In July 1944 Kayihura was appointed Chief of Nyaruguru. He held this office until 1954, when he became Chief of Bugoyi. He was a close confidant of
Mwami (king) of Rwanda,
Mutara III Rudahigwa, and accompanied him on his trip to Belgium in 1949. Kayihura also served as vice president of the Conseil Superior du Pays of Ruanda. He became a vice president of the
Rwandese National Union (UNAR), an anticolonial political party, after its formation in 1959 and served as a leader of its progressive faction. In October, Governor
Jean-Paul Harroy of Ruanda-Urundi attempted to transfer Kayihura from his chiefdom to head off political disorder. Kayihura and two other chiefs who had been reassigned resisted the move and refused to leave their jurisdictions. He was opposed to
André Perraudin's prominent role in the Rwandan Catholic hierarchy. When the newly crowned
Mwami,
Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, called on his loyalists to strike at republicans and anti-royal nobles in late 1959, Kayihura was one of the chiefs who organized attacks. By December 1959, Kayihura had fled Rwanda and relocated to eastern
Belgian Congo, where he met with Kigeli V to discuss the formation of an royalist army in exile. The former chief later relocated to Kenya, where he eventually obtained a doctorate in veterinary science. The UNAR restorationists formed a government-in-exile shortly before Rwanda's independence, with
François Rukeba as Prime Minister. Upset by these developments, Kayihura returned to the Congo. Internal disagreements led to a reforming of the government-in-exile in May 1963 with Kayihura as Prime Minister. By late 1964 the government was under a new prime minister but, undermined by internal disagreement and disorganisation, had mostly ceased to exist. Kayihura founded
a rebel group, the Rwandese Liberation Front, and spent most of his time traveling between
Geneva and
Brussels to win foreign support for it. == Later life ==