I participated in the 2021 campaign for the re-election of President Museveni. As would be expected, it was not unusual for me to tap into the information traffic of highly placed people discussing the Constitution of the next Cabinet.
And that is how I landed on what was described (by the author) as the final draft for a list of proposed Cabinet ministers. Ambassador Adonia Ayebare’s name was there as the minister for Foreign Affairs.
So, I was sure Mr Ayebare mwene Kanduhho was going to be appointed as minister for Foreign Affairs.
Given the level at which I had tapped into these things, I must confess I was scandalised when Mr Ayebare’s name was missing on the Cabinet list. Me being me, I even threatened to protest…
So, yes, at last, Mr Ayebare has been appointed to his rightful place at the right time. Congratulations, ambassador Adonia Ayebare!
Mr Ayebare is familiar with the nuances of the regional geo-politics and security in our neighbourhood.
He, after all, is the President’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region. This appointment was, despite Museveni’s many other appointments, not some convenient spur-of-the-moment action to appease this or that constituency.
Mr Ayebare is very knowledgeable about the Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda issues. He was directly involved in ending the armed conflict in Burundi.
And need I say, he was ambassador to Rwanda, where he cultivated leverageable contacts.
As the outgoing Permanent Representative of Uganda to the UN, he is familiar with the sophistications of international multilateral engagements.
For me, the most enduring element of Ayebare is his consistent professional approach to what many see as intractable foreign policy situations. During the last spat between Uganda and Rwanda, social media became a frontline of sorts.
Accusations and counteraccusations flew between Kigali and Kampala. Rwandan social media actors were portraying the person of Mr Museveni in a very bad light.
Some Ugandans wanted to retaliate by bashing the person of President Paul Kagame. Some of these people even held positions in government structures. I remember Ayebare protesting and arguing: responding to what is clearly off-the-hand things would be ridiculous for us. It would add no value to the efforts aimed at resolving our problems with Rwanda.
Ayebare’s was a lone voice of sanity. The Rwandan social media actors had really crossed the line into insanity.
Can you imagine some people in the Rwandan media even accused me (Asuman Bisiika) of committing genocide and corruption? And that’s why I was chased from Rwandan soil.
Ambassador Ayebare helped a lot in the resolution of what many viewed as the former president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza (RIP), running for a third term of office in 2015.
I participated in generating a paper on why Nkurunziza qualified to run for office for a third time. I sent the document to Mr Ayebare, and he is rumoured to have used our paper properly and appropriately at the UN. Nkurunziza ran for a third term of office. (I still have the paper. It offers good reading for the curious mind).
An online news outlet reported that the proposed ministerial appointment of Mr Lawrence Muganga is likely to face legal challenges.
Mr Muganga, the vice chancellor of the privately-owned Victoria University, is rumoured to hold Rwandan and Canadian citizenship.
He is said to have worked in the Government of Rwanda and later studied in Canada as a bona fide Rwandan citizen, on some claim was a Rwanda government scholarship.
While in Canada, he acquired Canadian citizenship. Does he hold Ugandan citizenship? I don’t know. Are his other citizenships an issue in Uganda? I don’t care.