KAMPALA- Fugitive National Unity Platform (NUP) blogger, Fred Lumbuye, has outsmarted his pursuers after a suspected tipoff and is now headed to a European country anytime from now.
Lumbuye has become a subject of political and social Ping-Pong between NUP and National Resistance Movement activists and state actors following expiry of his immigration status in Turkey from where he has been spewing a social media hate campaign against top officials in government, the military, the religious institutions and the Kabaka of Buganda.
MediaScape News was last night tipped off a fundraising meeting involving top actors in the NUP party, local and international lawyers who converged via Zoom technology to raise funds and also mount a political and legal machinery to block his deportation and secure political asylum for him in the Netherlands.
Lumbuye, who lost his immigration status in Turkey where he has been living for a couple of years, was slated for deportation late last week until suddenly, the Turkish authorities changed their mind and decided to hold him until further notice.
MediaScape has learnt that this meeting was convened after Ugandan Foreign Affairs officials went over the moon and started talking triumphantly about imminent Lumbuye’s deportation unknowingly complicating what would have been a simple immigration issue for which the Turkish government had successfully charged Lumbuye.
It is this act by the Ugandan officials that tipped off NUP activists to take to technology and cyber spaces to mobilize against his deportation, prompting last night’s zoom meeting.
Lumbuye’s lawyers who kept updating the meeting on possible legal hurdles as well as loopholes to exploit, are engaging several European countries to find out if there is any willing to offer safe haven to Lumbuye other than have him handed to Ugandan authorities.
Sources from the zoom meeting say that Lumbuye’s lawyers revealed that Netherlands is the country that has already expressed interest in offering asylum to Lumbuye but did not confirm saying; “Discussions and negotiations were still ongoing,” by the time the zoom meeting ended.
Lumbuye is said to have an active attorney in Turkey who is engaging Turkish authorities to prevent a politically motivated deportation.
Sources in Turkey tell MediaScape News that some Turkish authorities got pissed off after some Ugandan actors bangled what would have been a seamlessly normal immigration- abuse deportation.
They decided to hold him under Turkish law as precaution against a potential international backlash that the country suffered when a US-based Saudi journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia’s government, Jamal Khashoggi, walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was murdered.
Now, sources in NUP further tell MediaScape News that human rights lawyers linked to the party have joined the frenzy to file documents with the United Nations and the Human Rights Council to prevent Lumbuye’s possible deportation citing Article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, 1994 which states that:
“No state party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
A disappointed source close to Ugandan authorities says there was no need to extradite him because there is no existing extradition agreement between Uganda and Turkey. The source adds that all Uganda authorities needed was to have played it cool and allow Turkey to formally deport Lumbuye home because of his immigration abuse issues.
“But because politicians jumped on it and excited themselves over it, Lumbuye’s sympathizers immediately designed a Plan B,” a source said.
The source says the feeling in Uganda is that excited political actors might have unknowingly turned Lumbuye into a political martyr who is slowly and potentially being elevated from a suspected immigration criminal and defamation peddler to a sudden human rights defender worthy of a genuine political asylum in Europe.
In a move that shows how NUP might have outsmarted the state and are already aware of the moves to move Lumbuye to a third country, party spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi, tweeted this morning in a manner that seemed to mock the Ugandan authorities:
“3 days ago, Foreign Affairs State Minister Okello Oryem said political activist Fred Lumbuye was on a flight to Uganda having been deported by Turkey& that on arrival police would hold him & produce him in court. Since Govt was aware of the trip, they should account for his whereabouts.”
And indeed, despite some Ugandan authorities saying Lumbuye was already in the country by Thursday last week, the blogger is nowhere to be seen and our exclusive story is proof that he is headed somewhere else.
The zoom meeting:
Last night’s meeting was said to have been chaired by one Naava Becky and was attended by several party officials and coordinators in top European, American, Asian and African cities. Our sources who attended the meeting provided screenshots to prove the meeting took place and we reproduce some of them here.
The meeting was chaired by one Becky Naava, and co-hosted by Herman A (Boston), Kasim Nsereko and one Susan (both based in the Netherlands). Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Zaake, who is currently in Turkey on parliamentary duties, joined in later.
The source revealed that the hosts provided key bank accounts belonging to NUP chapters in the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Nairobi, Norway, Bahrain and New York which will be used to mobilize funds to support the legal machinery negotiating on behalf of Lumbuye.
During the meeting, a lot was discussed including preventing his deportation, negotiating with the Netherlands and raising funds to support logistical requirements for the operation.
Members who attended were strictly told not to reveal these efforts as efforts are underway to officially announce the fundraising drive.
This is still a developing story.