A Ugandan general who justified the use of deadly fire against opposition protesters in the run-up to last year's elections that extended veteran President Yoweri Museveni's rule died on Thursday.

Museveni himself issued a statement to announce the death of his loyal ally Elly Tumwiine at the age of 68.

He hailed the general for firing the first shot in the bush war that led to Museveni seizing power in 1986 after decades of tyrannical rule under Idi Amin and Milton Obote.

Tumwiine, a flamboyant figure who held a variety of top military and security posts, died of lung cancer in Nairobi, Museveni said.

"He was the one who fired the first shot on the 6th of February 1981, at Kabamba at the beginning of the 1981-1986 war of resistance," he said, referring to a military barracks in a town about 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of the capital Kampala.

Tumwiine lost one eye in a firefight less than two weeks later after Museveni's rebel National Resistance Army commandos ambushed Tanzanian troops helping to prop up Obote's regime.

Tumwiine came under public scrutiny when he argued that security forces were justified in shooting civilians during violent clashes in November 2020 sparked by the arrest of then presidential candidate Bobi Wine.

Dozens of people were killed in the unrest that erupted in the run-up to the January 2021 election that gave Museveni a sixth term in office.

"If you threaten the lives of the security forces and the lives of the public, they have a right to shoot you," Tumwiine said after the bloodshed.

Tumwiine had also defended the use of secret detention centres by security forces where civilian suspects were detained for lengthy periods of time and sometimes tortured.

As well as commander of the armed forces, Tumwiine had also served as intelligence chief and security minister as well as an MP who represented the military in parliament.

The general was known for wearing colourful outfits he had designed himself and was also a professional artist who ran an art gallery and carried a camera wherever he went.

Some also dubbed him the "singing general" as he would occasionally accompany his public speeches with songs he had composed himself.

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