Ugandan opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye has linked the sudden and shocking death of a son to a former Ugandan minister to his alleged torture at the hands of security operatives who arrested and detained him. Jakana Sulayiman Nadduli, son to former Minister without portfolio and veteran Luweero politician Abdul Nadduli, was announced dead this Monday, October 24 morning by his family.
Jakana Sulayiman Nadduli died about two weeks after being released from prison on bail. He has been facing charges of promoting sectarianism against Banyankore and Banyarwanda tribes. Last month, Jakana Nadduli was arrested from Makindye in Kampala by armed operatives who bundled him into a ‘drone’ vehicle. He would then be arraigned before Luweero Grade One Magistrate about four days later — beyond the mandatory 48 hours after an arrest. In court, Jakana flip-flopped on his plea, at first pleading guilty to the charges and later changing his mind and plea to not guilty. His lawyers successfully secured bail for him.
Jakana was expected back in the Luwero Magistrate’s Court on November 16 for mention of his case. Prosecution had alleged that Sulayiman Jakana Nadduli, a resident of Wobulenzi Town in Luweero District, on April 5, 2022, recorded and uploaded a YouTube video promoting sectarianism against the Banyarwanda and Banyankole tribal groups in Uganda.
With his father largely out of government, Jakana had become a thorn in Museveni’s government and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM). In the 2021 parliamentary elections, he ran against former Finance Minister Syda Bbumba, the official NRM candidate for Nakaseke Central, making both lose to National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Allan Mayanja who garnered 9,298 votes against Bbumba’s 7,042 votes and Jakana’s 700 votes in the six-candidate race.
A son of a man who played a big role to Gen Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) bush war that catapulted the president into power in 1986, Jakana had become vocal in defending his father after he was dropped from cabinet. He felt it was unfair for his father to be thrown into the political cold.
Jakana Nadduli had also begun associating with members and leaders of the main opposition NUP party who supported his social media rants against the Museveni regime. Even NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine, one of Gen Museveni’s top critics, was pictured visiting Jakana in hospital. The ex-minister’s son is said to have been involved in an accident early this year. There are some reports that he was arrested and tortured when he had not recovered from the complications occasioned by the accident.
According to Besigye, the elderly former minister Nadduli is in tears after losing his son simply because Jakana chose to hold views different from the regime’s. In Besigye’s view, there is no way the Museveni regime can erase the link between Nadduli’s death and the alleged torture said to have been meted on him by security operatives who arrested and detained him as he was recovering from an accident.
“Abdul Naduli is somebody that I have known for a long time right from the bush war days and he is a good man so it is very sad that his son was treated the way he was because of nothing else except his political views,” Besigye said during a local television show after Jakana Nadduli was pronounced dead. “Jakana Nadduli’s death cannot be separated from his immediate past treatment. It has to be related to the torture he went through. -Political activist Kizza Besigye.”
You can read our earlier stories on the death of Nadduli’s son Jakana as well as on the way Jakana Nadduli shocked court with his u-turn on his plea of guilty in court where he was facing charges of promoting sectarianism against Banyankore and Banyarwanda, contrary to Section 41(1) of the Penal Code Act HERE and THERE.
