When Okello was defeated by Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army, Tiyua joined an insurgency in northern Uganda, and eventually rose to deputy commander of the West Nile Bank Front rebel group.

[5] When Army commander Idi Amin ousted President Milton Obote in the 1971 coup d'état and installed himself as dictator, Tiyua remained in the military.

[5] When the Uganda–Tanzania War broke out in October 1978, Tiyua served as second-in-command to Yefusa Bananuka who officially headed the Gondo Battalion by this point.

Tiyua was sent with parts of the Gondo Battalion to the Tanzanian border to aid the Ugandan Invasion of Kagera, while Bananuka stayed behind in eastern Uganda.

[2] On 2 March 1979, Ugandan insurgents loyal to ex-President Obote launched a raid into Uganda from Kenya, attacking the town of Tororo.

Upon hearing of this, Tiyua rallied his troops and launched a counter-attack alongside other Ugandan military units, routing the insurgents and retaking Tororo on 4 March.

On 10 April, the Tanzanians and their rebel allies assaulted Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and Amin fled his home country.

[13] Believing that Museveni intended to kill West Nile natives, Tiyua decided to join the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA), a rebel alliance formed by ex-forces of various former Ugandan governments.

[14] Tiyua eventually became the deputy commander of the West Nile Bank Front (WNBF),[3][15] serving as its "chief administrator" under the overall leadership of Juma Oris.

[3] Tiyua later claimed that he regretted joining the anti-Museveni rebellion, retrospectively regarding it as "time and life lost" fighting a "futile war".

[2] After initially being detained in Kampala,[16] Tiyua was again incarcerated in the Maximum Security Prison of Luzira,[2] but expressed his hope that Museveni would pardon him.

[20] In subsequent years, Tiyua publicly urged the Ugandan government to pay WNBF veterans a regular pension to ensure that they would not resume their insurgency.

[2] His daughters include professional sprinter Leni Shida[21] and Animu Angupale, who served as Arua District Woman MP in the Seventh Parliament of Uganda.