An acquittance invited Habib Buwembo, 42, a renown political activist, for a meeting at a Kampala hotel in January 2017. When Buwembo arrived, the acquittance asked him to sit, and excused himself. Suddenly, Anita Among (now the speaker of parliament), then an ordinary Member of Parliament, a few months into her first term, showed up with two other politicians.
Buwembo was surprised. He had not expected to meet Among here. But they both knew each other as leaders in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Among had previously served on the party’s National Executive Committee as deputy treasury. Buwembo was also a member of the party’s NEC as the national secretary for labour and pensions.
A father of three and husband of two wives, Buwembo’s demeanor can be misleading. Initially, he appears soft-spoken and somewhat shy. But as our conversation goes into his run-ins with security operatives (he has been arrested and detained in countless police cells and prisons including Kitalya and Luzira), because of his decades’ long fight for human rights, which is what he is most known for, his eyes widen, and his voice gets deeper and coarser. It is hard to miss the parallels between him and four-time presidential contender, Kizza Besigye, who he immediately reveals inspired and emboldened his already budding knack for fighting injustice and leadership.
A father of three and husband of two wives, Buwembo’s demeanor can be misleading. Initially, he appears soft-spoken and somewhat shy. But as our conversation goes into his run-ins with security operatives (he has been arrested and detained in countless police cells and prisons including Kitalya and Luzira), because of his decades’ long fight for human rights, which is what he is most known for, his eyes widen, and his voice gets deeper and coarser. It is hard to miss the parallels between him and four-time presidential contender, Kizza Besigye, who he immediately reveals inspired and emboldened his already budding knack for fighting injustice and leadership.
As a senior two student, Buwembo had started the Nateete Muslim Students Association (NAMUSA) and become its first chairperson. With in a few years, he had become the chairperson of the Inter Muslim Association of Kampala district (IMUSAK). These roles would lay a solid foundation for his politics and establish him as an influential actor in the Muslim community in Kampala—part of the reason Among deemed it important to meet him.
The ruling NRM had even initially attempted to recruit him as a student leader but he was more inclined towards the opposition. After a short stint in JEEMA under the tutelage of its former secretary general, the late Hassan Kyanjo, Buwembo converted to FDC in 2011. And he was immediately thrust at the centre of action– he had allocated himself the responsibility of protecting votes. The walk-to-work protests that followed that election, saw him arrested for the first time, and marked the beginning of endless run-ins with the authorities including with Among and her henchmen.
After a few pleasantries, Among went straight into it. Buwembo had sued then Rubaga South MP, the late Kato Lubwama, on grounds that the latter didn’t have the right academic qualifications. Up until then, election petitions were only allowed within 30 days after the election. Buwembo had gone to court many months after the 2016 elections, and court was about to rule on whether this was legal or not. Extending the window for hearing election petitions was a major threat for members of parliament (majority of whom were members of the ruling party), Among said. President Museveni had sent Among to negotiate with Buwembo and settle the matter out of court. If Buwembo was ready to reach an out of court settlement, he would walk away with a staggering Shs300 million.
Buwembo was stunned. He knew Among had gone to parliament as an Independent, but thought she was FDC-leaning. How was she now acting for President Museveni who they had been trying to unseat?
“That is a story for another day,” Among responded curtly, and quickly indicated she wanted to conclude the matter at hand.
Buwembo could not drop the case because he was not the only person involved in the matter. While the petition required him to gather 500 signatures from the constituents, with the support of fellow activists in the constituency, they had raised over 2000 signatures, he explained to Among. These players were stakeholders and couldn’t just be wished away.
Among insisted that the petition didn’t read Buwembo and others. It read Habib Buwembo v Kato Lubwama.
Feeling cornered, Buwembo said he needed at least three days to consult. Among warned him. “If you decline the win-win, where you accept the money and drop the case,” she said, “Please note that there is the lose-win.”
What would the lose-win entail? Buwembo asked.
“Well, you don’t get the money and still don’t win in court,” Among responded calmly.
Buwembo mumbled that he had his fair shot because the judiciary is independent. “You really believe that? Among asked with a sneer, and shortly after excused herself.
“I didn’t know it then,” Buwembo said, “But looking back now, I am convinced she never forgave me.”
It would be the last time Buwembo would meet Among physically. But in a typical case of abuse of power, Among would get him severally arrested and detained, often spending hundreds of days in prison. Almost all the cases would be dropped because the complainant would not show up in court, and the prosecution couldn’t produce any evidence. Buwembo’s case is peculiar because he has been arrested and detained numerous times. But over a dozen other activists, journalists, opposition politicians, and ordinary Ugandans, have revealed that they have been targeted, harassed, tortured, detained for merely criticizing or challenging Speaker Anita Among, amidst concerns of ever-growing abuse of power and stifling of dissent by her and other ruling party functionaries with over-sized political power.
Three days after the meeting with Among, court announced that he had won. But Lubwama immediately challenged the ruling.
