Last Updated on: 25th January 2023, 08:05 am
Cases of missing opposition activists continue to dominate the news on mainstream and social media platforms in Uganda raising concerns among citizens about the political direction the country is taking.
The opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party under the leadership of pop star singer cum politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu has always cried, victim. They claim that hundreds of their supporters have been kidnapped by security agencies.
The government through its security apparatus as well as the parliament has consistently warned against politicising crimes for cheap popularity, saying there is nothing like kidnaps but lawful arrests of suspects.
Now, a Wakiso-based family has expressed fear that the life of their daughter who is an FDC activist identified as Nakazi Aminah Katenda could be in danger after she went missing for more than two weeks.
Ismail Tamale claims his wife, Katenda, who has been working at the Wakiso Human Rights Desk attached to the Najjanankumbi-based opposition political party, reportedly went missing on 7 January 2023.
Tamale lodged a case of the disappearance of a person at Namugongo Police Post with SD reference 19/08/01/2023 and later placed a paid notice in the Daily Monitor newspaper on 10 January 2023 in which he is asking members of the public to notify the police of her whereabouts.
Asked how the woman disappeared, Tamale terms it ‘mysterious’ saying his wife did not return home, adding that her mobile phone number also went off. And has remained so since the fateful day.
“…we have done everything within our means, searched all the police stations, and went to all the big offices but have not come out with any result about her whereabouts…,” he narrated.
He is demanding the release of his wife, dead or alive, saying family members are having nightmares because of her unexplained disappearance in a supposedly democratic country like Uganda.
This comes in the wake of increased cries from the opposition parties especially the Kamwokya-based NUP that many of their supporters have continued to be kidnapped and taken to ungazetted detention centers.
It should also be recalled that Mathias Mpuuga, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Parliament sometimes back submitted to the government a list of people allegedly abducted by security and detained without trial.
Details of the list had 24 names with the date and place where each was arrested but the opposition leaders claim the government has not done enough to locate and bring them to the courts of law.
The government maintains that there is no abduction in Uganda and that the police together with other sister security organs always carry out lawful arrests of people suspected of engaging in criminal activities.