Yesterday Parliament said no. Dr Lawrence Muganga will not be State Minister for Internal Affairs.
Today the reason for that “no” is being fought over like a court case in public. Was it about passports? Was it about loyalty? Or was it about something older and uglier — who gets to be called “fully Ugandan” and who doesn’t?
This isn’t just about one man and one ministry. It’s about how Uganda decides who belongs.
THE PAPER VS THE PERSON
On paper, the issue looks simple. The Appointments Committee asked about citizenship. Muganga listed Ugandan and Canadian. The Committee says their investigations found a third: Rwandan. Muganga denies it, calls it a deliberate falsehood, and says the decision to fail him was made before he even walked in. He points to words allegedly said by the Deputy Speaker: “In every vetting we have to fail someone, and this time it had to be you.”
If that quote is true, then we have a problem bigger than passports. Because that means vetting stopped being about qualifications and became a ritual sacrifice. “We must fail someone.” Why? For drama? For balance? For politics?
If the quote is false, then Muganga still has a problem. Because the law is clear: you cannot hold public office while holding citizenship of another country, and you must be honest under oath. Denying a passport that exists is not a small mistake. It’s a credibility collapse.
So we’re stuck between two bad options: either the Committee lied before the process began, or the nominee lied under oath. Neither option makes Uganda look serious.
WHO GETS TO BE “UGANDAN ENOUGH”?
Muganga’s core argument is identity. “We Banyarwanda are Ugandans. Born here. Tax here. Build here.” He says what he faced was not oversight but hostility aimed at him because of his ethnicity. He says in decades of boardrooms across 56 countries he never met the kind of hate he saw in that committee room.
Daudi Kabanda analysis’
PLU General Secretary Kabanda’s counter is legal and historical. Other Banyarwanda have been vetted and approved before. Aisha Ssekindi. Diana Mutasingwa. So ethnicity alone cannot be the reason. The reason, he argues, is the passport contradiction.
Both sides are right about something.
Kabanda is right that the Constitution does not ban Banyarwanda from office. They are one of Uganda’s recognized indigenous communities. To pretend otherwise is to rewrite our own history. Banyarwanda fought in liberation wars. They run schools, hospitals, businesses. They bleed and pay tax same as the rest of us.
Muganga is right that “papers” are often used as a proxy for identity in Uganda. When you want to disqualify someone without saying “I don’t like your tribe,” you say “your documents are not clear.” It’s cleaner. It’s deniable. But the target knows what really happened.
That’s the trap we keep falling into. We don’t debate policy. We debate belonging.
THE IRONY NOBODY WANTS TO DISCUSS
Here’s the twist that makes this whole thing painful: Muganga was arrested in 2021 on allegations of spying for Rwanda. Now he’s being nominated to head Internal Affairs — the very docket that would oversee the security agencies that once held him.
Ask yourself: was that appointment brave or reckless?
If the President believed Muganga had been cleared and reformed, then the nomination was a statement. “We do not define people by their worst day.” That would be statesmanship.
If the nomination was just optics, then the rejection was also pre-planned. And that would mean Muganga was used twice: once as a symbol of reconciliation, then again as a symbol of “we are tough on security.” Either way, the man becomes a prop.
And that’s cruel. Because whatever you think of him, Muganga is not a prop. He built Victoria University from nothing. He’s interviewed thousands, sat in hundreds of boardrooms, trained students who now run companies. You can disagree with him. You can reject him. But don’t reduce him to a political test case.
THE BIGGER QUESTIONS THIS VETTING LEAVES US WITH
Dual citizenship and public office: The Constitution bans it for certain offices. Fine. But the law is applied selectively. Some people “renounce” quietly and get approved. Others are investigated publicly and humiliated. Where is the consistent standard? If the rule is the rule, let it apply to everyone. If not, stop pretending it’s about law.
Vetting as theater: If the Deputy Speaker really said “we must fail someone,” then vetting is not oversight. It’s performance. And performance kills trust. Ugandans need to know: when Parliament says “no,” is it because you’re unfit, or because your turn to be the example came up?
Ethnicity and suspicion: Muganga says he was treated with hatred because he’s Munyarwanda. Kabanda says ethnicity had nothing to do with it. The truth probably sits in the tone of that room. And tone matters. You can follow the law and still break a man’s dignity. You can reject a nominee and still not sound like you’re rejecting an entire community. Parliament failed at that tone yesterday.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW
Muganga says he has audio. He says he will release it. If he does, we’ll all hear the temperature of that room for ourselves. If he doesn’t, the accusation of racism will hang in the air like smoke.
Either way, Uganda loses.
If he was rejected unfairly because of his name and ancestry, then we’ve told millions of Banyarwanda children that no matter how much they build, they’ll always be “suspect.”
If he was rejected justly for lying about citizenship, then we’ve told future nominees that honesty is optional until you get caught.
Final Word
This country is too small for “us vs them” based on where your grandparents came from. Uganda belongs to the Muganda farmer in Masaka, the Munyarwanda lecturer in Kampala, the Iteso teacher in Soroti, the Madi nurse in Adjumani. All of us.
Vetting should test competence, integrity, and loyalty to the Constitution. Not ancestry. Not accent. Not who your grandfather was.
Dr Muganga may or may not have been the right man for Internal Affairs. That’s a debate worth having. But let’s have that debate without turning citizenship into a weapon and without turning Parliament into a courtroom for ethnic grudges.
Because the next person they say “doesn’t belong” might be you. And by then, there’ll be nobody left to speak up.
