Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Affairs Kirunda Kivejinja has died.
The veteran politician died from Mulago Hospital where he had been admitted a few weeks ago with breathing complications.
Recently, some social media users announced the Minister dead but later government came out to refute the claims.
WHO IS KIVEJINJA?
Minister Ali Kirunda Kivejinja was born on 12 June 1935[85 years ago] in the present day Bugweri District.
He studied from Kibuli Junior School and Busoga College Mwiri before going on to obtain a Bachellor’s Degree in Zoology at Delhi University in India.
In India, he was the treasurer of the African Students Association, an associsation that brought together a number of African nationalists that would later play a significant role in the fight for the independence of their respective countries.
These included former Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika, John Malecela and John Mutaure.
On his return tothe country, Kivejinja played an active role in the Uganda Peoples Congress of Dr Milton Obote where he was a party mobiliser around 1962.
He would however fall out with Obote and ally with current leader Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to form the Uganda Patriotic Movement in the early 1980s.
A strong rebel collaborator during the 1981 – 86 NRA rebellion, Kivejinja has formed a strong component of Museveni’s current government, holding a number of portifolios to date.
Immediately after the fall of the Obote 2 government, he was appointed Minister for Relief and Social Rehabilitation before moving to the Internal Affairs docket where he tremendously contributed to the Institutionalisation of Uganda Police force by encouraging balanced recruitment from all regions of the country and professionalisation.
At the time of his death, Kivejinja has been a Special Political Advisor to President Museveni, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Affairs.
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