FALSE AND MISLEADING: President Yoweri Museveni Did not Endorse Rwanda’s First Lady Jeanette Kagame To Succeed Her Husband
“How likely is it for a sitting president to publicly endorse a “successor” of another independent democracy?
The claim is not only far-fetched but also lacks a constitutional and diplomatic basis.”
A YouTube video by Arozy Exclusive Media claiming Uganda’s President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni wants Rwanda’s First Lady, Jeannette Kagame, to succeed her husband, President Paul Kagame, is false and misleading.
The video headlined in Luganda, a local dialect in central Uganda, reads: “Agakagwawo! kitalo erwanda maziga nabiwoobe museven ayagala mukazi wa kagame yaba amudira mubigere.” which is translated as: “Breaking News! It is sorrowful and sad in Rwanda, as Museveni wants Kagame’s wife to succeed him.”
The facts
President Paul Kagame is not dead.
What is rather true is that Kagame disappeared from public view for about two weeks. And according to media reports, the spokesperson of the government of Rwanda, Yolande Makolo, was quoted on this matter here, here, here and here, saying President Kagame was on a personal break and not dead. She asked the public to dismiss the claims.
“Speaking to Taarifa, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo urged the public not to fall for what she described as “recurring hater fake news. ” reads the second paragraph of the Radiotv 10 story, a news site in Rwanda.
Evidence
Before viewing the story, you will notice that the thumbnail of the video uses the phrase “RIP”, which is Rest In Peace, falsely implying that President Kagame is dead.
We also see soldiers carrying caskets for burial.
However, on Friday, July 4, 2025 (Rwanda’s Liberation Day), President Kagame was seen holding a press conference alive and healthy, saying that, just like anybody else, he too needed a break from work, as reported here, here, and here.
“Poor person here, health,” Kagame said in a reflective tone. “How do people account for their personal health ordinarily? Is there an exception in this world? He said, as reported by Chimpreports,
“First of all, there is nobody who lives forever,” he noted. “Even for anybody’s life, whether short or long, you have to manage all these issues as human beings. But when it comes to politics, maybe this is not taken into account,” he added in the story.
The AI element.
The image shows Kagame admitted and on assisted life support. Being a public figure, his health is private, and such pictures have not been shared publicly. But, being in such a critical state, why would he be wearing eyesight aids? What is the purpose?
The pictures also show a smooth face, yet most of his recent appearances show him with facial warts. This prompted us to conduct an AI-generated image search using Hive Moderation, where we uploaded the cropped images of Kagame, which concluded that the input to the image was likely to be 78% AI-generated or deepfake content.
Additionally, the respiratory tubes are not complete. They stop along his cheeks, which is not a characteristic of the real intensive care equipment.
The out-of-context element
In the thumbnail, we also see different men carrying two different caskets, with the bottom having a flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and a Google reverse image search of it led us to a BBC article about the state funeral of Etienne Tshisekedi, a politician, in 2019, and the top burial image with Rwanda’s flag is of Hon. Aloisea Inyumba in 2012, both attended by Kagame.
All those are not representative of Kagame’s health state or events of 2025.
As we continued with our quest to verify the matter, we also learnt that Kagame’s illness claim was fact-checked by Africa Check after a press release on his health went viral and was found to be fake.
Later on, his death claims were also fact-checked by Pesacheck and similarly found to be fake, which led us to find out if President Museveni actually named Jeannette Kagama as her husband’s successor.
Rwanda’s independence.
The narrator says that Kagame went AWOL and never made an appearance at Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It’s known that Rwanda does not celebrate its independence, although it’s marked as a public holiday. Rwanda’s independence is combined with the Liberation Day (Kwibohora), which is always on July 4th of every year. For this year’s commemorations, he appeared for a conversation with the media in Rwanda, as seen here, and at the reception of Liberation Day, as shown here.
The narrator also alleged that Kagame has been battling brain tumours which have in turn affected his hearing and that he needs hearing aids to be able to hear people; however, when we closely reviewed his conversation with journalists, he seemed to hear perfectly and had no hearing aids in his ear.
Arozy Exclusive Media claimed that Museveni wants Jeannette Kagame to succeed her husband. However, that is not true, as there are no records of such a statement being posted or published anywhere. Although Museveni and Kagame are known to have a diplomatic relationship, endorsing Kagame’s wife to succeed her husband is far-fetched and has no basis in Rwanda’s laws.
According to Rwanda’s constitution, Article 105 states, “In the event of the death, resignation or permanent medizinrezeptfrei24.de incapacity of the President of the Republic, the President is replaced in an acting capacity by the President of the Senate; in the absence of the President of the Senate, by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies; and in the absence of both, the duties of the President are assumed in an acting capacity by the Prime Minister.” not the First Lady, and an election must be held within 90 days.
Verdict
False and misleading: President Museveni did not endorse Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame to succeed her husband (Paul Kagame), as claimed. This narrative was fabricated to spark unnecessary panic, cross-border speculation, and misinformation. The video has a lot of false information. Dismiss the claim, as the channel also has a track record of sharing misinformation, as seen here.