The Victoria University Vice Chancellor has broken his silence — and he is not going quietly. He says he does not hold a Rwandan passport, the process was rigged against him from the start, and the proof is on tape.
When Parliament’s Appointments Committee rejected Dr. Lawrence Muganga’s nomination as State Minister for Internal Affairs last week, the official explanation was straightforward: citizenship concerns, multiple passports, insufficient documentation.
Dr. Muganga has a very different version of events.
In a detailed and explosive statement posted on X on June 3, 2026, the Victoria University Vice Chancellor has broken his silence — naming Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa directly, alleging racial discrimination against him as a Munyarwanda, denying that he holds a Rwandan passport, and promising to release audio evidence that, he says, will prove the rejection was never really about passports at all.
The most explosive claim in Muganga’s statement is a direct quote he attributes to Deputy Speaker Tayebwa — words he says are captured on record and will be released as audio.
According to Muganga, Rt Hon Tayebwa told him: “In every vetting session we have to fail someone, and this time it had to be you, Dr. Muganga.”
“Read that again,” Muganga wrote. “This rejection was decided before the process even began. It was never about passports, qualifications, or integrity. It was personal. It was calculated. It was discriminatory.”
If the audio exists and matches what Muganga claims, it would fundamentally change the narrative around his rejection from a citizenship compliance issue to a predetermined political hit. Tayebwa has not yet publicly responded to the specific allegation.
At the centre of the official rejection narrative is the claim that committee investigations confirmed Muganga holds three passports — Ugandan, Canadian, and Rwandan — and that he denied the Rwandan one during vetting.
Muganga denies this categorically.
“I do NOT hold a Rwandan passport. This is a deliberate falsehood introduced by Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, and the truth must be told,” he wrote.
He had previously acknowledged holding Ugandan and Canadian citizenship, telling reporters: “Before I came here, I definitely had two citizenships — that’s the Ugandan citizenship and the Canadian citizenship.” Rwanda, he maintains, is a fabrication introduced to justify a rejection that was already decided.
Muganga went beyond procedural complaints. He described what happened in the committee room as racism — targeted at him because of his Munyarwanda heritage.
“What I experienced in that committee was not parliamentary oversight. It was hatred. It was discrimination. It was racism, directed at me simply because I am a Munyarwanda.”
He made clear he is not claiming victim status on behalf of one person. He is making a constitutional argument.
“We Banyarwanda are Ugandans. We were born here. We pay taxes here. We build institutions here. We have given our lives to serve this nation. I personally have spent decades working tirelessly for Uganda, conducting thousands of interviews, engaging with thousands of people, sitting in hundreds of boardroom meetings across 56 countries. In all those years and in all those rooms, I have never once encountered the kind of hostility that Hon. Tayebwa directed at me. Not once.”
He also posed a question directly to Tayebwa that he left deliberately unanswered: “What is Hon. Tayebwa so afraid of? What remains hidden that my presence at Internal Affairs would threaten to uncover?”
Hon. Daudi Kabanda, a committee member, was having none of the discrimination framing.
“Mr. Muganga Lawrence was not rejected by the committee for being a Munyarwanda, a narrative I see some people so deceptively selling. We have other leaders who are Banyarwanda who were approved and have been approved in the past. Hon. Aisha Ssekindi and Diana Mutasingwa were approved yet they are Banyarwanda but Ugandan citizens.”
“Muganga was not approved after he denied holding a Rwandan passport, but the committee investigations confirmed he holds three passports: Ugandan, Canadian and Rwandan. Why was he denying it?” Kabanda asked.
The committee’s position is that this was never about ethnicity — it was about a nominee who denied holding a passport that due diligence confirmed he held, and whose commitment to renounce other citizenships was not backed by sufficient documentation.
The entire trajectory of this story now hangs on one thing: the audio recording Muganga has promised to release.
If the recording exists and captures Tayebwa saying the rejection was predetermined — that someone had to be failed and it was going to be Muganga — then the citizenship explanation collapses as cover for something more deliberate. The political fallout would extend well beyond one rejected ministerial nomination.
If the recording does not materialise, or does not say what Muganga claims, then the narrative shifts back to a nominee who held multiple passports, denied one of them, and lost the committee’s confidence.
Uganda is waiting to hear the tape.
