Opposition leader says Eddie Mutwe’s abduction ‘a reminder to the world’ of breakdown in law and order in Uganda.Uganda’s military chief, the son of longtime President Yoweri Museveni, says he is holding a missing opposition activist in his basement and threatened violence against him, after the man’s party said he was abducted.
Eddie Mutwe went missing on April 27 after being grabbed near the capital Kampala by armed men, the National Unity Platform (NUP) party has said.
Mutwe acts as the chief bodyguard for Uganda’s leading opposition figure, Bobi Wine.
In a social media post late on Thursday, Ugandan General Muhoozi Kainerugaba said Mutwe had been captured “like a grasshopper”.
“He is in my basement … You are next!” Kainerugaba wrote on X in response to a post by Wine saying that Mutwe had been abducted.
Kainerugaba, who is known for his incendiary social media posts, also alluded to Mutwe being tortured, saying he had beaten him and shaved his head.
“If they keep on provoking us, we shall discipline them even more,” he said of the opposition.
He is in my basement. Learning Runyankore. You are next! https://t.co/8pMgdGCru2
— Muhoozi Kainerugaba (@mkainerugaba) May 1, 2025
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Kainerugaba’s comments come amid an escalating crackdown on the Ugandan opposition and as Wine was set to launch a “protest vote” campaign in advance of a general election in January.
Spokespeople for the Ugandan government, military and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
On Friday, Wine – a former singer whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi and who has become the leading opponent to Museveni – said on X that security forces had “just raided and cordoned off our headquarters” …