“The President’s man”

How Stephen Nuwagaba has manipulated powerful individuals and extorted large sums of money from them

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION TEAM | On March 17, 2025, Gen Salim Saleh received a visitor sent to him by human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo at his residence in Gulu. The visitor said his name is Steven Nuwagaba, and he is 26 years old. He said he had been tortured by the Chieftaincy of Defence Intelligence and Security (CDIS) and that his genitals were broken. He said the architects of his ordeal were the Chief of CDIS, Maj Gen James Birungi, and his deputy, Brig Abdul Rugumayo. After torturing him, Nuwagaba told Saleh he was dumped at the Rwandan high commission in Kampala where the torture continued.

Why Rwanda? Apparently because he had been involved in the case of one Mutabazi, a former bodyguard to President Paul Kagame who had been living in exile in Uganda. Mutabazi had run away to Uganda in 2011 and was repatriated to Rwanda by Uganda authorities in 2013. Mutabazi was tried in an open court of law in Rwanda and sentenced to life in prison. According to his claims, Nuwagaba was born in 1999 (although his passport says 1998). How, then, could he have gotten involved in the case of Mutabazi when he was only 13 or 14 years? Saleh did not ask.

According to sources close to Saleh, the general was not convinced that this was a tortured person based on how he looked. So, he called the 4^th Division in Gulu and asked their medical personnel to examine Nuwagaba and send a medical report. Saleh followed this telephone call with a handwritten note to the doctor at 4^th Division, introducing Nuwagaba, and asking them to do a medical examination of his claims. Nuwagaba left but did not come back to Saleh.  Indeed, as weeks passed and given his very busy schedule, Saleh forgot about the Nuwagaba matter.

Then one day in May, President Yoweri Museveni called Gen. Saleh. He asked him why he (Saleh) and his military assistant, Col James Nkojo, had abducted a citizen and tortured him. Taken aback, Saleh asked the president who this citizen was. When Museveni said Nuwagaba, Saleh did not even remember the name. But upon the president explaining the person, Saleh realised it was the young man whom he had sent to 4^th Division for a medical examination. So, he told the president his history with Nuwagaba and his efforts to help him. According to sources Saleh talked to after this incident, the president was taken aback and said, “Ok, let me handle it.”

Nuwagaba had gone to see Opiyo and claimed he had been tortured by CMI. He said he had been working in Qatar during the World Cup as part of security. That when he returned to Uganda, he dated a girl who turned out to be an ex-wife of Hashim Magogo, husband of the speaker of parliament, Anita Among. Then, Nuwagaba told Opiyo, Magogo got wind of the relationship, became angry and asked a CMI agent called Capt Amis Ainebyona to arrest him. Nuwabaga claimed that Ainebyona took him to a dungeon, tortured and then released him. But Magogo did not feel that was punishment enough. So Ainebyona, this time working with one Charles Twine, who was working with CID at parliament, rearrested Nuwagaba. He did not mention anything to do with the Rwanda High Commission.

Opiyo called the then CDIS deputy chief, Rugumayo, and asked him to investigate the case. Rugumayo did and found some truths in the allegations. He promised to compensate Nuwagaba, which he never did. At this point, Opiyo called the CEO of The Independent, Andrew Mwenda, and reported the failure of CMI to act. He asked Mwenda to help reach the Chief of CDIS, Maj Gen Birungi. Mwenda called Birungi and asked him to intervene and help Nuwagaba get justice. Birungi intervened in the case and compensated him with Shs 10m. Nuwagaba had claimed CDIS had confiscated his passport, and they could not find it. Birungi called immigration, and they gave Nuwagaba a new passport. The new passport turned out to be sharing a number with another passport. Nuwagaba later claimed that he was stopped at the border with Kenya as he was going to get medical treatment because of his torture.

According to Opiyo, Saleh had referred him [Opiyo] to Crispy Kaheru, working for the Uganda Human Rights Commission. Opiyo felt Kaheru was not helpful. So, Opiyo wrote to Saleh again to intervene. Saleh told Opiyo that he had found a lot of inconsistencies in Nuwagaba’s story, as the young man “makes many false and wild allegations”. One of these “false and wild” allegations was him (Nuwagaba) being dumped by CMI at the Rwanda High Commission. He had also claimed to be a grandson of some old man from Kiruhura. Saleh had checked with the family of that old man, and they had said they don’t know anyone called Stephen Nuwagaba.

