Category: Daily Monitor

The enforcement of search and seizure orders on properties of Ms Anita Annet Among, which have culminated in, among others, the impounding of her Shs3.4 billion Rolls-Royce, has opened up a can of worms. The prominent role played by Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba in tightening the screws on the Speaker of the 11th Parliament has sparked debate

Gen Muhoozi, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), who is also the son of President Museveni and his advisor on Special Operations, has been front and centre of an operation that got underway on May 16. This has raised questions about whether the fight against corruption falls within the national army’s remit. ‘You go back to Article 209, which talks about the functions of the army. There is no role for the army in investigating these (corruption) matters whatsoever. Just look at the Constitution,’ Mr Dan Wandera Ogalo, who has served as a lawmaker in both the national and regional legislative branches, says.

Article 209 spells out the functions of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) as, firstly, to preserve and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda; secondly, to cooperate with the civilian authority in emergency situations and in cases of natural disasters; thirdly, to foster harmony and understanding between the defence forces and civilians; and, fourthly, to engage in productive activities for the development of Uganda.

Mr Godber Tumushabe, an associate director at Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS), says: ‘That joint security operation is also part of the corruption because there are institutions of State created under the Constitution. They have their mandates. The UPDF, CDF, you are supposed to be out there in Garamba, in DRC, in Somalia, where we have our forces deployed and fighting. What reason do you have to be there doing law enforcement work?’

Mr Ogalo thinks Gen Muhoozi is being populistic. ‘To me, if you see the army going into investigating Parliament, that is simply a power grab because we have institutions for that. You have the Inspectorate of Government. You have laws like the leadership code. You have the Auditor General who checks on Parliament.’

Evasive

Mr Marlon Agaba of the Anti-Corruption Coalition begs to differ. ‘Of course, for the CDF to intervene, if it does really help the fight against corruption, then I don’t have any issues with that. It is welcome. I think from the Executive, especially the President, there has been frustration with the statutory anti-corruption agencies that have been there.’ Mr Meddie Mulumba, a former MP for Luuka County, who is also the chairperson of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party in Luuka District, is more critical, accusing the anti-corruption agencies of lack of visibility in the fight against corruption.

‘There are so many institutions that were put in place to fight corruption. We have the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution), we have the IGG (Inspector General of Government), we have the Auditor General, we have financial intelligence, we have accounting officers, we have ISO (Internal Security Organisation), we have ESO (External Security Organisation). It is so terrifying to see what these institutions have been doing. We are asking ourselves, where are these institutions? Have they been compromised? Have they been sleeping?’ Mr Mulumba wonders.

In March 2024, Ms Beti Kamya, then the ombudsman, announced that her office had opened up an unprecedented investigation into allegations of widespread corruption and unethical conduct at Parliament. Ms Kamya’s revelation came at a time when Agora Center for Research had just carried out an online campaign that was known as #Ugandaparliamentexhibition on X, formerly Twitter. The campaign illuminated illegal recruitment of staff at the House, withdrawals of large sums of cash from Parliament’s corporate social responsibility kitty, and other cases of abuse of public funds. ‘The issues have obviously generated significant media and public interest. No one can ignore them,’ Ms Kamya said.

However, within less than a month of making those comments, she had backtracked, hiding behind the cover of the need to avoid duplication of work. ‘I am also told that the Auditor General is also investigating Parliament. Normally, in our working methods, we do not crowd. Once somebody (another investigative arm) has been there before you then you wait for their report… if somebody is handling an investigation you don’t crowd it. You do not duplicate work and resources,’ Ms Kamya told our sister television station, NTV Uganda.

Back then, Ms Munira Ali, the spokesperson of the Inspectorate, claimed that the ombudsman had not backtracked. ‘We work together under a forum known as an inter agency forum. We communicate. Where one of the agencies is already investigating, another does not open up an investigation because it is bound to delay the other agency’s work. Besides, there have also been complaints that multiple agencies are investigating one institution at the same time, yet we oftentimes require the same sets of documents and information,’ she said.

Shielding

One of the things that has been coming up is the Inspectorate’s handling of petitions related to requests for the disclosure of public information regarding declarations of assets and liabilities of public leaders. Whereas the Constitution and the Access to Information Act 2005 guarantees the right of citizens to access information in possession of the State and its organs, and whereas Section 7 of the leadership Code Act, 2002, provides that, ‘the content of a declaration under this code shall be treated as public information and accessible to the public…’, the IGG has previously ignored requests that would have enabled the public to access this information.

On July 1, 2024, for example, Agora’s top brass wrote to the ombudsman requesting access to declarations of incomes, assets and liabilities that had been filed by 13 leaders. These included Ms Among; and her Deputy, Mr Thomas Tayebwa; and the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Joel Ssenyonyi.

Others were former Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu; Kachumbala County MP Opolot Patrick Isiagi; Lwengo District MP Cissy Donizia Namujju; former Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda; Bukooli Central MP Solomon Silwanyi; Ms Among’s husband, Mr Moses Magogo; Director of Ethics and Integrity Alex B Okello; the ombudsman then, Ms Kamya; Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president Patrick Amuriat Oboi; and Masaka Resident City Commissioner Hudu Hussein.

‘The IGG did not provide us with the said information. They wrote back claiming that it was for our own safety,’ Mr Godwin Toko, the deputy team lead at Agora, told Weekend Monitor. Ms Munira Ali had, by press time, not responded to questions why Agora’s request for information has gone unanswered.

Performance issues

Those who think the anti-corruption agencies have been sleeping on the job point to the annual outputs. ‘If you’re an institution like the [Inspectorate] and you’re getting maybe Shs90b a year, what do you have to show for that? In the Financial Year 2024-2025, the IGG only had three convictions. How do you explain that?’ Mr Agaba wonders. He thinks most of the money that should have been expended on the fight against corruption is instead used to pay salaries and allowances and buy cars. Previously, there have been questions regarding Mr Museveni’s commitment to fighting corruption.

