By Enyichukwu Enemanna
President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has for the first time acknowledged that two Kenyan citizens who were missing in his country for five weeks were indeed arrested.
In a live interview on Saturday, Museveni described the two men as “experts in riots” who had then been put “in the fridge for some days”.
Last month, eyewitnesses reported seeing Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo being forced into a car by masked security officials after a political event where they were accused of supporting Ugandan opposition leader, Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi who is seeking to run in the country’s January 15 presidential election.
News of their release was confirmed on Saturday after repeated denial by authorities, claiming that they were not being detained.
Museveni who has been in power since 1986 blamed foreign groups for stoking up trouble, threatening that “the ones who are doing that game here in Uganda will end up badly”.
He has confirmed his interest to run for another term in office after a deadly post-election violence that rocked the neighbouring Tanzania after a controversial victory by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Without naming them, Museveni added that the two Kenyan activists were released after he received calls from “some Kenyan leaders” who said they should be handed back.
Mr. Njagi and Mr. Oyoo were welcomed by supporters at the main airport in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Saturday.
“Thirty-eight days of abduction was not easy. We didn’t think that we were going to come out alive because we were being abducted by the military,” Mr. Njagi said.
Kenya’s Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said their release followed “sustained diplomatic engagement between Kenya and Uganda”.
Activist organisation Vocal Africa, who had been campaigning for the two men to be freed said: “Let this moment signal an important shift towards upholding the human rights of East Africans anywhere in East African Community”.
In a joint statement, Vocal Africa, the Law Society of Kenya and Amnesty International thanked the Kenyan and Ugandan governments, as well as “all active citizens” who had campaigned for the release.
Bobi Wine accused the Ugandan government of targeting the two Kenyans for associating with him.
“If they committed any offence, why were they not produced before court and formally charged?” he asked in a post on X on Sunday.
Ugandan security agencies have often been accused of orchestrating the detention of opposition politicians and supporters.
Earlier this year, Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and his Ugandan counterpart Agather Atuhaire were detained in Tanzania and held incommunicado for days before being abandoned at their respective national borders.
They later recounted being brutally mistreated, including sexual torture at the hands of the Tanzanian authorities – allegations which police dismissed as “hearsay”.
Last year, another Uganda opposition figure, Kizza Besigye, mysteriously disappeared in Nairobi only to surface four days later in a military court in Uganda, where he currently faces treason charges.
