Gen David Sejusa, who first applied to leave the army in 1996, and ex-police chief Gen Kale Kayihura, who is battling charges in a military court, have reportedly been allowed to retire from the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) in July this year.
According to highly-placed security sources, more than half-a-dozen other generals, among them former Security minister Elly Tumwine and Internal Affairs ministry Permanent Secretary Joseph Musanyufu, are also expected to hang up their military boots.
Other top military and intelligence sources told this publication that these changes precede an expected major promotion of senior UPDF officers in coming weeks that will more markedly clarify the army leadership transition from the old guard to Young Turks.
Presently, the most senior officers in Uganda’s military are those that commanded or fought in the five-year guerrilla war that brought President Museveni, himself a retired general, to power 36 years ago or, like Gen Moses Ali, led their own rebel group — if they did not serve in former armies.
For Gen Tumwine, a former commander of the National Resistance Army (NRA), the precursor to UPDF, his claim of fame has included firing the first bullet that started the five-year guerrilla war which, by accounts by peers, was a result of panicky response to a moving animal.
“Gen Sejusa, Gen Kayihura, Gen Elly Tumwine … Lt Gen Joseph Musanyufu … and Lt Col John Bizimana, the current registrar of the Army Court Martial, are on the tentative list,” one source said on Tuesday.