Retired UPDF high- ranking soldier Maj. Gen. Benon Biraro’s life ended Wednesday, February 12, 2020 after losing battle to cancer at Kampala Hospital.
The one-time Presidential hopeful had been ailing for a long-time.
Many Ugandans couldn’t have known the departed UPDF officer had it not been 2016 elections which he lost to his once Commander in Chief, Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
Whereas he couldn’t score 1% of the total vote having polled 0.27%, a huge section of the public proposed that Biraro should be given an influential post in government following his impressive ideas he suggested during a Presidential debate.
Ugandans had wished him to become Minister of Agriculture.
Who is Biraro?
Benon Biraaro was born on 1st March 1958 in Isingiro District. He attended Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda’s oldest and largest public university, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science.
Later, he attended Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, graduating with a Masters in Global Strategic Studies.
Military education
Officer Cadet Course.
Junior Staff College in the United Kingdom.
Junior Command and Staff College at the Nigerian Defence Academy, in Kaduna, Nigeria.
Senior Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.
Africa Strategic Studies Course at Nasser Military Academy, Cairo, Egypt.
Masters in Global Security Studies at Cranfield University, United Kingdom.
Military career
Benon Biraaro joined the Ugandan Bush War on 7th June 1982, straight out of Makerere University.
By 1984, he had risen to the position of secretary to the High Command and National Resistance Council.
By 1986, he was the deputy to Yoweri Museveni’s Principal Private Secretary.
He was then posted to Kitgum District, as the special district administrator from 1986 until 1987.
He then was transferred to Kyankwanzi and served as deputy commandant of the National Leadership Institute.
Next, he served as the commanding officer of the 97th Battalion in Uganda’s Eastern Region, which ended the insurgency in the Teso sub-region and in Tororo and Busia Districts.
Following that, he served as the commander of the military police in Uganda.
He was then appointed the military representative in the Office of the Inspector General of Government.
He then served as a member of the Adhoc Committee on Human Rights under the chairmanship of Abu Mayanja.
He then became the director of training in the UPDF.
In 1998, he commanded the Ugandan contingent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
He then became the commander of the Infantry Division in the Western Region of Uganda.
Following that he was appointed deputy chief of staff of the UPDF (DCOS), the fifth-highest rank in the Uganda military.
Next, he served as the commandant for two in-takes at the Uganda Senior Command and Staff College at Kimaka in the Eastern Region.
He then served as the chief of the Strategic Planning and Management Unit of the Peace and Security Council at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Other responsibilities
Biraaro and several prominent individuals in the Ugandan military and business have started a public-private-partnership with the aim of raising investment funds locally to invest in local infrastructure and industry.
Biraaro was the founder president and investor in Local Investment for Transformation.