KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has threatened to have State Minister for Local Government Justine Nameere removed from Cabinet, in the second public confrontation between the two in little over a week.
Kainerugaba issued the warning on Tuesday, 15 September, after a short video clip involving Nameere, the Masaka City Woman MP, began circulating online.
“If Nameere is misbehaving, it’s a very simple problem. We shall remove her from the cabinet. That’s a very simple thing,” Kainerugaba wrote on social media.
He followed the warning with a broader statement suggesting wider changes could be coming to President Yoweri Museveni’s Cabinet.
“Changing or dropping a minister who is not serving our people’s interests is the easiest thing. In this Kisanja, we shall drop and reshuffle many,” he said, using the Luganda term commonly applied to a presidential term of office.
The dispute appears to have been triggered by a short video presented online as showing Nameere warning Kainerugaba against interfering with the work of NRM legislators.
According to reports examining the footage, a longer version of the same recording shows Nameere was in fact addressing Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) Secretary General Daudi Kabanda, not the army chief, with the shorter, circulated clip appearing to have removed the portion identifying who her remarks were actually directed at.
Kabanda subsequently weighed in beneath Kainerugaba’s post, using the moment to question the legitimacy of Nameere’s election victory in Masaka City.
“She didn’t win genuinely. The people of Masaka City deserve a by-election,” he wrote — a claim that relates to Nameere’s disputed win in the January general election, which was contested through a recount and remains the subject of an ongoing High Court petition filed by her rival, NUP’s Rose Nalubowa.
This is the second time in roughly a week that a video, later reported to have been edited, has placed Nameere at the centre of a public confrontation with Kainerugaba.
The earlier episode involved a clip suggesting Nameere was organising a celebration for former Speaker of Parliament Anita Among following her release from house arrest.
That video prompted Kainerugaba to warn publicly that “there will be absolutely no party for AAA” and that anyone involved in organising one would be arrested.
Both Among and Nameere subsequently denied the claims, with Nameere explaining that the footage had been taken from a longer recording made on 6 May 2026 and did not reflect any current plans.
She accused unnamed individuals of misleading Kainerugaba with manipulated footage, and cautioned that people seeking to curry favour with the CDF could exploit their access to him by framing others.
In response to the earlier controversy, Nameere publicly reaffirmed her loyalty to Kainerugaba, citing a relationship dating back to their time at university and continuing through her work in media and political mobilisation for the PLU in Greater Masaka.
Also Read: Masaka Woman MP election petition opens in High Court
It was not immediately clear, at the time of filing, whether Nameere had issued a fresh public response to Tuesday’s cabinet-removal threat.
Kainerugaba, who is also President Museveni’s son and heads the PLU political outfit, has developed a pattern of issuing public threats against officials and public figures over content shared or attributed to them on social media, some of which has subsequently been found or alleged to be manipulated or taken out of context.
His remarks, given his position as both a senior military officer and an influential figure in Uganda’s ruling establishment, are widely followed and often carry significant political weight, feeding speculation about the composition of Museveni’s Cabinet as this presidential term continues.
Neither Nameere nor the Cabinet Office had, at the time of filing, issued a statement addressing whether her position is genuinely under review.
