Muhoozi’s tweets and Uganda’s exit strategy after Kenya’s polls
Ugandan General Muhoozi Kainerugaba with Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi, on June 8, 2022. The recent provocative tweets by General Kainerugaba, reflect Uganda’s quest for an exit strategy from Kenyan politics after the August 2022 elections.
What you need to know:
- The recent provocative tweets reflect Uganda’s quest for an exit strategy from Kenyan politics after the August 2022 elections.
- Muhoozi’s tweets are part of a three-pronged diplomatic game plan: to cement relations with President Ruto; mend fences with former President Kenyatta, and progressively isolate and clip the wings of opposition leader Raila Odinga.
- Muhoozi is an agent provocateur, defined in politics and diplomacy as “a person who deliberately behaves controversially in order to provoke an argument or other strong reactions”.
Don’t involve me in your internal affairs,” President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni pleaded with Kenyans at President William Ruto’s inauguration on September 13.
Manifestly, Kampala was caught up in Kenya’s closely fought election in August 2022.
After Kenya’s elections, Kampala needed an exit strategy, a way of ending its behind-the-curtains involvement in Kenya’s transition politics.
The recent provocative tweets by President Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, which threatened invasion and poked fun at Kenya’s electoral system, reflect Uganda’s quest for an exit strategy from Kenyan politics after the August 2022 elections.
Muhoozi’s tweets are part of a three-pronged diplomatic game plan: to cement relations with President William Ruto; mend fences with former President Uhuru Kenyatta, and progressively isolate and clip the wings of opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Agent provocateur
Muhoozi is an agent provocateur, defined in politics and diplomacy as “a person who deliberately behaves controversially in order to provoke an argument or other strong reactions”.
General Muhoozi’s provocative tweets were definitely neither “thoughtless” nor meant to humour Kenya-Uganda relations.
They were part of this larger exit strategy. They fell into two categories, corresponding with the two strands of Uganda’s exit strategy.
The first set of tweets targeted Kenya’s sovereignty, its military and, by extension, its Commander-in-Chief.
“It wouldn't take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi”, he tweeted.
“After capturing Nairobi, I shall take my wife on a tour of our district,” he added.
The idea of the tweets was to appear to drive a wedge between Museveni and Ruto in order to distance Uganda from his father’s personal relationship with Ruto.
At his inauguration, Ruto fondly called President Museveni “father of the region”.
In 2013 and 2017, Museveni supported Kenyatta and Ruto and condemned the International Criminal Court (ICC) for indicting the duo over crimes in the 2007/2008 post-election violence in Kenya.
Ahead of the 2022 election, Museveni saw Ruto as a post-Kenyatta reliable partner in the region.
Relations between Kenyatta and Museveni grew frosty last year when his government blocked Ruto from travelling to Uganda where he was reportedly scheduled to meet Museveni privately in Kampala.
In the end, the tweets depicted the House of Museveni as divided along the Hustler (Museveni)–dynasty (Muhoozi) divide.
The second set of tweets poked fun at Kenya’s electoral system, publicly displaying Muhoozi’s dislike for Kenya’s model of democracy.
The idea was to resume harmonious relations with former President Uhuru Kenyatta as an ally. Muhoozi said he had spoken to Kenyatta.
“My only problem with my beloved big brother (UK) is that he didn't stand for a third term. We would have won easily!”
He expressed regret that Uhuru had stepped down at the end of his two terms in August.
He should not have stepped down but prolonged his rule by a third term. He should have ignored constitutional term limits and run for president a third time.
Raila-Ruto rivalry
The Raila-Ruto rivalry rippled through Kenya-Uganda relations. During the transition, Museveni supported Ruto while Kenyatta backed Raila Odinga as his successor. Museveni has never hidden his disdain for Raila.
Kampala has many misgivings about Mr Odinga. One of these is Odinga’s dalliance with Dr Kizza Besigye, President Museveni’s implacable foe.
During the 2013 and 2017 elections, Raila was viewed as an imperialist project of the British and Western powers.
In 2022, Kampala frowned upon the possibility of the Odinga presidency. Although Muhoozi’s tweets do not mention Odinga, who is now confined to the opposition, they are an attempt to manage the Ruto-Uhuru rivalry.
Museveni’s immediate task is to ensure rapprochement between Ruto and Uhuru.
Museveni’s response to the stormy public debate provoked by the tweets consolidated the exit of Uganda’s strategy.
His officers in the foreign ministry praised the “strong bilateral relations" with their "brotherly neighbour".
On October 5, Museveni asked Kenya for “forgiveness” for Muhoozi’s undiplomatic tweets.
Internal affairs
“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,” he tweeted. He said it was incorrect for public officials to comment on or interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. He also spoke to President William Ruto, saying he was “very sorry” about his son's tweets.
Museveni has since put his son on a short leash. He stripped him of the role of Commander of Land Forces (CLF).
But he resisted pressure to demote and court-martial the “Tweeting General” for violating army rules barring serving officers from making divisive public commentary on political, military and foreign policy issues. He simultaneously elevated him to a four-star general and retained him as his adviser, arguing that he could still make “many positive contributions” and describing him as “a passionate Pan-Africanist”.
Muhoozi is not your ordinary member of East Africa’s Twitterati, a new class of avid or frequent users of the social media application Twitter.
Some 48 years ago, Museveni named his son “Muhoozi”, which means “avenger” in Runyankole.
Muhoozi “will be the one to avenge me in case something wrong is done to me”, says the President.
The general is the most powerful soldier and at the centre of Uganda’s succession politics.
But Kenya can only take General Kainerugaba lightly at its own peril. Its legal scholar and a close ally of Odinga, Makau Mutua, does not buy the reasoning that Muhoozi is making a joke.
“It’s not a joke,” he warns in a Tweet, “a test tube Idi Amin is in the making in Uganda.”
Obviously, Muhoozi’s ‘Nairobi capture’ tweet echoes Idi Amin Dada’s claims on Kenya in February 1976.
The rogue general claimed that a large part of Kenya belonged to Uganda, but later clarified that he had no intention of going to war with Kenya.
The threat fizzled out, but Kenya was forced to re-examine its ability to beat back an invasion from Uganda and bolster its military with state-of-the-art jet fighters.
Muhoozi’s tweets have also turned the spotlight on “Africa’s smallest war” between Uganda and Kenya over the rock island of Migingo.
Muhoozi’s tweet diplomacy and President Museveni’s apology have paved the way for Kenya to participate in Uganda’s independence diamond jubilee on October 9.
Prof Kagwanja is a former Government Adviser and currently Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute and Adjunct Scholar at the University of Nairobi and National Defence University– Kenya.