Critics argue that whereas the ‘elimination of corruption and misuse of power’ was number seven on the 10-point programme, a governance blueprint put together during the guerrilla war in Luweero, the government has spectacularly failed on that front. In fact, the NRM has, they add, lowered the bar from ‘elimination’ to simply ‘fighting’ corruption. While giving his inaugural speech on May 14, soon after he was sworn into office, Mr Museveni declared that his seventh elective term is one of ‘no sleep, no corruption’. His critics, however, say the fight will be met with the same abysmal success as has been met in each of the previous six terms. What is it that has failed the NRM’s fight against corruption?

While Mr Mulumba insists that it is the institutions that have let Mr Museveni down, Mr Ogalo disagrees. The latter thinks it is the President who has, by his own statements and actions, been letting himself down. ‘Ask yourself why those agencies are not doing much. Do you remember what Justice [Irene] Mulyangoja [former ombudsman] told us about where the thieves hide? Do you remember what happened when Beti Kamya tried to bring a lifestyle audit? What did Mr Museveni publicly tell her? ‘Go slow!’ So, you constrain these institutions, which are supposed to carry out investigations. Then we turn around and blame them, yet we praise those who have constrained them,’ Mr Ogalo says.

On December 9, 2021, during the launch of the lifestyle audit campaign at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala, Mr Museveni told Ms Kamya, then the ombudsman, to go slow on her plans to conduct lifestyle audits on public servants as part of a plan to fight corruption. The President rationalised that it would force thieving public officials to hide their loot abroad.

‘The lifestyle audit is good, but be careful because we are still lucky that our corrupt people are corrupt here. But if they realise that their lifestyle is being audited, they will instead take what they stole abroad, and it will be hard to track them,’ Mr Museveni, who was the chief guest on that year’s commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day, said.

It is because of such comments that the feeling that Mr Museveni is not committed to fighting corruption pervades. Those who have been left frustrated by the apparent evasiveness of the government have been quick to laud Gen Muhoozi’s apparent intervention. That is fuelling the debate around whether he should continue involving himself in what is meant to be a function of the police. Whether he continues doing so and what it means for the anti-corruption agencies and their future should perhaps be of more concern to the citizenry.

Former councillors in Namutumba District have petitioned the Minister for Local Government, seeking intervention to compel authorities to pay outstanding salaries, allowances and emoluments owed between May and June 2021.

The petition follows a mediation meeting held last Thursday between former councillors and district technical staff led by Chief Administrative Officer Mr Emmanuel Ofwono, which ended in chaos after the district auditor informed them they had been overpaid.

“The district overpaid you and, in the process, some of you defrauded the district. It is the district demanding money from you, not the other way round. Each councillor is required to refund Shs350,000,” the auditor said.

In their June 4 petition, copied to the Regional Inspectorate of Government office in Jinja and other agencies, the former councillors demand an explanation regarding the alleged mismanagement of Shs300 million reportedly released in April to clear their outstanding salaries and allowances.

The councillors contend that although each member was entitled to Shs250,000 per month, they received only Shs175,000 after Pay As You Earn deductions, and want district authorities to account for the shortfall.

‘The purpose of this letter is to request your intervention and enforcement of the advice issued by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, who directed the Chief Administrative Officer to pay the former councillors their outstanding salaries. However, the CAO has declined to implement the directive, saying he will make his own decision on the matter,’ the petition reads in part.

Ms Winnifred Nabirye, the councillor representing workers and a former youth representative in the fourth council, said the decision to seek intervention was taken as a last resort after efforts to resolve the matter at district level failed. ‘Our repeated efforts to secure payment of our arrears and obtain explanations for the shortfalls have fallen on deaf ears,’ she said.

In April this year, councillors in the fourth council declined to pass the 2026/27 district budget, citing failure by the social services committee to pay their salaries and allowances. After the swearing-in of new councillors on May 14, the fifth council convened on May 21 and passed the 2026/27 financial year budget that had been expected to be handled by the outgoing fourth council.

Councillors said several promises had been made in the past, including a recent assurance by Mr Geoffrey Mugoya, the district vice chairperson in the fifth council and former speaker of the fourth council. Ms Mary Mukyala said before Mr Mugoya was sworn in as district vice chairperson, he had informed them that each councillor who served in the fourth council was entitled to Shs1,050,000 in arrears, covering salaries, allowances and emoluments.

‘He was our speaker in the fourth council. While we were preparing the district handover report to the incoming council, he told us our money would be paid before the fifth council resumed business. However, to date we have not been paid,’ she said.

According to Mukyala , the councillors also reached out to the District Speaker of the fifth council, Simon Peter Wakudumira, who previously served as chairperson of the Finance Committee, for assistance, but he denied the allegations, insisting that all councillors from the fourth council had been fully paid their salaries.

‘He, who was our chairperson of the Finance Committee in the fourth council, told us not to pass the budget because we were demanding our salaries. But now that he is the Speaker in the fifth council, he is backing the technical staff who are withholding our money,’ she said.

When contacted, the District Communications Officer, Mr Noah Kiire, declined to comment on the matter and referred the Monitor to the District Speaker.

‘I am not in a position to comment on the matter. You can talk to the District Speaker, Mr Simon Peter Wakudumira,’ he said.

The District Speaker, Simon Peter Wakudumira, had also declined to comment on the matter.

A 38-year old man identified as Charles Faustine Okonye died on Saturday from injuries sustained during a fight at his in-law’s place over a woman, identified as Rose Apio.

Police say the deceased, a resident of Kadoki Village, Akadot Parish in Pallisa District, had visited his in-laws to settle their marriage affairs and had to spend the night with the woman in a gazetted room.

However, on the fateful night, another man, believed to be the woman’s lover, stormed their house at night, leading to a confrontation which ensued into a bitter fight that left Okonye with several injuries.

Okonye died at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, where he was rushed for treatment. The woman had reportedly returned to her parents following a domestic disagreement with the deceased.

