Bureaucrats ignored Museveni’s directive to pay Dr. Byabanyagi’s estate

Dr. Apuuli Sanyu Wilson Byabanyagi (1949-2021)

President Yoweri Museveni’s positive attributes include his kindness to soldiers that have served in Uganda’s armies since the colonial period. For a man who spent years fighting against the armies of Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada, Brigadier Oyite Ojok, and General Tito Okello Lutwa, his peace-making efforts with soldiers that served under the command of these three men were important in securing stability in the land that he inherited from them.

So, I was not surprised that the president was touched by the story that I wrote about Dr. Apuuli Sanyu Wilson Byabanyagi on September 7, 2021. To summarise that story, Dr. Byabanyagi, who graduated from Makerere Medical School in March 1977, and joined the Uganda Army in 1978 to serve as a military doctor, was arrested in May 1979, shortly after the fall of Field Marshall Amin. Captain Byabanyagi, whose only crime was that he had served Ugandan government soldiers as a doctor, was incarcerated in Luzira Maximum Security Prison until October that year.

Following his release from prison, he joined the civil service in 1980 and served in hospitals in the Fort Portal area, including Virika Hospital where he was the only doctor during the war between the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) and the government forces of the Uganda National Liberation Army. The government hospital at Kabarole, Fort Portal, which was barely functional, referred numerous surgical and obstetric patients to Virika Hospital. Adyeeri Joyce Byabanyagi, his widow, recalls that her husband, being the only doctor at the hospital, “worked day and night to save humanity for Kabarole, Kasese, Kyenjojo, Kamwenge, Bundibugyo and part of Bunyoro.” That was the easy part.

Dr. Byabanyagi also “privately treated many NRA bush soldiers who had serious medical and surgical problems,” his widow told me. Many of the sick and injured NRA fighters were brought to Dr. Byabanyagi by Bishop Serapio Bwemi Magambo of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Portal.

Among the fighters whose lives he saved was Bright Kanyontore Rwamirama, who went on to become a lieutenant colonel in the Uganda People’s Defence Force, a long serving Member of Parliament for Isingiro County North, and Minister of State for Agriculture in charge of Animal Husbandry. It was a risky undertaking for Dr. Byabanyagi, but his professionalism would not have allowed him to do otherwise.

He continued to work in Fort Portal after the war, until he was posted to Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital in 2000. Unable to find accommodation, and with his general health deteriorating due to a severe head injury he had sustained in a motor vehicle accident in 1997, Dr. Byabanyagi requested the Ministry of Health to repost him to his home area where accommodation was available.

The Ministry of Health ignored his request. His many years of dedicated public service and his struggle with post-accident recovery did not seem to matter to the custodians of human health care. Dr. Byabanyagi quit the government job and embarked on full-time private practice in Kabarole, Tooro. He owned Ageteraine Nursing Home, a 9-bed health centre where he worked until illness disabled him.

Notwithstanding his illness, Byabanyagi struggled to get his unpaid salaries and gratuity from the Government of Uganda. According to his wife, a retired nurse, her husband never received it. He died on September 4, 2021, just weeks before turning seventy-two.

President Museveni immediately directed his aides to ensure that the Uganda Government rectified the injustice to Dr. Byabanyagi. His widow received a call from State House on Monday December 13, 2021, to inform her that the president had ordered them to pay her late husband’s estate what was due to him.

Many months passed before Joyce Byabanyagi received verbal communication from an officer of the Ministry of Health. She was assured that the matter was “being handled.” She learnt that the matter had been referred to the Uganda Public Service Commission, then back to the Health Service Commission, where it has been since February 2025. According to Mrs. Byabanyagi, she has not received a single official written communication about the matter.

It is almost four years since Dr. Byabanyagi died without receiving what he legitimately worked for. It will be four years in December since the President of Uganda directed his officers to rectify this inexcusable injustice.

To keep any citizen in suspense for four years is unconscionable. To deny a widow her husband’s rightful earnings is insensitivity that borders on cruelty. To ignore President Museveni’s directive to do good is insubordination. To deal with the matter without formal correspondence with the widow exemplifies the larger problem of abdication of responsibility that undermines governance and development.

One often hears accusations against President Museveni for not fulfilling his promises. Dr. Byabanyagi’s case causes one to pause and reflect on those allegations. Here is one case where the president learnt of a problem and promptly sought to have it resolved by his subordinates. They let him down. Might this be a common occurrence, meaning that Museveni is perhaps less guilty in the matter of unfulfilled pledges than hitherto thought?

More importantly, these officers let down Dr. Byabanyagi, a dedicated professional who rightfully earned his money. They let down his widow who supported him throughout his heroic and risky service to the soldiers of the NRA whose sacrifice brought the present government to power nearly forty years ago. The officers who have failed our dead colleague are beneficiaries of a struggle to which he contributed at great risk.

Dr. Byabanyagi should never have been denied his rightful earnings in the first place. Settlement of his salary arrears and unpaid gratuity should not have been a matter for the President of Uganda to deal with. That Museveni’s personal intervention yielded nothing, speaks of a systemic failure that has undermined our country’s efforts to establish a modern developing society.

One hopes that one will receive news that, even as we commemorate the fourth anniversary of Dr. Byabanyagi’s death, his widow has finally received what her husband worked for. Joyce Byabanyagi is not seeking any favours or recognition from anyone. She is not claiming special privileges. She just wants her late husband’s rights to be honoured. They should.