Uganda’s army chief and son of President Yoweri Museveni, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, announced he was quitting X on Friday after a string of controversial posts including threatening to behead an opposition leader and invade neighbouring countries.
Seen as the likely successor to his 80-year-old father, Kainerugaba built up more than a million followers on X, formerly Twitter, thanks to his notorious posts.
Just this week, Kainerugaba, 50, said it was only the presence of his father that prevented him from murdering musician-turned-opposition leader Bobi Wine.
“If Mzee was not there, I would cut off his head today,” Kainerugaba posted, using an honorific for Museveni.
But Kainerugaba posted on Friday that the “great whirlwind and rousing journey” of his time on X was ending so he could concentrate on his duties as head of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces.
That may bring some relief to Uganda’s diplomats.
The president was forced to apologise for his son’s tweet in 2022 that appeared to threaten an invasion of Kenya.
“It wouldn’t take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi,” Kainerugaba wrote.
He has also tweeted his support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Tigrayan rebels fighting Ethiopia’s government between 2020 and 2022.
Last month, Kainerugaba threatened to seize the Sudanese capital Khartoum as soon as US President-elect Donald Trump takes office, triggering more diplomatic uproar.
The post was later deleted and Uganda issued a statement saying the comments “do not represent the official position” of the government.
Other posts have been more light-hearted.
Among Kainerugaba’s final entries was a thread about the most handsome men in the world “not including me”.
The list included Fidel Castro, Elvis Presley, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, with his father taking the top spot.
He deactivated his account in April 2022, although barely two days later he was back — and tweeting.
Museveni has been in power since 1986 and faces re-election next year. International observers and rights groups say the last poll in 2021 involved vote-rigging and brutal repression of the opposition led by Wine.
