President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has promoted the fallen Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Maj. Gen. Paul Lokech to the rank of Lieutenant General.
The promotion follows a request by districts councils from Acholi that convened yesterday asking Museveni to promote the deceased General for his tremendous contribution towards peace and security in the country.
Gen. Lokech passed away on Saturday August 21, 2021. According to a post-mortem examination carried out by a team of pathologists, Lokech died of a blood clot which was carried into the lungs. He has been laid to rest at his ancestral home in Baibir village in Pader District. Lt. Gen. Paul Lokech has been accorded 21 gun salutes in respect as a senior army officer.
In his speech delivered by the minister of internal affairs Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, Museveni applauded Lokech for flashing out Al-Shabaab in Mogadishu, maintaining peace at the sea port, airport and state house in Somalia.
“ It just came to my attention that Gen. Lokech did all commandership courses in South African and other countries and he has commanded a number of operations in Somalia, etc. when he went to the police he found that camera operatives were playing cards on social media that is why there was a high crime rate in the country,” he said.
“The death of Gen. Lokech was untimely, why didn’t the doctors see this coming yet he had a fracture and an open wound. He did his part in an exemplary way,” Museveni said.
“With powers entrusted to me according to the constitution, I therefore promote Maj. Gen. Paul Lokech to Lieutenant General. Some people were asking me to promote him to the full General, but you can’t promote a reverend without church. Promoting him to full general requires a number of courses and deployment. Since he was deployed in police he is promoted to that rank,” he said.
Gen. Lokech Was a senior military officer at the rank of Major General, in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). He was appointed Deputy Inspector General of Police of the Uganda Police Force on 16 December 2020.
Lokech’s military career includes service in various leadership capacities, including two tours as the Commander of the Uganda contingent to Somalia, as part of the AMISOM peacekeeping force. The first tour was between May 2011 and 2012. His second Somalia rotation was from December 2017 until December 2018. During his first tour, Lokech commanded Battle Groups Eight and Nine, responsible for ejecting Al-Shabaab militants from Mogadishu in 2011.
Before his second tour in Somalia, he was the Commanding Officer of the Second UPDF Division, based at Makenke Barracks, in Mbarara, in the Western Region of Uganda. He previously served as the Military Attaché at Uganda’s Embassy to Russia, based in Moscow.
He has also served as part of Uganda’s peace-keeping forces in South Sudan. He was part of Operation Safe Haven (OSH), a UPDF operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo intended to neutralise the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
