Kampala: A Ugandan university student who mysteriously went missing two months ago after posting a TikTok video that harshly criticised President Yoweri Museveni's leadership has been jailed. Elson Tumwine disappeared on June 8, sparking accusations from opposition figures and activists that he had been abducted and illegally detained by military agents.
According to BBC, following an outcry over his disappearance, Tumwine was reportedly left at a police station in Entebbe in mid-July and subsequently charged with offensive communication and computer misuse. Tumwine is alleged to have doctored a clip of the parliamentary speaker's response to a general apology Museveni issued in May to the Baganda people, Uganda's largest ethnic group, and who form the traditional Buganda kingdom. Relations between Museveni's government and the kingdom have been strained at times during his nearly four decades in power. While the kingdom holds no political power, it remains influential.
Tumwine's TikTok post accused the 80-year-old president of not apologising for other grievances during his time in power. When Tumwine disappeared in June, Makerere University issued an urgent appeal for information that could help locate him. At the time he went missing, Tumwine had been working as an agricultural intern in Hoima, western Uganda, as part of his studies.
Two weeks ago, David Lewis Rubongoya, the secretary-general of the opposition NUP party, stated they had information that Tumwine and another suspect were being held at a police station in Entebbe, having been "dumped" there on July 13. Rubongoya alleged they were taken there after being subjected to "incredible torture" by the country's military intelligence unit. The authorities have not commented on these allegations.
Criticising the trial, lawyer and activist Godwin Toko noted that Tumwine had refused to let lawyers from his organisation or those from the opposition represent him in court. Toko expressed his discontent on X, stating, "For a man who was abducted, held incommunicado for months, nudged to plead guilty and then sentenced, this is the apogee of injustice that it is not his captor punished, but him getting a criminal record to his name at such a young age."
This case is reminiscent of past incidents, such as last November when 21-year-old Emmanuel Nabugodi was jailed for 32 months after creating a video said to insult Museveni. Months earlier, Edward Awebwa, 24, was sentenced to six years in prison for hate speech and spreading "malicious" information against the first family.