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Martins Okoth Ochola was appointed police head in March 2018 replacing his boss Gen Kale Kayihura who had fallen out with the president and the then security minister Henry Tumukunde.
Kayihura was too powerful in police having been at the helm of the Naguru-based force for a tough 13 years. He took over from the current minister of Works and Transport Gen Edward Katumba Wamala.
Okoth Ochola at the time Kayihura was fired by Museveni was his deputy IGP and it was so easy for him to replace his boss having been in good books with the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and also the appointing authority president Museveni.
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His three year contract first expired in 2021 immediately after the 2021 general elections and was renewed, the second contract now expires this year in March and questions continue lingering if the president will give Ochola a third term or will retire him honorably and send him back home.
Since his appointment as the police boss, Ochola has been serving with soldiers as his deputies, he first served with Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeyi whom president Museveni fired in December 2020 replacing him with Maj Gen Paul Lokech whose stint was short-lived by a blood killed which took his life less than a year on 21st August 2021. Lokech was replaced by Maj Gen Geoffrey Katsigazi Tumusiime in January 2022.
It remains unlikely that the IGP would be handed a third term given his health troubles and as the country heads to the 2026 general elections where Museveni is intending to push his presidential grip to 45 years, it maybe another person to head police through that period amidst threats of protests from the opposition who say elections are just a scapegoat to rubber stamp Museveni’s rule but not enough to send him home.
IGP Ochola who is 65 years now is a police veteran who joined the forces in 1987 and has raised through the ranks from a Cadet Assistant Superintendent of police, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Superintendent of Police, Director CID, Assistant IGP and Deputy IGP.
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