In 2017, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) personnel under the Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU) were deployed on Ugandan Lakes by the Commander in Chief (CiC) of the armed forces also the Uganda’s president Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, to curb illegal fishing and increase fish stocks, bringing their span therein now to eight years.
The FPU outfit now renamed the 155 Marines Battalion, is to be working under the command and administration of the UPDF Marines Brigade commander Brig. Michael Nyarwa with Maj Joseph Ssebukeera as a Commanding Officer, according to the Friday 26 December statement by the army acting Director Defence and Public Information Col Chris Magezi.
However, Blazer News Times has learnt from the reliable sources in the UPDF that renaming of the Fisheries Protection Unit was informed by its failure to live up to the expectations by the CiC.
According to the sources, since 2017 when the unit was established up to date, the president has been receiving disappointing reports from the actors in fishing communities, pinning some soldiers for turning into violators of their authority through extortion and unleashing brutality on fishermen, which taints the army’s image.
Col Magezi had also indicated in his statement that the dissolution of landing sites committees on all the lakes in Uganda by the Chief of Defence Forces on CiC instruction, was on account of the controversies surrounding them among the fishermen, although he did not divulge them.
The same statement confirms immediate redeployment of the removed unit Commander Lt Col Mercy Tukahirwa to the office of the Senior Presidential Advisor on Defence and Security Lt. Gen Proscovia Nalweyiso.
However, sources say that she had turned the dissolved committees into repressive tools against the critical fishermen, which was against the rationale for the unit establishment.
Lt. Col Tukahirwa has been on several occasion seen campaigning for the ruling NRM party presidential candidate incumbent president Museveni while in the army uniform, even when the Constitution and the UPDF Act bars serving military officers from engaging in partisan politics.
Some sources within the NRM party told this Website that the unit’s actions had posed serious impact onto the party’s vote for the forthcoming 2026 elections, thus the president had to act basing on the public outcry and intelligence, although the military presence remains on the water bodies.
The FPU replacement came amid sharp criticism from the opposition presidential candidates Nathan Nandala Mafabi (FDC) and Bobi Wine (NUP), describing the ongoing military presence there as impactful to the marine economy, pledging to surrender the lake back to the ordinary fishermen if elected president.
