What radicalised Muwanga Kivumbi?

Muwanga Kivumbi at parliament

Veteran politician and opposition stalwart Muwanga Kivumbi is no wallflower on Uganda’s volatile political landscape.

He is as plucky and tenacious as a free- range chicken from his home district, Butambala. Today, some may question why Kivumbi sounds increasingly defiant, confrontational, even radical. The better question may be: what radicalized him?

To answer that question requires revisiting key moments that have defined his political journey. On any frontline for the advocacy of good governance, you can count on Kivumbi’s stout figure being there – from public protests (and the arrests and courtrooms that follow), parliament, to the Constitutional Court in defense of freedoms.

Kivumbi cut his teeth in the trenches of the Uganda Young Democrats in the Democratic Party, though he would later part ways with DP after a bitter fallout with the party leadership under Norbert Mao.

From DP, he joined the National Unity Platform (NUP) where he hit the ground running (for the regime has not allowed the ground under NUP a moment’s rest), rising to become one of the NUP deputy presidents.

For the media, Kivumbi is a darling; astute and quick-witted. He can be counted on for quotable quotes.

Over the years, he has racked up several court cases, arrests, and countless quotable quotes – a few cited here: “Let us speak truth to Museveni. Let us speak truth to the powers that be, that what is given in the Constitution can’t be taken away by a declaration. Uganda can’t return to the days of Idi Amin.”

“We’ve come to realize that money can be just as destructive as an AK- 47,” …This isn’t about policymaking anymore. It’s about control – about buying influence, silence and obedience. Parliament is no longer a watchdog of the people but a marketplace of backdoor deals.”

On the age limit debate, he quipped: “Museveni has never lost in my constituency but the people of Butambala said enough is enough. They simply said what they have not seen is a peaceful transfer of power from one president to another and that’s what they want to see.”

Kivumbi’s rhetoric did not emerge in a vacuum. It was forged by events that have shaped and reshaped both his political career and his perception of the state itself. Perhaps the most defining moment of his career – the 2026 election.

The aftermath of the 2026 election left the NUP leadership scattered – in exile or abducted, only to surface in far-flung jails. In Kivumbi’s constituency, where he lost the parliamentary race, the election left blood stains and bullet holes in his home when state security gunned down at least seven unarmed civilians there.

Kivumbi maintains that 10 people were killed on that gory election day – ordinary supporters as opposed to the State’s claims that Kivumbi and his supporters were panga-wielding terrorists attacking polling stations.

Then MPs Muwanga Kivumbi and Ssemujju Nganda

One’s imagination might wander and wonder about the heart-stopping temerity of panga-wielding terrorists taking on the might of the armed-to-the-teeth and trigger-happy soldiers.

Dear reader, now is a good time to dim the lights on that wandering imagination and also hush those wispy reports of army officers faking intelligence reports. In the dark of the state internet blackout, the stories that eventually trickled out of Kivumbi’s home painted a harrowing nightmare of unarmed civilians brutally gunned down – with many reportedly shot in the back – by the military.

A viral video shows the inhabitants of Kivumbi’s household crouching under tables and on the floor as shots ring out outside – one can hear Kivumbi’s wife and others pleading with him not to get out as Kivumbi wavers in between running to the aid of his supporters or listening to his wife’s pleas to stay put and, therefore, alive.

In his victory speech, President Yoweri Museveni exulted how the security forces contained Kivumbi and his panga terrorists whom he claimed had attacked polling stations. Yet as the internet says, the maths was not mathing.

In media reports that followed, neither a single picture of a polling station set upon by panga terrorists could be found nor evidence of the blood-soaked pangas themselves. No petrified electoral officer came forward to tell the nation of this panga gang that attacked a polling station.

One might even speculate – it’s almost like this panga gang never existed. (Of course, one would do well to put that speculation aside for it’s that sort of brainless speculation that has the Nation Media Group still closed.)

A 23-minute investigative video by two independent media houses, Africa Uncensored and Ukweli Africa, titled “Uganda: Death in Darkness”, documented accounts by survivors of the killings.

One of the survivors tells of the horror of seeing her mother, Ruth Nakanjako, gunned down in cold blood. She is visibly traumatized as she recounts how she, alongside other supporters of Kivumbi, had gathered at his Butambala residence to await the electoral results.

With pain etched into her tear-stained face, she refutes the President’s claims; “I was there…we had nothing, not even a single stone, not even a stick. We had no guns, we were at home, at Honorable’s place…”

Agora Discourse, a social justice platform, further profiled the people killed in Butambala and lists Nakanjako, a mother of five, as one of Kivumbi’s campaign agents. Agora documents that she was shot dead in front of her two daughters who had escorted her that fateful day. Her dead body fell on one of her daughters.

Within days of the killings, security forces grabbed Kivumbi from his residence on charges of terrorism, which his party dismissed as trumped-up. Last week, it came as a surprise when the State granted Kivumbi and others bail because bail is now another weapon in the toolkit of state repression.

Hence, we are staggered, even grateful, when bail is granted in the manner of one accustomed to being abducted instead of being killed. In Kivumbi’s own words, he is a lifelong activist and ‘foot soldier number one.’

Out on bail, Kivumbi addressed a crowd of jubilant supporters in the same home where his supporters were callously killed. As he spoke, he evoked memories of that bloody day, riling up his audience that the work of liberating Uganda was far from done.

Last night as we arrived in Butambala with the Hon Muwanga Kivumbi.#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners pic.twitter.com/R9kqTSm3RE

— Joel Ssenyonyi (@JoelSsenyonyi) July 10, 2026

Ebullient, he declared that his prison stay had only strengthened his resolve to fight the impunity of the ruling regime. In his brief remarks, he boldly fingered the ruling family as being at the heart of this impunity.

He went for the jugular, weaving a tale about four personalities disturbing the peace of Uganda. A few voices in the background of Kivumbi’s speech can be heard worriedly oohing and aahing through Kivumbi’s bare-knuckled words.

Dear reader, why this memory lane of the highlights of Kivumbi’s political career? Context matters. We dare not forget the context of our current ‘situationship’ with the ruling regime.

Within 24 hours of his audacious speech, Kivumbi was abducted or arrested (depends on your privilege) by state security. Regime apologists have blamed Kivumbi for being so reckless as to insult those who have the power to disappear him, the demigods beyond the reach of offense.

One netizen was so miffed that Kivumbi squandered his bail so quickly. Meanwhile, the state is yet to officially announce itself on Kivumbi’s whereabouts. It’s a strange thing to go missing in the hands of a strongman-state that continually demonstrates that if or when it wants to find you, it will.

In the late 1970s, in Argentina, a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla had the country in a chokehold. Human rights organizations reported that the military junta abducted, illegally detained, and killed without trial approximately 30,000 political dissidents.

In December 1979, General Videla famously stated about the missing political prisoners, “They are an unknown, they have no presence, they are neither dead nor alive, they are disappeared.”

Dear reader, a man watches his supporters brutally gunned down in his home. Blood stains, bullet cartridges, bullet holes are now part of the authentic décor of his home. He is accused of terrorism. He is imprisoned. He is released on bail.

He returns to the scene of the killings – his home, criticizes those in power, and is disappeared again. If he sounds angry, confrontational, or radical, the mystery is not why; the mystery is why anyone expects otherwise. So…what radicalized Kivumbi?