Afterwards, he returned to Egypt and was appointed governor of Girga, in which capacity he accompanied the wāli Muḥammad Saʿīd Pasha on his visit to Sudan in 1856–57.
[1] Before he was confirmed in office, Mūsā had Muḥammad Rāsikh Bey removed from his governorship and the province divided into two, based on Khartoum and Sennar.
He wintered at Dunkur in 1862–63 while he dispatched forces to raid Wehni and Welkait and to burn Mai Qubba on the Tekezé, where some Jaʿlīyīn refugees under the son of Makk Nimr were staying.
His methods of tax collection made him unpopular locally, and his successor as governor-general, Jaʿfar Pasha Ṣādiq, considered him corrupt and a drunkard.
The French explorer Guillaume Lejean lambasted him as a hangman and slaver, especially towards the Baqqāra, and the British consul in Khartoum, John Petherick, agreed that he was excessively cruel.