The rate at which Ugandans are being disappeared by state apparatus in the country has reached alarming levels and it’s apt to state that nobody is safe!Indeed, barely a week goes by without a member of the leading opposition party, the National Unity Platform (NUP) or its supporters being abducted, disappeared by armed men or arbitrarily arrested and detained in safe houses, which Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces( CDF) describes as ‘the Basement’, for months without being produced in competent courts of law.
The latest Ugandan suspected to have fallen victim to this spate of political persecution is Mukungu Fahad, 46 years old, a resident of Kiwenjula village, in Bukomansimbi District, who was a campaign agent for the Bukomansimbi South County Member of Parliament Geoffrey Kayemba Ssolo, who has been missing for some weeks now.
Mukungu ‘s family members, who are extremely worried, reveal that prior to his disappearance in January 2026, he was acting as Kayemba’s campaign agent for Kawoko Parish, where he was the electoral supervisor and on the fateful day, he was being hunted by armed men.
However, ever since the election period was completed, his whereabouts have remained unknown and family members contend that he disappeared following the arrest of several NUP candidates and their supporters, which also culminated into the fleeing into hiding of party president Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, who contested against the incumbent, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in the January 15th Presidential Election.
This was followed by the invasion of Bobi Wine’s home in Magere by Ugandan soldiers who brutalized his wife Barbra Itungo, demanding that she reveals his whereabouts.Following Mukungu’s disappearance, his family members are pleading with top security agents in the country to avail them with information about any charges against him in case he is in their custody, or to assist them with avenues of finding out where he might be hiding or being held incommunicado.
His wife, Kissmat Jaffar Nakisuyi, a resident of Kiwenjula Village-Kawoko Parish Butenga Sub County, in Bukomansimbi District, alleges that her husband went missing shortly after the January 15th general elections and on inquiring for his whereabouts, she learnt that he had been reportedly abducted by armed security personnel who whisked him away to an unknown destination in a numberless Drone van.
Nakisuyi says that on learning about his disappearance, she petitioned relevant authorities to help her find Mukungu, or release him from custody but her efforts were futile.She also approached the area LC Chairperson who advised her to search at all police stations and other detention centers in the country for Mukungu but the search didn’t yield any positive results.
Left with no other option, Nakisuyi has since decided to start struggling with raising their children as a single mother because their father, Mukungu, was the only bread winner.She also reveals that shortly after Mukungu’s abduction his close friends, many of them NUP leaders and affiliates, also fled into hiding because security operatives were hunting for them too.
She thus pleads with security forces to produce him in a competent court of law where he can be formally charged in case the government has any case against him.However, besides Mukungu, there are other several NUP members who were disappeared by the government almost six years ago and have never resurfaced, among them being John Bosco Kibalama, John Damulira, Martin Lukwago, Godfrey Kisembo, Hassan Mubiru, to mention but a few..
Many others like Archilleo Kivumbi, Eddie Mutwe, Bobi Young, Sauda Madada, Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro and Olivia Lutaaya are still languishing in prisons across Uganda on trumped-up charges. Some of them have been arbitrarily detained in safe houses and basements which President Museveni boastfully referred to as ‘Freezers’ where they are tortured for weeks and later released without any charges.