
For the last 4 years, Council For Abavandimwe has been in the trenches fighting against victimisation and segregation of indigenous Banyarwanda by some reactionary and malicious elements at Immigration and NIRA.
This victimization and segregation took the form of arbitrary denial of passports, denial of national Identity cards, confiscation of national ID’s at border points without a hearing, refusal to renew passports and arbitrary deactivation of National ID’s by malicious elements at NIRA and immigration who believe they are the law, the investigators, the prosecutors and the judges when it comes to the Citizenship rights of indigenous Banyarwanda.
Needless to say, this was unjust, illegal yet causing so much pain, distress, loss of opportunities, loss of livelihoods, denial of economic rights (because not only one cannot travel without a passport, one cannot be employed without a national ID, nor open a bank account or register a company) in short, without a nation ID and a passport, one is economically crippled.
With thus took on the fight against this injustice and wrote to the President, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Human rights Commission, the IGG, the Equal opportunities Commission, Uganda communications commission, the Speaker of Parliament, to mention but a few.In our activism against injustice, we would like to appreciate the Speaker of Parliament ( Rt Hon. Annet Anita Among) Andrew Mwenda and Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, who gave us moral support and publicly spoke out and highlighted our cause against victimisation and violation of our citizenship rights.
We express out sincere gratitude.As a result of the efforts of committed people from Council for Abavandimwe, last year in October (2024) we had audience with President Museveni who finally understood the gravity of the plight of Banyarwanda and resolved to issue an Executive order to bring this injustice to an end, and we are happy to inform the Banyarwanda community, well wishers and fellow Ugandans, that the President summoned us on 21st/01/2025 at State House Entebbe, and gave us the highlights of the Executive order which we now state here briefly as follows;
- All those whose national ID’s were deactivated or confiscated, should have the same given back to them and/or reactivated.
.2. For anyone who applies for a passport with a national ID, as long as he/she is backed by the local authorities, he should be promptly served.
- A citizen produces a citizen. In other words, there is no way a parent can have a national ID or passport (meaning he is a Ugandan citizen) and the same is denied to his children.
- All illegal requirements such as demands to being parents, graduated tax tickets, photographs of burial grounds and demands to demonstrate that one’s parents or grand parents were in Uganda by 2026 are stopped.
We are extremely grateful to His Excellency President Museveni for all the time he has accorded us to understand and find a solution to our Citizenship problem.
We also thank the Attorney General and
the Solicitor General for the time and their legal advisory role to the President in regard to this matter.
We thus hereby
inform the media and the entire Banyarwanda community that we shall hold a press conference tomorrow (24th/01/2025) at Serena hotel grounds at 11:00.am to sensitize more about the Presidential Executive order, so don’t miss.