Bukedi North Regional Police Spokesperson ASP Wilfred Kyempasa said on Sunday that preliminary investigations indicate that while the couple was asleep, the man stormed their house.

“The two men reportedly fought both inside and outside the house, sustaining injuries during the confrontation.” ASP Kyempasa said.

Adding that: ”Family members and neighbours who responded found Okonye critically injured and rushed him to Pallisa General Hospital before he was referred to Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, where he died on Sunday afternoon. ”

He explained that the case was first registered as attempted murder but has since been upgraded to murder following the victim’s death.

He confirmed that police have arrested two suspects to assist with ongoing investigations.

The body of the deceased has been taken to Mbale City Mortuary for a postmortem examination as investigations are ongoing.

The triple heritage is a sociological and cultural theory coined by the renowned scholar Dr Ali A. Mazrui. It posits that modern African identity and society are the result of the complex interplay and synthesis of three distinct cultural, political, and historical forces. Namely, the indigenous African heritage, Islamic heritage and Western heritage. In Uganda, this triad heritage does apply in dribs and drabs. It is the product of political socialisation or the lifelong process by which individuals acquire their political beliefs, values, and ideologies. This process is evidenced by the fortunes and faculties of three distinct generations.

At independence, my father’s generation was known as the silent generation (sometimes referred to as traditionalists), which is generally defined as the demographic cohort born between 1928 and 1945. All our former presidents belong to this generation, too. This demographic was democratic insofar as democracy guaranteed their freedom and its related liberties. They were idealists, trained by the colonialists to uphold governance standards and reflect the cultural values the colonial system of divide and rule bequeathed them.

Their silence was broken, as it were, in 1966. When Uganda’s military forces, acting on the orders of Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote and commanded by Idi Amin, attacked the Lubiri (Kabaka’s Palace) in Mengo, Kampala, on May 24, 1966. After that, they were conflicted by their allegiance to a unified Uganda and the place it in for Buganda Kingdom. They were cured of this somewhat schizophrenic state when Mr Obote effectively turned Uganda into a one-party State between 1966 and 1969. Following a violent 1966 constitutional crisis, Obote’s Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) officially outlawed all Opposition political parties in 1969, consolidating his absolute rule. The daggers were drawn.

In these heady times, Gen Amin overthrew President Obote in a military coup on January 25, 1971. The coup took place while Obote was out of the country attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Singapore. Subsequently, guerilla warfare was introduced to our political culture by forces ranged against Amin. They felt he had gone back on undertakings given to a democratic promise at Independence. A twenty-year war erupted, and the children of these resisters were force-fed on the Dark Times which came to the light in 1986.

We were told by our parents that if we did not follow our parents’ advice, Uganda would be placed on a greasy pole. Which is exactly what certain elements from the North of Uganda felt when Mr. Museveni took power in 1986. The north and east took up arms, believing the country had gone south; literally and metaphorically. Consequently, my generation was not taught to exercise its rights; it was taught to guard them. Thus, our thinking paralleled our parents’ thinking until the former devolved into a survivalist ethic. This ethic foreshadowed the unbridled greed we see today.

After we survived Obote’s return, something that was used as a spook story to keep us in line, we tried to survive period. We are Generation X or the Star Wars Generation. Our idealism in coma, owing to our belief that opposition to the status quo doesn’t win unless the government loses. Our children were now caught in the headlights of an uncertain future as they adopted the Silent and Generation X’s principles, along with the third heritage of social media. This Triple Heritage ensured they had more heat than light to their political thinking, due to the friction between the three heritages.

Out of this, a dialectic between the heritages could take on the essential feature of a democracy designed to protect minority rights and ensure stable laws.

On January 26, 1971, the day after Idi Amin seized power, the new president held his first press conference. He assured the world that the coup had been bloodless, with a single wounded soldier as its only casualty. Even as Amin spoke, people were already being killed. Within days, the violence claimed its first high-profile victim: Brig Suleiman Hussein, the Chief of Staff, the most senior professional obstacle to Amin’s control of the army. Reports indicate he was beaten to death by soldiers in front of prison warders. His head was severed and, according to multiple historical sources, delivered to Amin, who reportedly kept it in a refrigerator.

This grotesque detail was not merely an act of brutality. It was a declaration. The regime was announcing, in the most visceral terms possible, that it operated beyond all bounds of law, decency, or human dignity. It was telling the army – and through the army, the nation – exactly what it was. History books count those who were killed or disappeared during Idi Amin’s rule in tens of thousands, some estimates reach 300,000. But numbers cannot capture the particular cruelty of enforced disappearance: the way it weaponises hope, the way it turns grief into a permanent condition, the way it denies families the most basic human right – to know what happened to their loved ones.

This is a story about those who were left behind. Dr Alicia Decker, in her foundational study of gender and militarism in Amin’s Uganda, gave their suffering its name: ‘the torture of the living.’ This series is an attempt to tell it. He wrote: ‘The archive of Amin’s violence was written in water and blood, not ink. The exact number of Ugandans who vanished into the long night of the 1970s will remain one of history’s most tragic unknowns.’

From military purge to civilian terror

The first wave of violence targeted the armed forces – in particular, the Acholi and Langi ethnic groups, whom Amin viewed as inherently disloyal. Within weeks, senior officers in the army, air force, and police were dead. On March 5, 1971, thirty-two officers were massacred at Makindye Military Barracks. Three days later, survivors were killed when explosives were detonated at Malire Barracks. Joshua Wakholi, a former Minister of Public Service detained at Makindye, later testified that he had personally witnessed the murder of 37 army officers in an adjoining cell.

At Mbarara Barracks, Langi and Acholi soldiers were separated from the rest and hacked to death or shot – estimates range from 167 to 258 killed. At Jinja Barracks, fighting from 10 to 14 July 1971 claimed approximately 600 lives, mostly Acholi. Children in neighbouring villages were also killed. These were not battles. They were massacres.

