“Surely some revelation is at hand; surely the second coming is at hand… The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out when a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight." —W.B. Yeats.

How do we fathom this sort of barbarism—a barbarism that rips dissidents of their dignity and humanity, a barbarism that transfuses such individuals into vegetables for their independent thought?

How do you go to bed after watching the grotesque images of your torture victims, drooling saliva, struggling to get to their feet, chewing their tongues so they can beg for mercy with their hefty lips? How do you rewrite the country’s history in your favour, or how do you convince posterity that this was indeed the liberation you wished for the country?

31 July 2026, a video recording of frail Sam Mugumya surfaced. He was seated on a plastic chair, his lower body wilting away, his haggard eyes pleading for breath, and his grimace was one of a dying man begging for death to relieve him. Next to him was a rollator that he kept reaching out for—wanting to stand, to fight one more time—but it rather seemed out of his grasp.

Looking at Sam, in that plastic chair, writhing for breath, one question dawdles in my head: Has any of us savoured sorrow as Sam has? Or is there any freedom fighter who has trekked through political infernos like Sam? Sam’s predicament screams one truth: man is a beast, and man with power is worse than a beast, for beasts do not de-beastise other beasts—for man, at the clench of power, never hesitates to dehumanise fellow man. That’s the difference.

On 26 August 2025, shortly after Sam had returned from exile in Zambia, anonymous armed men picked him up from a hotel in Mbarara, whisked him away, and just like any other victim of state abduction, his whereabouts became history. All the responsible bodies denied ever knowing of Sam’s whereabouts, just like they have denied knowing about any others’, until by luck, such individuals resurfaced in the public, crippled, dead, or unconscious.

Before Zambia, Sam had spent eight years in Ndolo Military Prison on charges of attempting to topple the Museveni regime and illegal entry into the Democratic Republic of Congo. All these were fabricated charges; Sam’s only crime had been refusing to be coy of the Museveni government—he had wittily spoken of its chasms and called it for what it is: a military dictatorship with no sense of direction—and because they had failed to buy him off, they had resorted to annihilating him before one of his friends in the military tipped him off to the plans to murder him. That’s what transpired before Sam ran to the DRC for refuge, whose refuge was but eight years in a maximum-security prison.

And today, almost a year later, Sam is being held in the ‘basement’, and now his grotesque photos and videos are on the internet. And now, we also know who is in charge of the basement—Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, has unremittingly confessed to overseeing these torture chambers. He has tweeted about it. He has bluffed about it. He has even released several photos of his victims in the basements.

Some of the survivors who were with Sam have told his story: He is in an SFC gaol in Entebbe. The military beat him to a pulp. He cannot sit for so long. He spits blood. When he coughs, his neck hurts. His legs are paralysed from torture. They have starved him of food; thus, his stomach stings, perhaps, from acute stomach ulcers, and he is malnourished. Not even the vile Satan does that to his enemies. Sam’s tormentors are cannibals. They have no heart.

At the same time, this happens when Dr Kizza Besigye is in the intensive care unit after he collapsed in the court—a colosseum presided over by Baguma, a judge without a conscience—as he confronted his tormentors to stop the political games and let justice breathe. Also, his lawyers are equally scrambling to escape the grip of the rigged system—Eron Kiiza is in exile; he was once arrested for representing Dr Kizza Besigye and Obeid, and he has since then been threatened; Erias Lukwago is in prison, even with his deteriorating health condition; Counsel Martha Karua was deported and barred from representing her clients.

Dissent has become treachery. Museveni and his son can tolerate a thief who swindles money meant for hospitals but loathe a man, or woman, who calls Ugandans to an awakening—an unarmed man who tells Ugandans that they are indeed captives of Museveni’s servitude. They do not want awakened people. Awakened people are rebellious. And rebellion is the beginning of consciousness. And a conscious mind can never accept stupefaction. A conscious people questions, and through these questions, a people resists.

Of course, Sam was a rebel—a rebel of words of hope but a rebel without a gun—and to ignore that truth and instead disrobe him of his peace of mind, having spent half of his youth in prison and fighting for his life, is to prove to the world that, indeed, the Museveni era has been one of savagery.

Revisiting Museveni’s speech of January 29, 1986, where he said that the security of the people of Uganda is their right and not a favour bestowed to them by any regime and that no regime has a right to kill any citizen of the country, one only comes to one inference: Museveni is a chronic liar and a manipulator with no sense of remorse—a liar with one goal: ruling the nation even when it does not want to be ruled.

However, it is admissible that regimes, however tyrannical, come to an end. When the oppressor, like Museveni, pushes people to the wall; when murdering critics and dissidents is the game; when fear is a language; and when life is uncertain, the vanquished, ultimately, outgrow the dire tune of thraldom and realise that injustice is rain that beats every rooftop—and who can stop them after recognising their condition?

I share this hope with all Ugandans: every regime, however ruthless, reaches its end. History has never granted permanence to those who govern through fear. The prisons they build, the lies they tell, and the terror they unleash cannot forever extinguish a people's longing for freedom.

No one is immune to injustice. Today it is Sam Mugumya. Yesterday it was Dr Kizza Besigye. Tomorrow it could be anyone whose only offence is to think freely or speak honestly. That is why indifference is no longer an option. A nation cannot survive when its citizens wait for suffering to knock on their own doors before they recognise its existence.

The struggle before us, therefore, is not merely political; it is moral. It demands that Ugandans reject fear, defend one another, insist on accountability, and refuse to normalise brutality. The rope of tyranny is not severed by becoming what the tyrant is, but by denying him the obedience, silence, and legitimacy upon which his power depends. And when that day comes, it will not simply mark the end of a regime—it will mark the beginning of a nation that remembers, mourns, and resolves never again to permit such barbarism.