IN SUMMARY
- The year that Gen Kasirye Gwanga enrolled at Fort Leavenworth in the US for a senior command course.
- Advice . “Be prepared for loneliness. When you retire and you are given a package like the one I got, expect people to run to you expecting you to give them some money. However, have a plan for that money. I also advise people to stay away from bank loans. Prepare for your old age because when you grow old people feel you are less important and if they know you have a billion behind you they will give you fake audience. The youth looking for jobs in towns should return to the villages and practice mechanised farming. Agriculure is the best job creator,” Gen Kasirye Gwanga.
After 47 years of serving the Ugandan army, in 2018 Maj Gen Kasirye Gwanga 67, officially retired to concentrate on commercial farming. He owns two farms, one in Mukono District and another in Mityana District which he refers to as Camp David I and II respectively. When not any where in the media, Gen Gwanga lives a quiet life at his Mityana farm where he has built a two-bedroom retirement.
However, at the mention of the title retired Major General, what you expect is a big mansion, but at the look of things it seems different with the retired General. His is an isolated circular house which he shares with his two dogs. Once there, you cannot miss the view of Lake Wamala.
At the sound of our vehicle stopping in his yard, clad in a blue overall and an army cap, Gen Gwanga flings his door open and gets out.
As his two dogs run towards us, he sparks a stick of a Rex cigarette puffing away, he welcomes us and offers us chairs which we carry up to a mango tree shade.
“This is my house, but being a news reporter I know my house is going to be your major area of interest. I can build a better house in the city, but what for. This is simple but it contains everything Kampala Serena Hotel can have. It has full time DSTV, I watch BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera and can communicate with whoever I want a round the world,” Gen Gwanga says.
Asking him to tell me about his life as a retired Major General, Kasirye Gwanga seems hesitant.
“My life is my life, I am writing a book so I am not going to tell you a lot. I want you to ask me about your present political situation,” he states as he tries to throw a flash back in to his golden days.
Army days
Gen Kasirye Gwanga speaks of his days in the army with pride. “My life is dangerous; I joined the army in 1972 when I was just 20-years-old. The then president Idi Amin Dada posted me in the West Nile. I was with Brigadier Gen Mark Kodili Ayiasi and by far, we were the youngest. In 1979 I was arrested in Tanzania,” he says.
“Gen Kodili is one of the few honest and professional army officers I have worked with. No wonder he is a Sandhurst-trained army officer,” adds Gen Gwanga. Gwanga has served in different army posts for almost all government regimes. However, he believes “they” have made this generation.
A generation he says still ignorant about politics. “You are the young ones we have made and you are asking President Museveni to leave power!! I still remember how the country was when we took over power in 1986,” he says.
Credit: www.monitor.co.ug
