Bobi Recounts Eddie Mutwe’s Chilling Torture Ordeal

"They tried to break him." Those are the haunting words opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, used to describe the horrific torture his aide Edward Ssebuufu, alias Eddie Mutwe, endured while held incommunicado by security operatives.

Following a prison visit to Masaka Main Prison—accompanied by Mutwe’s mother, wife, and eight-month-old baby—Kyagulanyi emerged shaken. “Eddie is alive. That is the only good news,” he said.

What followed was a grim, graphic recounting of torture that bears disturbing similarities to the brutal methods once described by exiled author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who fled to Germany after allegedly being abducted and tortured.

Like Kakwenza, who said he was tied upside down and beaten until his legs swelled and he fainted from lack of blood to the brain, Eddie was subjected to a routine of pain calculated to destroy both body and spirit.

Kyagulanyi said Eddie described daily sessions of torture that began at dawn: electrocuted, waterboarded, stripped, and beaten with a baton—especially on his private parts.

“They stuffed a cloth in his mouth, tied it around his neck, poured water over his face. It was methodical. It was evil,” Kyagulanyi said.

His arms were handcuffed tightly and stepped on until the cuffs cut deep into his skin. His legs were chained and beaten. Four times a day, every day, he was flogged.

Given just one meal—dry posho and beans—and denied clean water, he was told to drink the blood-tinged water pooling around his body.

The abuse wasn’t only physical. A loudspeaker blared at maximum volume during torture sessions to drown out his cries.

He was forced to wear a T-shirt bearing President Museveni’s face, kneel, and pledge allegiance to both the president and Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba. All of it was filmed.

“They stripped him naked and shaved off his beard while mocking him,” Kyagulanyi said, visibly emotional.

“On the third day, Gen Muhoozi himself came. He mocked Eddie, taunted him, told him to fight while he was in handcuffs.”

One of the most chilling parts of Mutwe’s account was the cultural weaponization of language. When one of his tormentors asked “Amagara?”—Runyakore for “How is life?”—Mutwe responded in Luganda, prompting another brutal beating.

“They beat him for not understanding their language. They spat in his face. They found joy in his pain,” Kyagulanyi said.

Mutwe’s feet, like Kakwenza’s, were a primary target. They were swollen beyond recognition. “He said it felt like elephantiasis,” Kyagulanyi revealed.

“He still can’t walk properly. He was also injected with unknown substances three times. He doesn’t know what they did to his body.”

After each torture session, he was forced to perform frog jumps and press-ups while blindfolded, still shackled. “The question was always the same: ‘Who are you to challenge Museveni?’” Kyagulanyi said.

When the delegation arrived in prison, Mutwe broke down.

“He cried. In front of his wife, his mother, his baby—he couldn’t finish telling us everything,” Kyagulanyi said.

“He says every time he closes his eyes, he sees them coming for him again. He hasn’t slept.”

Kyagulanyi insisted that Mutwe and others like him are not criminals—they are political detainees.

“Eddie should be in a hospital, not in a cell. This is political persecution. What happened to him is not just torture. It is a crime against humanity. And those responsible must be held accountable.”

“They Humiliated Him, Broke His Body, and Tried to Shatter His Mind”: Bobi Wine Recounts the Torture of His Aide Eddie Mutwe