September 1972

While the violence of 1971 remained largely within the military establishment, the failed September 17, 1972 invasion of Uganda by rebels (aligned with Milton Obote and Yoweri Museveni), triggered total paranoia. It turned the State’s wrath outward, unleashing a tidal wave of terror upon the civilian world. What began as a tactical move to secure a coup evolved into a self-sustaining culture of fear.

Amin interpreted the attack not merely as an external military threat but as proof of a nationwide internal conspiracy. Security agencies – especially the State Research Bureau (SRB) and military intelligence – were given unlimited latitude to arrest, detain, and eliminate suspects with no oversight whatsoever. The scale, speed, and geographic reach of disappearances increased markedly after September 1972. A regime that had been killing selectively began killing indiscriminately. What began as a coup became a culture of extermination.

The machinery of disappearance

After September 1972, disappearance became systematised. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in its landmark 1974 report, documented the total absence of arrest warrants, with agents – usually from the State Research Bureau – acting with, in the ICJ’s words, ‘total immunity.’ Some victims were abducted openly by uniformed personnel, while others were seized by plainclothes agents in unmarked vehicles – from homes, workplaces, roadblocks, and police stations – reflecting the overlapping and often indistinguishable roles of the army, police, and Amin’s intelligence units.

No paperwork. No charge stated. No destination given.

Families were rarely told anything. Asking questions often led to further arrests. Sir Peter Allen, a High Court judge during the era, later recalled: ‘In the majority of cases it has been the wives, the sisters, the mothers who have tramped from the military police barracks at Makindye, to the Public Safety Unit at Naguru, to the Malire Regiment at the Lubiri, to the Air Force Detention Centre at Entebbe, searching for their men.’ Most searches ended in silence.

The sites of horror

Certain locations became synonymous with death. Their names are still spoken with dread by those who remember. Nakasero – nicknamed ‘The Butchery,’ located near the President’s Lodge. Its subterranean cells held thousands. Survivors described it as a one-way trip; bodies were removed at night in trucks. Makindye Military Barracks – and the adjoining Malire Barracks, home to Amin’s so-called elite regiment.

The Lubiri site became a major detention and torture centre. Survivor testimony documented by the ICJ describes systematic beatings, electrocution, mutilation, starvation, and psychological torture in which prisoners were forced to watch – or participate in – the execution of fellow detainees. Nile Mansions – and the notorious ‘Pink Building’ beside it – served as another hub of the regime’s terror apparatus. Few who were taken there returned.

Where the bodies went

Because the rate of killing exceeded the regime’s capacity to conceal the dead, bodies were disposed of with shocking casualness. The Nile River at Jinja became a dumping ground. Bodies were thrown into the water above the dam. On several occasions, human remains reportedly clogged the intake pipes of the hydroelectric plant, causing power outages across Kampala. Namanve Forest, on the outskirts of the city, was so notorious that for years after Amin’s fall locals avoided it entirely – because of the smell, and because human remains continued to surface. The SRB drove truckloads of prisoners into its eucalyptus groves for execution.

Kabaka’s Lake, on the Mengo Palace grounds, yielded confirmation after Amin’s fall in 1979: when it was dredged, significant quantities of human remains were found in the silt – consistent with survivor accounts of SRB trucks arriving under cover of darkness. The Rwizi River in Mbarara served as the primary disposal site for victims in western Uganda. Karuma Falls were used for bodies from the north: soldiers would bayonet or shoot prisoners and throw them into the churning water to ensure they were swept away.

Public executions

In February 1973, the regime staged its most elaborate spectacle of state terror. On February 10, twelve men were executed by firing squad in their home districts – Mbarara, Kabale, Gulu, Mbale, Fort Portal, and Kampala – simultaneously. Prior to the killings, Radio Uganda broadcast an official announcement: the public were to attend. Businesses were closed. Transport was organised to ensure maximum witnesses. The families of the condemned were commanded to stand in the front rows. The shootings were filmed and later broadcast on Uganda Television (UTV).

In Kabale, nearly 3,000 people stood in what Bishop Festo Kivengere – who had prayed with the men before they were shot – described as ‘a deathly, silent terror.’ The crowd was forbidden from crying. The shootings were filmed and broadcast on Uganda Television. A military spokesman declared the footage a ‘real lesson’ for the people of Uganda. One of the 12 was James Karambuzi, shot at Kabale Municipal Stadium. His wife and ten children were commanded to attend. In a rare and haunting act of defiance, Karambuzi and his colleagues reportedly smiled and waved to the crowd with their handcuffed hands before the shots were fired.

The bodies were not returned to families. They were removed in prison trucks to unknown locations. ‘Perhaps the most tragic case was Sebastino Namirundu, a 20-year-old from Mbale who tried to run when soldiers arrived. His panic was interpreted as guilt. He was executed half-naked in front of thousands, looking, witnesses said, incredibly young and bewildered.’ In a chilling repeat of the 1973 public executions, twelve men were executed at Kampala’s Clock Tower, by firing squad on September 9, 1977, in front of a massive, silent crowd that had been ordered to witness the final moments of those accused in the Operation Mafuta Mingi coup plot.

Government’s response

By late 1972, foreign governments and international organisations were raising alarms. The Amin government’s response was denial, deflection, and performative legality. On 9 January 1973, the government issued a statement attempting to account for the disappearance of 85 prominent people. The ICJ later found it wholly unsatisfactory, noting it failed to address eyewitness accounts of military involvement in nearly every case.

In 1974, under continued international pressure, the government established a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. Its findings were tightly constrained by political reality – it acknowledged abuses in general terms but refused to confront the central question of state responsibility. The ICJ’s independent study, published in Geneva on 4 June 1974, was more direct. It documented the systematic destruction of the rule of law: habeas corpus suspended in practice, military interference in judicial processes, the routine disappearance of persons last seen in state custody. The ICJ instituted its study, it explained, because domestic legal remedies had effectively ceased to function. Courts were intimidated. Lawyers and judges themselves became targets.

