VANISHING ACT IN EAST AFRICA

When Citizens Disappear Without a Trace!

Nicholas Oyoo and Bob Ngagi Missing

Pole Pole Missing

Sam Mugumya Missing

Ugandans Abducted and others in prison with justice

📸 Courtesy of Agora Discourse

Across East Africa, citizens are vanishing abducted in the dead of night or broad daylight, often by men in uniform or unmarked vehicles. Families wait in agony, governments deny involvement, and justice never comes. In Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya, this grim practice has morphed into a regional campaign of intimidation and silence. What began as isolated “security operations” has become a cross-border system of enforced disappearance a crime outlawed by international law.

The list of missing citizens grows longer ever year. Among the most haunting cases is Sam Mugumya, a Ugandan opposition activist and ally of Dr. Kizza Besigye who was also abducted from Kenya and turned up in Uganda’s Courts and charged with treason. Mugumya was abducted in Mbarara in 2025 by unidentified security operatives. Despite court orders demanding his production, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Two Kenyan 🇰🇪 nationals, Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, were recently abducted in Uganda. Eyewitnesses say their captors wore police-style uniforms, yet the Uganda Police spokesperson, insists there is no record of their arrest.

In Tanzania 🇹🇿 , critics such as Edgar Mwakabela (Sativa) have been abducted, tortured, and dumped in remote areas. Journalist Azory Gwanda disappeared years ago and has never been found.

The abductions and torture extended beyond Ugandan citizens to include individuals across borders, such as Boniface Mwangi, a Kenyan activist, and Agatha Atuhaire, a Ugandan lawyer and journalist. Both were abducted and tortured in Tanzania before being released and abandoned near the border. These names Yasin Machete , Sam Mugumya , Nicholas Oyoo ,Bob Njagi , Pole Pole ,Gwanda , form part of a larger shadow list of East Africans who vanished for speaking their minds.

Arrest and Detention

Under the constitutions of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania:

• Arrest must be lawful and justified.

• Detainees must be told immediately why they’re held.

• They must see a court within 48 hours and access a lawyer.

Yet enforced disappearances routinely violate all of these protections. Arrests without warrants, secret detentions, and prolonged incommunicado custody have become normalized.

Extradition between states requires:

• A formal treaty or mutual assistance agreement.

• A court hearing in the country of arrest.

• A right to challenge extradition and ensure no risk of torture (non-refoulement).

Abducting people across borders without process as seen with Njagi and Oyoo  amounts to illegal rendition, breaching both domestic law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Treaties and Obligations Violated

Treaty / Convention	Core Protection	Ratified By
ICCPR (1966)	Prohibits arbitrary arrest, ensures due process	All three
Convention Against Torture (1984)	Absolute ban on torture, secret detention	All three
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981)	Guarantees liberty and fair trial	All three
Convention on Enforced Disappearances (2006)	Criminalizes and obliges investigation of disappearances	Kenya (ratified); Uganda & Tanzania not yet ratified

Each of these instruments is routinely flouted when citizens vanish without record or recourse.

In June 2025, UN Human Rights experts expressed alarm over a “pattern of enforced disappearance and torture in Tanzania.” Similar warnings have been directed at Uganda and Kenya, whose security agencies stand accused of coordinating secret detentions under the guise of regional intelligence sharing.

The states’ responses have been denials and deflection. Investigations, when opened, end quietly without prosecutions or accountability.

These disappearances expose a deeper crisis: the collapse of rule of law. East Africa cannot claim democratic legitimacy while citizens vanish in darkness. The impunity emboldens perpetrators and terrifies the public.

The East African Community (EAC) was founded on principles of justice and human rights yet its member states now violate the very ideals they pledged to uphold.

• Accountability: Publish official detainee registers and investigate missing-person reports.

• Judicial Oversight: Courts must enforce habeas corpus orders immediately.

• Civil Society Unity: Regional activists and journalists must coordinate efforts to expose abuses.

• International Pressure: Aid and partnerships should depend on human-rights compliance.

  
  

Every disappeared citizen is a silent indictment of state power gone rogue. From Sam Mugumya to Bob Njagi, Nicholas Oyoo, and the many others hidden in “safe houses” and prisons, denied justice their absence exposes the rot of impunity that stains our nations. Enforced disappearance is not just a legal crime; it is a moral scar on East Africa’s conscience. Until they return, our freedom remains an illusion, and our silence becomes complicity in their suffering.

To every Ugandan, Kenyan, Tanzanian, and East African, the time for fear has passed. Silence is surrender. When one voice speaks, it can be silenced but when we rise together, our unity becomes revolution. Let us refuse to normalize torture, abductions, and dictatorship. As elections draw near, we must hold our leaders accountable, protest injustice, and refuse to vote tyranny back into power. Our liberation will not come from the state it will come from our collective courage to speak, to act, and to resist.