NOT THE ONE
Uganda’s main opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) and the wife of a man paraded as one of the party’s missing 18 members — also a mobilizer — is not their member. A Resident District Commissioner (RDC) representing President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni is on the spot for presenting a wrong person to bolster his criticism against NUP’s push for accountability for its missing members.
Missing since 2020, Martin Lukwago is one of the opposition supporters the state has failed to account for. Some officials in the Museveni government have attempted to find explanations, including blaming those missing for abducting themselves and others accusing the party of using the issue for political capital.
One of such is Kayunga RDC Moses Dumba who paraded a man he claimed to be Lukwago. The man also said he was Lukwago, the missing NUP supporter.
Lukwago claimed he was aged 45. The RDC says Lukwago rushed to his office seeking help to be struck off NUP’s list of missing persons. Lukwago also wanted help to meet President Museveni, Speaker Anita Among and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja so that he could have a platform to debunk what he called ‘lies’ Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine’s NUP was reportedly peddling.
The so-called Lukwago noted that as far as he is concerned, no security organ has ever kidnapped him yet his name sits as number 13 on the list of the missing 18.
MISSING NUP MOBILIZER OR ANOTHER LUKWAGO?
Unable to present valid documents to confirm his identity as Lukwago at a presser the RDC organized for him, the man in question is now at the centre of controversy.
It seems this could me another Martin Lukwago – that is if he is not impersonating the missing opposition supporter.
His image and that assigned by NUP for the same name are different.
The opposition party also says Lukwago was about 32 years old at the time of his disappearance – and must be 35 years now if he is still alive – yet the man paraded before reporters said he is 45 years old.
Lukwago also claims the injuries ‘he’ has – which the opposition would attribute to torture at the hands of security personnel if this was the ‘real’ Lukwago – were as a result of an accident he was involved in at Kibuye in Kampala on January 19, 2021.
Residing Luzira, Kampala, and Kamuli Village of Kayunga District’s Kangulumira Sub County between 2020 and 2023, Lukwago claims that it was during the three days he spent at Mulago National Referral Hospital receiving treatment for his leg fracture when NUP supporters approached him.
Bobi Wine’s people, he further claimed, convinced him to include his name on the list of the party’s supporters injured by security officers in the November 2020 crackdown that followed Bobi Wine’s arrest.
Swearing that he has never supported NUP, Lukwago says although he was reluctant to include his name on the list, NUP officials lured him with promises of financial help to enable him pay his hospital bills.
He regrets accepting the deal, claiming the promised financial help never came through.
Lukwago further says he would return home in Luzira, waiting until he was better to find a job. Once his injuries healed, he further claimed, his friend took him to Kayunga to work on a construction site for a hotel as a supervisor towards the end of 2021. He would camp there until January 2023 when he returned to Kampala.
Yet NUP party claims that their Martin Lukwago went missing from Bugolobi Market in Kampala on November 23, 2020.
Hours after the RDC presented ‘his’ Lukwago, NUP president Bobi Wine dismissed the man’s claims. He also attacked the regime for being ‘clueless’ and ‘insensitive.’
“As always, the criminal regime did this to try and discredit the pain and sorrow of the families whose loved ones are missing,” Bobi Wine wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Our human rights team got in touch with Martin Lukwago’s wife who confirmed that she has never seen the man they are claiming is her husband. How can a regime be so insensitive, so clueless and so evil?”
Party secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya said Lukwago’s wife was “shocked about the lack of shame” in those impersonating her husband.
On December 08, a woman claiming to be Mary Namuyanja and wife to Lukwago, said the man the RDC paraded as her lover a day before was simply a masquerader.
This is not the first time such a controversy regarding NUP and the Museveni state has happened. The army previously paraded a man who ‘confessed’ that NUP officials had reportedly him Shs50m lie that security officers burnt him with hot metals. (See Details Here and There).
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