The numbers we will never know

The 1974 ICJ report estimated between 25,000 and 50,000 deaths in the first few years alone. The 1977 Amnesty International report placed the total at 300,000. The 1994 Justice Arthur Oder Commission gathered testimony for years but acknowledged that the scale of unrecorded village-level killings made any final tally impossible. The true measure of Uganda’s tragedy is not found in these competing figures. It is found in the silence of thousands of unmarked graves, in names never recorded, in families never told.

Because the regime specialised in the total erasure of its victims – destroying records, silencing witnesses, disposing of bodies in rivers and forests – the exact number of Ugandans who vanished into the long night of the 1970s will remain one of history’s most tragic unknowns. In Part Two tomorrow, read about what the machinery of disappearance did to the families it left behind – the women trapped between wife and widow, the children raised in the shadow of fathers who lived in a place called exile, and a grief that has never been allowed to end.

Police have recovered the decomposing body of a 52-year-old woman who was kidnapped from her home in Kigowa, Ntinda, a Kampala suburb, last Thursday.

The deceased, identified as Lydia Babirye, was discovered on Sunday in Wakiso District after her abductors successfully extracted a ransom from her family but killed her anyway. Following her disappearance, the kidnappers used Babirye’s phone to demand a Shs19 million ransom, prompting the family to file a missing person’s report at Old Kampala Police Station.

Kampala Metropolitan Deputy Police Spokesperson, Luke Owoyesigyire, confirmed that a joint security team tracked down and arrested two key suspects.

“One of the suspects, upon interrogation, led police to the house of his accomplice in Kiteredde Village, Kakiri Town Council, Wakiso District,” ASP Owoyesigyire said. “The body was found in a decomposing state inside the suspect’s house, wrapped in a mattress cover and tied with ropes.”

In a chilling twist, investigators also discovered a freshly dug grave within the compound, which suspects allegedly intended to use to conceal the body. The scene was processed by forensic experts, and the body was transferred to the KCCA City Mortuary for a postmortem examination.

“The motive behind the killing has not yet been established, and further inquiries are ongoing,” ASP Owoyesigyire added, noting that the suspects remain in custody.

Babirye’s brutal murder highlights a disturbing resurgence of violent kidnappings for ransom targeting Kampala residents. Over the last few years, metropolitan Kampala has witnessed a fragile security situation marked by criminal gangs targeting women and business owners.

This tragic incident mirrors the infamous 2018 Susan Magara case and several recent high-profile abductions where victims were killed despite their families paying the demanded ransoms. Security experts have previously warned that these syndicates often eliminate victims to destroy evidence and avoid identification, even after receiving financial payouts.

Public anxiety has been mounting over the efficiency of the country’s CCTV surveillance network and phone-tracking systems. While police successfully used mobile intelligence to track Babirye’s phone to Wakiso, the breakthrough came too late to save her life.

With investigations ongoing, joint security agencies have urged the public to remain vigilant and report any suspicious movements within their residential areas immediately.

Even before the 12th Parliament gets down to the real business, there are real question marks over the political future of Ms Shamim Malende, the Kampala District Woman Representative (DWR). The uneasiness in the relationship between Ms Malende and the leaders of her party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), was on display when she made a rare appearance at the party’s headquarters during the unveiling of Jinja South East legislator, Mr Paul Mwiru, as their candidate in the speakership race. When Ms Flavia Nabagabe Kalule, emcee of the function, was introducing Ms Malende, she said they hoped that the Kampala DWR would remain a permanent fixture in NUP activities.

‘We hope she will remain with us in the coming days,’ Ms Kalule, who lost the Kassanda DWR seat in January, said. Ever since Ms Malende was retained as the Kampala DWR, she has neither appeared at any NUP activity nor issued any statement explaining her absence. Ms Malende, it is said, jetted out of the country as soon as she secured a second term in Parliament to get specialised treatment. Still, she kept silent until the week of her swearing-in function.

Sources within NUP said as much as Ms Malende has claimed that she has been sick, her disappearance has angered foot soldiers. ‘We are not convinced that she is just sick,’ a foot soldier said on condition of anonymity.

Feebleness

The relationship between Ms Malende and the party had sunk so low that those within NUP had expected that she would be one of the lawmakers who would defy the party’s position and attend President Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala last month. ‘We had got information that she would join those celebrations, but she eventually didn’t attend. We don’t plan with her for the future,’ a NUP member said on condition of anonymity, adding that the party is not short of worthy replacements for Ms Malende, including Ms Shamim Nambassa, the former Makerere University guild president, who has just been elected to represent Kawempe South as the Woman LC5 Councillor at Kampala Capital City Council Authority (KCCA)

By the end of last term, sources said NUP leaders were ready to move on from Ms Malende.

This was shown when NUP leadership asked Ms Zahara Maala Luyirika to first set aside her ambitions to represent Makindye West and take an interest in the Kampala DWR slot. ‘We are in a democratic country, and NUP is a democratic party. I’m not standing against my sister Shamim Malende. I saw a vacuum, and I’m stepping up to fill it,’ Ms Luyirika said at the time. She added: ‘I recognised my strength and believe I have served well as KCCA speaker alongside my fellow councillors. Now, I want to take the next step and serve the people of Kampala. I am a loyal person who respects my party’s procedures.’

Once Ms Luyirika showed interest in replacing her, Ms Malende, who was seeking specialised treatment in Nairobi, Kenya, had her posters put up in every corner of Kampala with the NUP election slogan: protest vote. This was a message of defiance in the context that she realised that NUP’s honchos had been reconsidering the party’s position on who should be its flag-bearer in the Kampala DWR race. Ms Malende, who, like several NUP legislators, was a debutant in the 11th Parliament, spent most of her tenure bedridden either in Kampala or Nairobi.