At the Court of Appeal, Buwembo found Justice Stephen Kavuma, then the Deputy Chief Justice. Alife-time member of the ruling party, who had served in the Resistance Council, at the party secretariat, and in different capacities as minister, before joining the judiciary, Kavuma had come to be known by the moniker ‘cadre judge’. Most of his rulings favoured the ruling party.
Buwembo had already briefed his lawyer, Isaac Ssemakadde (the current Uganda Law Society (ULS) President), about the encounter with Among. Ssemakadde had almost immediately concluded that it was clear the state had now opted for the lose-win Among had mentioned. It was pointless to expect justice from Kavuma, he said.
But Buwembo was hopeful. Kavuma had previously bungled up one of his cases. Buwembo was now convinced they could use that experience to demand Kavuma recuses himself from the case.
In 2017, Buwembo and colleagues had sued then Police Chief, General Kale Kayihura, after police had brutalised their leader Kizza Besigye and his supporters. Besigye had been sued and granted bail for attempting to swear himself in as the president of Uganda following the 2016 elections. His supporters were accompanying him to his home when police descended upon them and unleashed terror.
The day Kayihura was called to appear at Makindye Magistrate’s Court, members of Boda Boda 2010 led by Abdullah Kitata, who at the time worked closelt with the police chief, stormed court. They destabilised the court’s business, beat up people, and locked others inside court premises. The Chief Magistrate, Richard Mafabi, who had issued criminal summons against Kayihura and seven other senior police officers to answer torture charges, would later collapse and die under unclear circumstances. His wife said he died of a blood clot in the brain citing a post-mortem report, but Buwembo and other opposition activists suspected foul play.
Kavuma had picked that file, noting that that court handling it had no jurisdiction, and allocated it to himself but had gone ahead to ‘sit’ on it until the matter died out. Buwembo was convinced they could use that experience to force Kavuma out of the case. They petitioned court.
But the justice system allows judges to decide whether they are conflicted to handle a matter or not. After six months, Kavuma declined to recuse himself. In a ruling read by the court registrar, he said that he was not convinced that there were substantive grounds for him to recuse himself from the matter. He was ready to proceed and hear the case. Two and a half years later, he would retire without writing a single word on the file.
Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo (now the Chief Justice), who succeeded Kavuma as the head of the Court of Appeal, took up the case together with the two other justices (Hellen Obura and Cheborion Barishaki). They called Buwembo and his lawyer and informed them that they would be taking on the case. At that meeting, they revealed that Kavuma’s bench had not written a single word on the file. But offered assurances that they would expedite the matter and offer Buwembo justice.
A year and months later, with the nominations for a new term of office already done, around November 2020, the justices invited Buwembo and team for the ruling. When Buwembo saw the notice, he was shocked. What kind of ruling were they going to read without hearing us, Buwembo recalls wondering.
“We immediately resolved that the lawyer remains behind, and I represent myself,” Buwembo noted. On the day of the ruling, only Barishaki was there. Buwembo didn’t wait. He shot up and said he had an issue to address to court.
“If you may recall, my lord,” he said, “the last day we appeared before you, you were introducing yourselves.”
He added: “You notified us that the former bench had done nothing about the file. The current bench which you are part of has not heard from us. Now, what kind of ruling are we here for?”
“Are you serious? the justice asked seemingly taken by surprise.
“No, is this the case?” he muttered, before asking for a 30-minute adjournment.
When he returned, he apologised and noted that they had mixed up the files. Buwembo wondered what would have happened if he had not been bold enough to question the justice. He resolved to ask his entire bench to also recuse itself from the matter because “they already had a ruling in mind”.
Another six months passed without any communication from the justices. Eventually, after the elections were done, and the defendant, Kato Lubwama had even lost the election for another term, they called and gave the ruling, agreeing to recuse themselves from the bench.
A new bench was constituted. It involved Justices Irene Mulyagonja, Geoffrey Kiryabwire, and Elizabeth Musoke. Around November 2021, they heard from Buwembo and team. Their ruling came in December 2021. Buwembo won and was awarded losses and damages.
But by now, Kato Lubwama, had completed his five year term of office, and even lost the election for the second term in parliament. It had taken over 5 years.The law says that all election petition matters should be accorded expeditious process.
Nevertheless, Buwembo applied for damages of a billion shillings, which Kato challenged, saying it was exaggerated.
However, since it was a political matter and Kato had lost a political position, Buwembo wasn’t too keen on pursuing the debt. He was mostly sympathetic to Kato Lubwama. Kato later died of health complications.
“I pronounced that I had forgiven the debt,” Buwembo said, “I even wrote to court about the same. But the unfortunate part of the story is that Kato died when he had also not been given justice. He died when his application was not yet fixed for hearing.”
He added: “That leaves us wondering if they say that courts are temples of justice. In that story, where do you see justice?”
Yet his troubles were just beginning.
