PHOTOS: Gen Kainerugaba attends son Ruhamya’s Sandhurst graduation

• Ruhamya Kainerugaba graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on Friday.

• Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba attended the ceremony and received a Sandhurst alumni medal.

• Ruhamya followed his father, who graduated from the academy in 2000.

• Fellow Ugandan Andrew Bakira also completed the officer commissioning course.

The Chief of Defence Forces Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba was in the United Kingdom on Friday as his son, Ruhamya Kainerugaba, graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, following in his father’s footsteps at the British military institution.

Officer Cadet Ruhamya completed Sandhurst’s Officer Commissioning Course and passed out alongside fellow Ugandan Andrew Bakira and other British and international cadets.

Before the parade, Sandhurst Commandant Maj Gen Nick Cowley received Gen Kainerugaba and presented him with an alumni medal. The academy introduced the medal after Kainerugaba’s time there.

The graduation culminated in the Sovereign’s Parade, which marks the completion of officer training at Sandhurst. Cadets marched past Old College before military officials, dignitaries and their families.

Ruhamya’s graduation carries a family connection to Sandhurst. His father trained at the same academy and graduated in 2000 before returning to Uganda to pursue his military career.

In the days before his son’s graduation, Kainerugaba shared photographs from their separate periods at the academy. He described the images as showing “father and son going through the same hardships, separated by 27 years.”

The commissioning course lasts 44 weeks and prepares cadets for military leadership. Training covers field exercises, military tactics, operational planning, weapons, ethics and command.

Graduates are commissioned as officers before joining or returning to their respective armed forces. Ruhamya and Bakira are expected to serve in the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF).

Addressing the graduating cadets, Britain’s Chief of the General Staff, Gen Sir Roly Walker, said the security environment they were entering had changed.

“We had every confidence that it was a world in which we dominated militarily,” Walker said, “and for reasons that are obvious to us all now, that world is fading fast.”

He warned that the prospect of a wider war had returned and that countries could no longer assume continued military dominance.

Walker, however, told the new officers that the changing environment should give them a clearer sense of responsibility.

“There is an absolute clarity to your purpose, which is to be ready to fight and win your nation’s battles.”

He said soldiers would depend on the graduates for leadership and urged them to earn the trust of those placed under their command.

“Our nations will need their soldiers. Those soldiers will need to be led... They deserve the best leaders.”

Walker invoked Sandhurst’s motto, “Serve to Lead”, as he reminded the graduates about the responsibility that comes with command.

“That is the simplicity of the motto of this place: Serve to Lead. And we ask nothing more from you.”

He expressed confidence in the graduating officers, saying the future was in good hands.