Despite her inconsistent health situation, Ms Malende insisted on standing in the 2026 polls, forcing her to send political messages from her hospital bed as a way of keeping in touch with the electorate. For instance, when the government moved to make amendments to the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Act that would reintroduce the trial of civilians in military courts, in complete defiance of a Supreme Court judgment, a visibly frail Ms Malende sent a political message from her hospital bed.

‘I concur with the Supreme Court that civilians shouldn’t be tried in the Court Martial. If the State suspects that civilians have done something wrong, they should be taken to a civilian court. We know that many people, including the president, [Robert] Kyagulanyi, have been threatened with being taken to the basement to learn Runyankore,’ Ms Malende said. With Ms Malende insisting that she was strong enough to go through another gruelling campaign, NUP leadership was resigned to having her on the ballot. ‘It would look insensitive if you dumped her right now. How can a party dump a party member just because she is sick?’ one of the NUP honchos told this publication late 2025, on condition of anonymity.

The catch-22 for NUP was that Ms Malende framed her hospitalisation through the lens of violence inflicted on her by the State as she engaged in the political struggle. ‘I was beaten during the standoff in Parliament as we rejected the Coffee Bill. I have had operations here in Nairobi, and I think I will recover,’ Ms Malende said. Ms Malende jumped out of her hospital bed last year to join Ms Luyirika in picking forms from NUP’s headquarters, asking to represent Kampala women. This left the party in a fix. If the flag was to be handed to Ms Malende, as it eventually was, a solution around the Makindye West constituency had to be found.

Mr Ali Nganda Kasirye, alias Mulyannyama, and Mr Allan Ssewanyana, the then incumbent, looked set to lock horns. To solve this impasse, NUP leaders gave Mr Mulyannyama the Makindye East slot, though he had not applied for it. As a result, Ms Luyirika was given Makindye West, though she hadn’t formally applied for it, and then Ms Malende retained the Kampala DWR slot. Lady luck smiled on NUP in the sense that, despite this clearly dangerous political game of changing candidates from one constituency to another, as if they were playing chess, Mr Mulyanyama, Ms Luyirika, and Ms Malende all emerged victorious in the January 15 elections.

History repeats self

Ms Malende isn’t the first Kampala woman legislator to come under pressure after falling out with her party. Her predecessor, Ms Nabilah Naggayi Sempala, who got three terms, was also accused of not effectively representing the women in Kampala. Politically, Ms Naggayi’s downfall came after her fallout with the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party top brass that accused her of being a mole. By 2015, it was apparent that Ms Naggayi had fallen out with FDC leaders, that she placed adverts on radio stations calling people of Kampala to turn up in big numbers as former Prime Minister John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, who had fallen out with his boss President Museveni, was being nominated to run for President in 2016.

Yet days later, when then FDC’s presidential flagbearer Dr Kizza Besigye was being nominated at Namboole stadium, Ms Naggayi showed up at the Electoral Commission offices and sat next to Dr Besigye. The seat had been reserved for Dr Besigye’s wife, Ms Winnie Byanyima, who wasn’t in the country. Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, then Kira Municipality lawmaker, would later disclose that he wanted to dislodge Ms Naggayi from the seat, but he was stopped by Dr Besigye. Internally, though Ms Naggayi had been nominated as an FDC candidate, the party had resolved to support Ms Shifrah Lukwago, then a close ally of the then Lord Mayor of Kampala,Mr Erias Lukwago, but she has since retired from elective politics after Mr Museveni appointed her a commissioner at the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC).

During the final stretch of the campaigns, Dr Besigye, a crowd puller, stormed Kampala, and this is when Ms Naggayi muscled her way to get a vantage seat from which she was able to often stand alongside Dr Besigye on his car’s rooftop and wave to the crowd. With Kampala voters voting mainly for candidates that had the key-FDC’s symbol-Ms Naggayi retained her seat after garnering 174,125 votes. The Democratic Party’s Florence Nakiwala Kiyingyi-who had the backing of the Mengo establishment-came second with 101,763 votes. Elsewhere, NRM’s Asia Kinaabi Nabisere came third, and Ms Lukwago placed fourth with 84,574 votes.

Having won the race, Ms Naggayi would go on to disappear when FDC launched what it termed the defiance campaign against Mr Museveni’s government after another contested poll. Ms Naggayi would also disappear when the Opposition tussled with NRM party over eliminating presidential age limits from the Constitution, something that ensured Mr Museveni would effectively rule Uganda for eternity. ‘Why didn’t you die?’ Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi, FDC’s secretary general, [in]famously pushed back against Ms Naggayi’s claim that she missed the age limit showdown because she was sick during a talkshow on NTV Uganda, this publication’s sister TV station.

With that, FDC tapped Mr Museveni’s virulent government critic on social media and researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi, but she wasn’t able to overcome the umbrella wave as Ms Malende stormed to victory with 314,865 votes in 2021. If Ms Malende then represented a new crop of Opposition leaders, the start of her new term in Parliament kind of represents an end since she hasn’t been appointed to the Shadow cabinet and/or to lead or deputise any leader of the parliamentary committees. In January 2023, Ms Malende was appointed Shadow minister for human rights.

‘We assign responsibilities to people who are available and are committed to the struggle; not those who are just interested in parliamentary positions,’ one of NUP’s leaders explained why Ms Malende wasn’t assigned any responsibility in the shadow cabinet. Her future looks bleak. But Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, NUP’s secretary general, on Thursday gave this publication a general comment, saying: ‘ We are looking at all our members to see how they will perform in this term. The party is interested in strong performers.’

Over the past decades, countries around the world adopted laws that permit someone to hold more than one citizenship.

The definitive legal evidence for one’s claim to citizenship is a national passport or, internally, a national identity card. When a Ugandan living and working in, say, Germany maintains his/her Ugandan citizenship, or a German who marries a Ugandan takes on the latter’s citizenship, that person becomes a dual citizen.

Poor countries in the so-called global south came around to appreciate the rewards from allowing individuals who are citizens of, say, Britain, but had to renounce their original citizenship of, say, Ghana, to hold passports of both countries.

