What Ugandans should pick from the arrest of Dr. Lawrence Muganga

By Rusesabagina

A few days ago, Uganda’s joint security team arrested University don Lawrence Muganga on allegations of espionage. Muganga holds a foreign passport and has been working in Uganda illegally. His wife also has a Rwandan passport, which means they both are in the country illegally.

When Muganga mysteriously entered Uganda, he quickly made connections in his education fields and acquired a Ugandan national identity card.

What baffles everyone is how Andrew Mwenda and a one Frank Gashumba jumped on accusing Ugandan security forces of brutally arresting Muganga, yet circulating videos clearly showed he wasn’t hurt in anyway. Uganda’s laws clearly spell out on requirements for Ugandans who hold foreign passports, and one of those is applying for dual citizenship. Clearly, Muganga didn’t have that certificate.

Secondly, no intelligence system in the world can arrest someone without clues, leave alone evidence, on a crime they are suspected of. Prevention and curtailing of crime requires suspects to be arrested, investigated and if found innocent released.

We have countless examples of people who have been arrested, questioned and released when found to be innocent. Muganga was also arrested on espionage allegations, and the only way that security would be sure of him being innocent was to investigate him. Anyone, including military generals and Ministers can be arrested in Uganda for as long they are suspected of committing crime.

What about Muganga?

Like a monkey that exposes it’s behind every time it climbs the tree to the top, Mwenda brought out his traitor characteristics when he wrote on social media that it should be Kampala to make a diplomatic reproachment to Kigali.

Who needs the other more? Does Mwenda know how many Rwandans were living off trading with their Kabale neighbours and are now starving in their homes ever since Kagame closed Rwanda’s border with Uganda? Why doesn’t the ‘good’ journalist post about that?

Does Mwenda remember the ten Ugandans that have so far been shot dead by Rwandan security forces just for a simple reason of smuggling waragi into their country? Its clear Mwenda and Gashumba are dancing on their tombs, and they keep thinking the dead Ugandans were wild animals and didn’t deserve to be arrested and investigated like Muganga.

Why haven’t the good Ugandans in Mwenda and Gashumba posted and questioned Rwanda on killing their fellow Ugandans? Does Mwenda and Gashumba remember scores of Rwandans who were kidnapped by Rwandan security and taken back to Rwanda where they have faced the worst human rights violations, if not killed? To satisfy their egos, both Mwenda and Gashumba closed their eyes and looked the other side as Rwanda orchestrated its terror on refugees who had settled in Uganda.

While Mwenda took to his social media platforms to compare the Ugandan army to the Idi Amin regime, he forgot that the very regime he badmouthes has for so many years been lenient with him for promoting Rwanda’s interests at the expense of his motherland Uganda.

The regime has let him scot free even when it’s clear his utterances could easily incite the public against their government. In Kagame’s Rwanda, no citizen can sing praises of Uganda or President Museveni like Uganda’s Mwenda does to Kagame.

That alone shows the political maturity that defines the Ugandan government leadership. Even in the current sour relationship, there is a section of Rwandans who aren’t allowed to fly out to Uganda, no matter the reason. This is the system Mwenda praises just to satisfy his stomach.

He shamelessly compares the NRM regime to Idi Amin goons who only punished suspected criminals by throwing them into rivers for crocodiles to eat. That is your journalist who keeps forgetting even the basic journalism principles of being fair, objective and accurate.

“Mwenda is looking for mercy from President Kagame after he was in 2019 dropped as one of his advisors. He must be very broke now because nolonger receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from Kagame (at the expense of economically hard hit Rwandan taxpayers, to run his Independent magazine. In Rwanda, Kagame will give you anything for as long as you ignore his bad side and only show the good one,” said Josephine Nderitu, a Kenyan journalist.

Mwenda chose to exactly execute that task for Kagame until a few years ago when he wrote a few lines that weren’t in the interest of the Kigali establishment. His loyalty was torn between Rwanda where he is an advisor and Uganda, where he is a citizen.

Mwenda is looking for a come back to Kagame after the latter’s anger towards him which didn’t start in 2017. At a past national dialogue of Rwandan leaders where Mwenda was a guest speaker, he received a heavy backlash from Kagame after the journalist openly criticized him for always angrily lashing out at his civil servants even at times when they have done some commendable work.

Unlike President Museveni who even takes to social media to respond to netizens, some of them, abusive, Kagame distates any criticism no matter the spirit in which it has been made.