December 21, 2025
By Elvis Kintu Nsonyi
New York
Over recent weeks, Uganda has been inundated with images, rumors, and official denials circulating across both mainstream and social media concerning the abduction of Fr. Deusdedit Ssekabira of Masaka Diocese. The public response has oscillated between fear, outrage, and exhaustion.
But this crisis cannot be understood through the lens of a single case. However troubling the abduction of one individual may be, narrowing the conversation to a familiar or sympathetic name risks obscuring a much deeper and more systemic problem.
What Uganda is facing is not an isolated incident, but a recurring pattern. It is the steady normalisation of arrests conducted without warrants, by unidentified operatives, in unmarked vehicles, with no transparency or accountability. These methods, once associated with past regimes that the country pledged never to repeat, appear to be re-emerging with alarming consistency.
This is not an argument rooted in vendetta or emotional attachment. On the contrary, when injustice touches those we know, public outrage is often dismissed as partisan or biased. Yet the defense of human rights does not depend on distance. It depends on principle.
At stake is not religion, political affiliation, or regional identity. What is at stake is the presumption of innocence, the right to due process, and the basic dignity guaranteed to every citizen under Uganda’s Constitution.
The Constitution does not recognise enforced disappearances as a lawful policing strategy. It does not authorise extrajudicial detentions carried out through fear and secrecy. Nor does it permit the violent disruption of ordinary life — workplaces, places of worship, and family homes — without lawful justification. When such practices become routine, the rule of law is reduced to performance rather than substance.
The harm caused by these methods extends far beyond those taken. Families are left without answers. Children are forced to confront unexplained absences. Communities learn to lower their voices and adjust their behavior. These outcomes are not incidental; they are central to how repression functions. Fear is transmitted to not just individuals, but the entire population.
What kind of national identity is formed when enforced disappearances become a point of global recognition? Uganda’s international standing — its appeal to tourists, investors, and diplomatic partners — cannot be separated from its human rights record. A country celebrated for its natural beauty cannot credibly project stability while its citizens vanish without explanation.
Those responsible for carrying out these actions may claim obedience to authority, but history offers little comfort to such defenses. The argument of “following orders” has never absolved individuals of moral responsibility.
Silence, too, carries consequences. In this context, the voices of religious institutions and civil society organizations are particularly significant. Their interventions serve as a reminder that human dignity is not conferred by the state but is inherent. Experience shows that when abuses are tolerated against one group, they rarely remain confined to it.
This issue, therefore, is not about one priest, one politician, or one activist. It concerns all those who have been detained without charge, all who have disappeared without explanation, and all who live with the growing fear that legality has become optional.
A Buganda proverb offers a relevant warning: “Ekirya atabaala, n’asigadde eka kimulumba.” What devours those who travel will eventually return for those who stayed behind. Injustice is never contained; it spreads.
Freedom is not a favor granted at the discretion of power. It is a right. And justice that is delayed, denied, or selectively applied ceases to be justice at all.
