Besigye’s allies and wife have come out to reveal harrowing details of how the opposition chief was apparently lured to meet his abductors, said to have disguised themselves as Kenyan security agents.
Reports say he was spied on from the time he boarded a plane at Entebbe airport in Uganda for Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where he was picked up, before somehow being transferred to a military court back home without any extradition proceedings.
While Kenya insists it played no role and is investigating the incident, Uganda holds that Kenya was fully aware of the plan, citing intelligence correspondence aimed at tracking Besigye down.
As his detention is extended until next week by a military court in Kampala, we piece together what we know so far.
Besigye has contested and lost four presidential elections against President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.
He has been less active in politics recently, and did not contest the 2021 election.
But earlier this year, he formed a new party, the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) after breaking away from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), which he founded two decades ago.
The opposition politician has for years travelled to Kenya and moved freely, sometimes to attend high-profile events – even while he remained Museveni’s main challenger and biggest critic.
This time, Besigye travelled to Nairobi to attend the launch of a book by Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua.
The 68-year-old landed in the city on the morning of 16 November and took a taxi to his hotel in the affluent suburb of Hurlingham. He was accompanied by long-term ally Hajj Obeid Lutale.
A few hours later, he left the hotel, boarded a taxi and headed to Riverside Drive, some 5km (three miles) from his hotel, for a private meeting, according to his political allies.
This was the last time he was seen until he re-emerged in Uganda four days later.
His taxi driver said he waited for the veteran politician for more than 12 hours, before deciding to leave when he was unable to phone him.
Besigye’s team in Uganda started relaying distress calls after their leader’s mobile phones went unanswered.
His disappearance hit the headlines and raised eyebrows in the region, with his wife Winnie Byanyima, the head of the UN’s organisation to tackle HIV and Aids, taking to social media to report that her husband had been “kidnapped” in Nairobi.
The next day, his reserved seat at the book launch, where he was expected to be the guest speaker, remained empty with organisers raising the alarm about his absence.
Author: Mpheza Clara Manda
Luska, Zambia
Senior Correspondent
