeting eventually moved to the substantive issue.
He challenged Otafiire over his responsibilities as an elder and one who should conduct himself as an uncle of Muhoozi, particularly if he believed the army chief was not conducting himself appropriately.
Rather than publicly airing grievances, Mwenda suggested, Otafiire could have approached Muhoozi privately and offered advice.
Mwenda recalled putting the question directly to the minister.
“Do you go washing dirty linen in public, do you go shouting from rooftop to rooftop about his sins?” Mwenda recalled asking Otafiire.
The question went to the heart of the disagreement that had prompted Museveni to intervene: whether Otafiire’s concerns about Muhoozi should have been handled privately rather than through public confrontation.
According to Mwenda, Otafiire responded that he did not have Muhoozi’s telephone number and therefore could not call him to offer advice.
That response, as recounted by Mwenda, introduced another dimension to the disagreement: the apparent absence of a direct communication channel between the two men, despite their positions within the establishment.
Museveni’s intervention
The meeting at Kapeeka was reportedly the President’s attempt to prevent the disagreement from escalating further in public.
According to Mwenda, Museveni had become concerned that two senior figures in government were fighting openly and asked Saleh to bring them together.
Saleh’s role as chairperson placed him at the centre of an effort to reconcile the two sides, while Mwenda’s account provides a glimpse into how the discussions began and how the participants approached the underlying dispute.
The account does not establish whether the meeting resolved the disagreement or what specific commitments, if any, were made by the participants.
It does, however, offer a revealing picture of the encounter: a gathering arranged to settle a contemporary political dispute that began with a veteran minister revisiting his revolutionary past before the conversation turned to the conduct that had brought the men together.
And it was Mwenda’s recollection of that opening, rather than any account of a formal agreement, that supplied the meeting’s most striking detail: Otafiire reportedly kept Muhoozi and Saleh waiting for 90 minutes before beginning with a reminder of how old he was when Muhoozi was still a baby.
It should be remembered that the Muhoozi-Otafiire feud escalated in recent weeks after Otafiire alluded to a general who always wants to use violence.
Muhoozi responded by demanding an apology and threatening to arrest Otafiire.
Otafiire said he would rather die than live begging, as reported Here.
Meanwhile, Andrew Mwenda has revealed a PLU plot to crush Otafiire, as reported Here.