In the past, if a Ugandan moved to Canada and became a citizen of that country, he/she had to give up their Ugandan citizenship.

Uganda’s immigration law prohibited keeping a Ugandan passport when taking up citizenship of another country.

In effect, this Ugandan, now Canadian, would return to Uganda as a foreigner.

They had to apply for a visa, pay for it and enter the country under the same status and legal conditions as any other foreign national.

This is not just inconveniencing, it is utterly humiliating – entering your ancestral homeland as a foreigner when socially, economically, politically and everything else, you are as Ugandan as any other citizen!

Substantively, there are invaluable benefits that accrue to a poor country when its nationals abroad can retain their legal status as citizens.

It is easier to do business, buy property, undertake investment ventures, proudly and proactively mobilise resources from abroad when you do not have to deal with the displeasures of being a foreigner to the very country of your ancestors.

As a universal policy and practice, national laws tend to be discriminatory against non-nationals in a variety of ways.

Ironically though, by dint of our colonial mentality, it is common for Ugandan authorities, the average Ugandan too, to grant preferential treatment to a foreigner, especially a White!

Being a national confers certain exclusive privileges and rights, including participating in national politics and engaging in commerce without restrictions that otherwise apply to a non-national.

All things considered, there is every good reason for a government, particularly of a poor country struggling to break out of the shackles of poverty, to let their nationals simultaneously hold two or more citizenships.

But governments or specifically states, as enduring entities with certain institutional interests, have political considerations and calculations that inevitably lead them to impose some limitations on dual citizenship. This can be couched in terms of national security.

All countries, whether developed or underdeveloped, global north or south, democratic or otherwise, practice some form of citizenship discrimination, how one became a citizen or if they hold citizenship of another country.

In the case of Uganda, the subject of so much brouhaha following President Museveni’s Cabinet announcement last week is whether a Ugandan holding citizenship of another country qualifies to be a member of Cabinet.

I know nothing about Uganda’s laws, but from media commentaries, dual citizenship is a disqualification for appointment as a government minister regardless of one’s ethnicity, race, qualifications and competencies.

The core controversy turned on one Dr Lawrance Muganga (PhD), currently Vice Chancellor of Victoria University in Kampala, who is no stranger to controversy, as not too long ago he was arrested on allegations of working for a foreign government!

In fact, at the time of his arrest, it was alleged that he was a ‘foreigner’ working illegally in Uganda. Apparently, Dr Muganga carries passports of Canada and Rwanda but insists he was born and raised in Uganda, which would make him a Ugandan like any other compatriot. Under the current legal regime, however, he cannot be a member of Cabinet.

There were other cases of nominees for Cabinet who reportedly held dual citizenship but told Parliament they had renounced and retained only the Ugandan one.

But renouncing citizenship is a process, not a mere self-declaration or something that is merely waved away.

Whatever ultimately happens, including all the noise getting swept aside and the nominees taking their seats in Cabinet or dropped, there is quite a bit of egg left on the face of the appointing authority and apparatus of State.

Often, there’s little regard and respect for the law, certainly not consistently, in the way Museveni’s government operates, so it is possible to sweep aside or even find a way of bypassing any legal obstacle.

But if members of Cabinet must go through the rituals and motions of vetting by Parliament, surely, the State’s intelligence and counterintelligence agencies should first thoroughly vet them.

In the case of Dr Muganga, predictably, much of the noise is on his Rwandan roots, which he spiritedly denies, insisting he is not anything other than a Ugandan of Rwandan descent.

This shouldn’t be an issue as Banyarwanda are Ugandans and have served in prominent public positions, especially under Museveni’s regime, but dating back to the dawn of independence.

The Ministry of Water and Environment has handed over a site in Omoro District for construction of a water quality monitoring and management laboratory, marking the start of works on a Shs7.3 billion project.

Financed by the Government of Uganda with support from the European Commission and German Government through KfW, the facility in Bobi sub-county will serve Lango, Acholi and West Nile sub-regions upon completion.

The infrastructure includes a water quality laboratory to ensure standards are met, a centralised warehouse for pipes and consumables to enable rapid response to bursts, administrative offices, and a training centre to upskill artisans and plumbers from across the northern region.

Consulting Engineers Salzgitter is the project management and implementation consultant while Zhonghao Overseas Construction Company Ltd is the contractor.

The handover on Friday, June 5, 2026, was described by the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Water and Environment, Dr Alfred Okot Okidi, as a critical step in decentralising water management in northern Uganda.

By combining quality control, logistical storage, and professional training in a single hub, the Northern Umbrella of Water and Sanitation is positioned to enhance service efficiency and water security for the region.

Dr Okot Okidi thanked Omoro District for providing 20 acres of land free of charge, expanded from the initial 8 acres to accommodate current and future facilities.

‘In today’s Uganda, it is very difficult to get a generous district like Omoro, where they give you land free of charge,’ Dr Okot Okidi said. ‘This facility is going to enhance service delivery because we are now going to be nearer our infrastructure. We are going to have training facilities. We are going to have workshops. We are going to have stores. And we are going to have our team based here. So it will be quicker for us to reach our people.’

Eng Yusuf Lule, deputy branch manager of WSDF-N, said samples from different regions will be brought to the facility for testing. ‘So, we are grateful that there is an opportunity to ensure that whatever we produce, especially to do with water, meets the quality before we supply it to the communities within the region.’

Dr Martin Wamalwa, manager of Northern Umbrella of Water and Sanitation, said: ‘When we have a water quality laboratory here, which will ensure the water that you drink meets the quality standards.’

Omoro Deputy RDC Geoffrey Akol welcomed the project and cautioned the contractor. ‘And I want to assure the contractor, we shall support you in this project. If something is wrong, please, share, so that we get quality work here. We don’t want you to come and play with the project. Please, do quality work. One year, the project must be here.’

