Eight days after President Yoweri Museveni elevated Maj Gen Kayanja Muhanga to Lieutenant General and appointed him commander of UPDF Land Forces, he assigned Maj Gen Dick Olum to replace him as commander of the Shuja operations in DRC.
Lt Gen Muhanga had been commanding Shujja operations since November 2021 when UPDF raided camps of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which is suspected to have been behind a series of bomb blasts in Kampala that killed and injured several people.
The new Shujja commander, Maj Gen Olum, is well familiar with DRC topography where he has until today’s appointment been serving as the country’s defence advisor at Uganda’s Kinshasa Embassy.
Commanding Shujja operations in DRC is not going to be his first or second assignment of that nature as he has previously served in such capacities in the war-trodden country Somalia as commander of the UPDF contingent under the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
The two-star General faced off with Al-Shabaab militants between 2013 and 2014. While in Somalia, Maj Gen Olum was praised and compared to now deceased Maj Gen Paul Lokech who gave Al-Shabaab hard times and was christened by Somalis and colleagues as the ‘Lion of Mogadishu’.
Before being assigned to command UPDF forces in Somalia, Maj Gen Olum served as commander of joint forces from South Sudan, DRC, Uganda, and CAR which had been tasked to wipe rebels subscribing to Lord’s Resistance Army commanded by Joseph Kony, in the thick forests. At the time, LRA was very active in the thick forests of DRC and South Sudan and also would cross to CAR.
He was in charge of Northern Uganda region during the 2021 presidential elections and afterward he was promoted from Brigadier General to Major General. Olum also commanded UPDF forces in the Karamoja region battling cattle rustlers.
Aged 52, Maj Gen Olum hails from the Zombo district which is located in the West Nile sub-region.
The ADF he is going to face off with allegedly orchestrated the planting and carrying of Improvised Explosive Devices between October and November 2021 killing five civilians and four suspected suicide bombers.
At least 40 people including 23 police officers attached to Kampala Central Police Station (CPS) were injured in the November 16 explosion.