Talks to end a two-year festering diplomatic fallout between Uganda and its southwestern neighbour Rwanda boiled down to Dr Philemon Mateke and whatever plethora of actions the Kigali administration determined he had engaged in.
Rwanda wanted Mateke's head in one way, and Mateke himself saw it in another - death. But relieving him from the Cabinet was the recourse, and President Museveni did concede that ground - at least is still looks so.
But not completely. He gave Kigali Mateke's head, but from the Mateke family, he picked another - his daughter Sarah Nyirabashitsi as a minister.
It takes something special for a grandmaster of politics like Museveni to be so endeared to a family, and while some might think it was one way to spite Kigali, the Mateke family's enduring influence in Kisoro appears to be the real attachment.
Even in a regime dotted with powerful families and political allies such as the Mbabazis, Alis, Kajuras or even Kutesas, it is Mateke who got that windfall from Museveni.
Henry Okello Oryem might have added a flower onto the lapels of the Okello Oryem family but theirs is different regimes. Sam Kutesa has come as close as becoming in-law of the First Family and has his other daughter Shartsi Musherure in the political corridors but not yet to where Mateke has walked.
The fallout with Kigali was particularly dour. For two years, the borders were closed, and citizens of either country were allegedly being picked up and taken into underground cells for one reason or another.
Throughout the impasse, Rwanda always claimed to have a hand in everything happening in Uganda related to Kigali. They revealed details of Museveni's meetings with some Rwandan dissidents and came down hard on Mateke.
Ambassador Olivier Nduhungirehe, then Rwanda's East African Affairs Minister, stopped short of jabbing a jagged sword through Mateke's portrait with a demand that sounded like: "Give us this man's head and we will open the borders."
He said Rwanda had determined that Mr. Mateke, then the State Minister for Regional Affairs, had been in contact with a militia called RUD-Urunana, a splinter group of the notorious Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) that had carried out a spate of attacks on Rwandan territory.
Mr. Nduhungirehe claimed Mateke was in contact with one Nshimiye, alias Governor, the head of special forces of RUD-Urunana.
Mateke denied any involvement in these affairs. Social media posts later emerged claiming that he had called for a bloodbath.
But Mateke, whose Kisoro district is ensconced at the southwestern borders with Rwanda and hosts the Cyanika border post, denied this too.
He said he did not even have a smartphone, and that his 'kabiriti' was just a handset for voice calls and SMS.
Ms Ruth Nyiraneza (right) was endorsed as the successor to her deceased sister Sarah Nyirabashatsi (inset)In the end, Mr. Museveni had to make a choice, and Mateke's head was handed over to Kigali in a Cabinet reshuffle. Yet the same reshuffle retained the Mateke name, this time in the figure of Sarah Nyirabashitsi, who was appointed as State Minister for Youth and Children Affairs.
"I have no regrets about the fact that I was dropped from the Cabinet because my daughter was appointed as a state minister," Mateke said.
Last week, the octogenarian statesman laid to rest Sarah Nyirabashitsi, who had been moved to State Minister for Gender, Labour, and Social Development at the time of her sudden death.
Nyirabashitsi Mateke, 50, succumbed to heart complications, and the hills of Kisoro were filled with echoes of another Mateke - Ruth Nyiraneza, her younger sister, whom a section of elders and opinion leaders are fronting in the hereditary political arena that Uganda has become.
Ms. Nyiraneza could become the next Kisoro District Woman MP in a by-election, and while a Cabinet reshuffle before May 2026 seems a distant prospect, just making it to Parliament would be a statement that the Matekes are truly etched in the undulating hills of Kisoro.
For decades, the Mateke family has been a powerhouse in Kisoro's politics, leaving an indelible mark on the district's development and governance.
Described as the father of Kisoro, Philemon Mateke, a renowned politician and businessman, laid the foundation for the family's political influence.
Born in 1933, Mateke worked as a lecturer in the Department of History at Makerere University from the late 1960s until the late 1970s.
During the Obote II regime, from 1980 until 1985, he served as the State Minister of Education. These were times when the Education Minister was as famous as they come.
Five years in the ministry that saw young learners recite your name meant a generation of Kisoro people grew up looking up to Mateke and his family.
A member of the Uganda People's Congress prior to 1986, he became a member of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) soon after the NRM captured power. He served in the National Resistance Council, which was the parliament of the time, from 1989 to 1996.
In the 1996 election, he was in charge of the Elect Museveni Task Force. He served as a member of the Parliamentary Commission and later as State Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations from 1998 to 2001.
In the 2001 election, he was elected unopposed as Kisoro District Chairman. In 2011, at the end of his five-year term, he retired, but Museveni still saw more use for the elderly Kisoro statesman, recalling him to Cabinet service on March 1, 2015.
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Eddy Kwezira, the Bukimbiri County MP, noted that when Kisoro was starting, Mateke was a primary player in terms of positive politics.
"Mateke is like a household name, which means that even his family has some who decided to follow him in the line of politics, especially on positive politics," Kwezira says.
The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Chris Baryomunsi, said when Mateke was the Minister of Education, many schools were constructed.
"Mateke is a strong leader who produced exceptional results. He served in the previous government and was welcomed by the people of Kigezi," he said.
The State Minister for Defense in charge of Veteran Affairs, Huda Oleru Abason, said they have been losing MPs but have never received a potential successor as realistic as in Kisoro, attributing it to the legacy of Mateke.
"Kisoro's decision to support Ruth Nyiraneza is a testament to Mateke's legacy and the family's impact," Minister Oleru says.
Professor Sabiiti Makara, a political science lecturer at Kabale University, describes Mateke as a man of both regional and national stature.
He said when Mateke coughs in Kigezi, everyone catches a cold, especially in the field of education.
Mateke is the NRM Chairman for Kisoro District and Chancellor of the Kisoro-based Metropolitan International University.
