A bitter split from his wife while at Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) a sojourn down south in Kigali, Rwanda, and now Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a new man with reinvented identity.
The researcher was one of nine people who got a citizenship in Rwanda on Monday. The former MISR deputy director couldn’t have chosen a better place in region than Rwanda given his interest in post-conflict reconstruction in the Great Lakes Region.
Golooba-Mutebi, a big admirer of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s approach to leadership and transformation of the ‘tiny’ country from the ashes in 1994 to its present, was already seeking to move to Rwanda by February 2008 when he published his research, “Collapse, War and Reconstruction in Rwanda, an analytical narrative on state-making.”
The 51-year-old is one of the most secretive researchers when it comes to his private life, his friends say, explaining that it is the reason Golooba-Mutebi keeps far away from social media and the brouhaha that surrounds it. The researcher is not known to hold Facebook or Twitter accounts, two of the most popular social media platforms.
However, sources close to him say Golooba-Mutebi first married a granddaughter of Paul Muwanga but the marriage hit the patches while he was serving at MISR, ending in a bitter divorce.
“He had a very bitter divorce so I think he learnt a lot from it. It was the talk of Makerere. His ex wrote many complaints about him when he was at MUK and wanted him fired,” a source said.
Golooba-Mutebi had a child from his previous marriage.
“Then after the bitter divorce, he got a Rwandan wife, who works with some NGO in Kigali.”
Marriage to the Rwandan woman, by the immigration and emigration law, qualified Golooba-Mutebi for citizenship if he applied for and fulfilled other requirements. He went for it. However, contrary to suggestion that he was becoming a ‘Rwandan’, the change of citizenship allows one to keep their original nationality if they so wished, meaning the researcher will remain a Ugandan and live on dual citizenship unless he chooses to revoke one.