Chief Administrative Officer Donato Oola Olam said the district is ready to provide more land if the technical scope requires it. ‘I want to commit myself on behalf of the administration that we shall continue to support this initiative. We shall support in terms of coordination, and where there are challenges which require technical input from the administration of the district, we shall always be available,’ Mr Oola said.

Ms Therese Scholl from Consulting Engineers Salzgitter said after a year of collaborative efforts, the project has reached the milestone of beginning physical work. ‘The focus now should shift toward a successful implementation phase that aligns strictly with the requirements established in the contract,’ she said.

The contractor has 12 months to deliver the facility. The CAO and district technical team will conduct regular site visits and coordination meetings to monitor progress.

What happens when the soul feels like a stranger inside its own body? Four digital artists have spent a month trying to answer that question. Tonny Mpungu, Osward Tayebwa, Maria Byoma, and Aliguma Mugisa have held an art exhibition titled Native in a New World at the Xenson Art Space in Kampala. The month-long show, which opened on May 2, and closed on May 30, is a groundbreaking digital art exhibition marking the first-time digital artists have taken centre stage at the venue. The exhibition brought together the four artists whose works explore identity, movement, and belonging in an ever-changing world, where tradition does not disappear but shifts, adapts, and finds new places to live, the curatorial statement reads.

A language of laughter and discomfort

Through illustration, cartoons, comics, and layered digital forms, the artists reflect everyday realities that feel familiar. You may recognise something from your commute, your home, or shared cultural memory. You may laugh at situations that are deeply serious or even uncomfortable. This tension forms the language of the exhibition; playful yet critical, light yet deeply honest.

‘The works soften heavy realities without losing urgency,’ the curatorial statement explains. ‘They invite viewers to loosen up and face the world as it is.’

The body as foreign land

Among Mugisa’s artworks are Native in a New World; The Noise of Beginnings; Eye in the Mad; The Weight of Thought; The Beginning of Escape, and The River That Carries Us. All are ephemeral digital prints on paper.

In Eye in the Mad, a figure drifts between collapse and awareness beneath a watchful presence. The eye above does not judge or intervene. It simply sees. In a place where everything feels buried or lost, perception remains, quiet and unyielding. Mugisa explains that his artworks explore the experience of a soul navigating and inhabiting the human body as though it were unfamiliar territory.

‘I approached the body as a kind of landscape, one that is both intimate and disorienting, where identity is not fixed but constantly forming,’ he says.

‘Through recurring symbols such as the African pot in place of the head, fragmented figures, and shifting environments, the work reflects a journey of self-awareness, displacement, and adaptation. It is about what it means to exist in a space that feels both like home and foreign at the same time.’

Rituals, gifts, and belonging

Tayebwa’s artworks include The Give Away; Nakasero; Taxi; The Aunties; Standing Tall, and Kalele.

The Giveaway captures the gifts delivered by the bridegroom to the bride’s home during traditional marriage ceremonies; known as okuhingira in Ankole and kwanjula in Buganda.

‘The Giveaway explores ritual, exchange and celebration as central pillars of cultural identity,’ Tayebwa says. ‘Within the broader theme of Native in a New World, the work examines how ceremonies, particularly those involving gifting, carry deep symbolic meaning beyond materialistic value. The act represents unity, respect, family bonds and the movement of social capital.’

He adds: ‘This work invites viewers to reflect on how cultural practices adapt without losing their symbolic weight. By focusing on the act of giving, the work emphasises connection, showing cultural sustainability through reinterpretation. At its heart, it is about connection, participation, generosity, and the reaffirmation of collective values.’

A new chapter for digital art in Kampala

The exhibition marked a milestone for digital artists in Uganda. By taking centre stage at Xenson Art Space, a venue traditionally dominated by painting and sculpture, Mpungu, Tayebwa, Byoma, and Mugisa proved that digital art can hold its own in conversations about identity, belonging, and the landscapes we carry inside us.

Mpungu has a comic project about the making of the matooke dish the right way or old way, which also includes a display of mats, banana leaves, empombo in banana leaves placed in baskets, and gourds, among others. Mpungu says his work on the theme at had explores the tension between cultural preservation and modern transformation through visual storytelling grounded in African experience.

‘In my comic project, I focus on how tradition is remembered, reinterpreted, and sometimes diluted in the current world, using the familiar staple of matooke as a central symbol, I tell a story that reflects broader questions of identity, heritage, and authenticity.’

According to Mpungu, the comic follows a young girl documenting her visit to a cultural museum, where matooke is presented not as a lived experience, but as a curated artifact.

‘This shift from everyday nourishment to preserved display mirrors the gradual distancing from tradition that many societies face. What was once a communal, hands-on process rooted in care, patience, and shared knowledge becomes simplified, aestheticized, and disconnected from its original meaning.’

‘Through this narrative, I examine how cultural practices are ‘downgraded’ in modern context not necessarily in value, but in depth. The preparation of matooke, once an intimate ritual involving peeling, steaming, and collective participation, is reduced to a surface level experience. This reflects a larger pattern where cultural identity is consumes visually rather than lived authentically,’ he adds.

Byoma has a video installation and comic about Kanga and Banana. She says the project was created as an extension of the comic story, which follows a young girl named Banana whose family lives near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

‘Her father is a tour guide, and she is constantly begging to accompany him to work because of her love for the gorillas she has grown up alongside. This work explores the relationship between two major groups of inhabitants within the Bwindi ecosystem, and the delicate balance that defines how they coexist.’

He adds: ‘The video installation, currently playing exclusively at Xenson Art Space as part of the exhibition, offers a sneak peek into what will become the final animation. It presents the sequence of events that form the story, giving audiences an opportunity to experience the comic in motion. This complements the printed work by revealing nuances and transitions that may not be immediately apparent on the page.’

When asked how far she has reached with the production, Byoma replies: ‘The animation is currently well into production, following the completion of the animatic. It is scheduled for public release later this year. With the story and characters already established, the remaining stages involve refining the animation, recording dialogue, developing sound design, and bringing all elements together into a final piece.’