Leading opposition figure Dr. Kiiza Besigye has thrown bitter words to government over the arrest of controversial author and activist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija.
“Mr RUKIRABASHAIJA (name means bigger than all men), was arrested from his Iganga home &has been detained in Mbuya military barracks for a week. Suspected cause of detention &torture is a book he authored recently- GREEDY BARBARIAN.” Besigye noted adding that Application for Habeas Corpus not yet heard!
The author of a now popular book “The Greedy Barbarian” went missing and thought to be in the hands of security forces.
A Facebook friend one Fiona Orikiriza reported Tuesday that Kakwenza was arrested on Monday under mysterious circumstances.
“His whereabouts are not yet known neither the reason for the arrest! I implore all his friends to post this piece of sad news on his timeline and share it!” she noted.
Dickens Okello Honeystraw, a journalist with ChimpReports website, said “Kakwenza Rukira shared with me some screenshots yesterday [Monday] at 13:30.”
Possible trouble
Rukira is a writer and a law student at Cavendish university school of law
He is the Executive Director at Kakwenza Education Fund and hails from Kebisoni, Rukungiri, Uganda.
He authored a book which is believed to be critical of the ruling first family.
He is said to have been picked up by security agents, allegedly, for ‘cyber harassment.’
The Observer cartoonist and lecturer Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, in his review of the book as printed on the back cover, says “… the novel is bound for a bang.” I get the feeling that the arrest is the figurative bang here. Not that the book is grim or harassing as alleged.
The book, set in two fictitious neighbouring countries, is an account of Kayibanda, a boy who partly raises himself up because his mother (Bekunda) is too busy to, until she meets with the boy’s step-father and their saviour Kagurutsi after fleeing their native country.
Kagurutsi tries so much to straighten up the already bent twig in Kayibanda that appears to have dried young. No success.
Kayibanda is mischief personified, the antagonist within a protagonist.
It is from this point that the personification of Kayibanda is crystalised.
“The Greedy Barbarian is bold, sarcastic and, indeed, a bang! The portrayal of many native African cultural practices such as witch craft and wizardry is quite spellbinding,” writes senior journalist and humourist Jacobs Odongo Seamon.
Extract from the new novel: ‘The Greedy Barbarian’ (2020), by Kakwenza Rukira.
“Bekunda became Kagurutsi’s wife and Kayibanda became their son. Kayibanda easily got assimilated into the situation because he had never seen his father, so he innocently believed that Kagurutsi was his biological father. He obeyed and loved him as much as he would have loved his own father. The trio were now a happy family. Kayibanda was happy; Bekunda was happy; and so was Kagurutsi. The happiest, however, was Kayibanda because he enjoyed the wilderness life of being with cows and sheep. He enjoyed eating roast meat every time a cow or sheep died…”
