President Yoweri Museveni’s choice of Juma Witonze Kisekka as State Minister for Internal Affairs has brought to an end weeks of emptiness after Parliament rejected the nomination of Victoria University Vice Chancellor Lawrence Muganga over citizenship concerns.
Witonze, a National Resistance Movement (NRM) mobiliser and Greater Mpigi regional coordinator for the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), was nominated by President Museveni to replace Muganga, whose appointment failed to secure the approval of Parliament’s Appointments Committee. He has since been vetted and approved by the committee chaired by Speaker Anita Among and now awaits swearing in.
The appointment elevates one of the ruling party’s grassroots mobilisers into Cabinet. Witonze serves as the NRM vice chairperson for Gomba District and has previously contested for election to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), where he campaigned on strengthening regional integration and trade.
Speaking shortly after his approval by Parliament’s Appointments Committee, Witonze pledged to serve all Ugandans and thanked President Museveni for entrusting him with the position.
“A lot is waiting, and there is a hard task ahead. I promise that I am a minister for all Ugandans and I will serve Ugandans,” Witonze told journalists.
He added, “President Museveni, I can’t thank him enough because I have been involved in mobilisation for my party and I can’t believe that among the nearly 50 million Ugandans, he chose me to go and serve in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
Witonze also pledged to justify the confidence the President had placed in him.
“I am so grateful, and I promise not to let him down. I am ready to serve, and the sky is the limit,” he said.
He replaces Muganga, whose nomination stalled after Parliament’s Appointments Committee raised questions about his citizenship status during the vetting of President Museveni’s Cabinet nominees.
Following verification by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the committee established that four nominees had dual or multiple citizenship concerns.
Addressing journalists after the committee concluded its work, Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa said three nominees had satisfied the committee after demonstrating that they had initiated the process of renouncing their foreign citizenship.
“We did a verification with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and we discovered that we had three colleagues who had dual citizenship and one colleague who had multiple citizenship,” Tayebwa said.
He added, “They have taken a patriotic step of choosing Uganda above all. Some of these people have families in those countries, but they have made the painful decision of renouncing their citizenship in other countries. We appreciated them for being patriotic.”
However, Muganga was not approved after the committee found that he had not presented sufficient documentary evidence to satisfy the legal requirements governing appointment to public office.
Days later, Rwanda’s Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration published a Special Gazette formally approving Muganga’s voluntary renunciation of Rwandan nationality, adding a new twist to the controversy.
Breaking his silence, Muganga dismissed claims that he had ever simultaneously held Ugandan, Canadian and Rwandan passports.
“To begin with, it is wrong. There is no time in my life when I have ever had three passports. I have never had three passports,” Muganga said.
He explained that he moved to Rwanda after graduating from Makerere University in 2001 when he failed to secure employment in Uganda.
“Like every young person right now, there are so many Ugandans at the airport trying to go to the UAE and different countries to earn a living. Me too, like every other young person, I went to Rwanda. I was fortunate, I got a job,” he said.
Muganga said he later acquired Rwandan citizenship to ease his employment before relocating to Canada in 2009 for further studies, where he eventually became a Canadian citizen.
He insisted that he never simultaneously held Rwandan and Canadian citizenship because he surrendered his Rwandan documents after becoming a Canadian citizen.
“I gathered the passport I had and the ID, handed them over to the Rwandan Embassy in Ottawa, and I remained with Canadian citizenship,” Muganga said.
He added that he later returned to Uganda at the invitation of former Vice President Edward Ssekandi, former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and Dr Hillary Musoke to contribute to the country’s education sector.
The citizenship debate also attracted comments from Kahinda Otafiire, who acknowledged helping Muganga regain Ugandan citizenship but maintained that appointing ministers is the President’s constitutional mandate.
“I gave him citizenship, but I’m not the one who appointed him as a minister. That means the people who appointed him found him to be useful,” Otafiire said.
Witonze will deputise the minister in overseeing immigration, citizenship, registration of persons, refugee affairs and other internal security-related functions under the ministry.
