Joseph Kabuleta, the President of the National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED), a recently formed political party, has been arrested.
Kabuleta was picked up on Monday from NEED offices in Kampala by security operatives shortly after he had held the party’s weekly press conference.
NEED tweeted shortly after Kabuleta’s arrest: “President Kabuleta has been abducted by army men not in uniform from his Need Offices, Bugolobi and taken to CID Kibuli right after his national address about the security issues in the country.”
It was not immediately clear why he was taken but Kabuleta, who is a former presidential candidate in the 2021 General Election, has been increasingly critical of government policies, especially on handling the Ebola pandemic and over the misuse of funds meant for Covid-19 fight.
Kabuleta, who is also an evangelist, was in 2019 arrested on charges of offensive communication against President Yoweri Museveni.
By then, he had been publishing articles on his social media platforms about the succession battle that is raging within the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM). Mr Museveni, the NRM chairman has been in power for 33 years.