It was at this time that Nuwagaba went back to Opiyo and asked to help him write a letter to President Museveni introducing him to the chief of state. After drafting the letter and reflecting on what he heard and learnt about the character of the young man, Opiyo decided not to give the draft to him because Nuwagaba was acting in a suspicious manner. Besides, Saleh’s statement that Nuwagaba was making many false and wild claims had cast doubt in the human rights lawyer’s mind. Around this time, Saleh had learnt that Nuwagaba was now living in State House, Nakasero, and sent Opiyo an email telling him that Nuwagaba was under the protection of the president and the SFC. The torture victim had become powerful.

It seems Rugumayo had deliberately created a distance between him and Nuwagaba after realising that the young man was playing a risky game. According to CDIS files, Nuwagaba had initially been hired by Among to fight Magogo’s other wife or ex-wife. Indeed, she had given him money and deliberately encouraged him to sleep with the lady and even photograph themselves in bed. Then Among would use other people to leak these pictures to Magogo, showing him that his other wife is not faithful. Those close to Magogo-Among claim that the trick worked and Magogo abandoned the relationship. When this worked, Among stopped financing Nuwagaba. But the young man did not want to stop the money from coming in.

Nuwagaba decided on blackmail. He went to Magogo to extort money from him. He threatened to expose his relationship with the lady he had already left. Magogo refused to give them money. Then he went to Among, saying he would expose her role in financing him to sleep with her husband’s other wife. She paid them off. He went again for more. At this time, Among realised the blackmail would not end. So, she joined hands with her husband against Nuwagaba. They asked CDIS to intervene and arrest Nuwagaba.

Gen Birungi sent a CDIS agent, Amis Ainebyona, to investigate the matter and, if true, arrest Nuwagaba. But Birungi did not know that this Ainebyona was a crook. Seeing possibilities of making money, Ainebyona initially joined hands with Nuwagaba to try to extort Among. But along the way they fought over their loot and fell out. It is then that Ainebyona grabbed Nuwagaba and took him to a dungeon and kept him there.

Soon tables were to turn in favour of Nuwagaba. He found a way to reach former CDIS chief, Maj Gen Abel Kandiho who took him to the president. Once he met the president, the two sold him tall tales of the young man’s technical and intelligence skills. Nuwagaba was given a house inside the State House. As he settled down in State House and won the personal confidence of the president, Nuwagaba sprung his net. He began collecting “patriotic” young people and taking them to the president to provide “intelligence”.

Among these is Frank Kivuna, son of the veteran UPDF soldier Col Poteri Kivuna. Then he recruited a police officer called CP Enock Abaine and one SSP Annabel Nyinamahoro. These became informers to the president on security agencies. They also became spokespersons of Nuwagaba. They would write “reports” to the president claiming that some “subversive people inside the state security agencies are fighting a good cadre (Nuwagaba)”.

How did these reports come about? Apparently, Nuwagaba had got wind of the fact that the Chief of CDIS, Maj Gen Richard Otto, the Director General of ISO, Maj. Arthur Mugyenyi, the commander of the 4^th Division, Keith Katungi, former deputy SFC commander, Charity Ainababo, the former head of intelligence in SFC, Allan Matsiko, had all written reports to the president saying that Nuwagaba is a fraud. Sources say that all these officers had sought and gotten an audience with the president and personally spoken to him about the falsifications Nuwagaba was making and how dangerous they were to national security.

To counter them, Nuwagaba now began taking informers to the president to make counter reports and supply intelligence on how security institutions had been “infiltrated and compromised”. In one report to the president by Frank Kivuna titled “Urgent security concerns regarding the growing influence of rogue elements within the UPDF and Uganda Police” the plan of Nuwagaba is clear. Kivuna claims that he had been approached by some elements to participate in a campaign against Nuwagaba. The reports that Nuwagaba peddles lies and falsehoods to the president are presented as subservice efforts to sideline a loyal cadre.

Yet Nuwagaba’s lies and fabrications are too glaring to ignore. In 2025, he came to The Independent offices, where one of our staff interviewed him. He claimed to have been arrested by Magogo and Among over issues to do with women. That is also the story he told Opiyo. But the story he told Saleh is different, claiming he was “abducted” by Birungi and Rugumayo and then dumped at the Rwanda high commission in Kampala. But to President Museveni, he claimed to have been abducted and tortured by Saleh and Nkojo. To our staffers and on X Space, he claimed to have studied cybersecurity in Malaysia. But to SCF, he claimed to have studied hacking at Kings College London.

Meanwhile, to ISO, Nuwagaba claimed to have been trained in IDF and joined Mossad, all of which these agencies cross-checked and found to be fake. Yet he has been peddling IDs of these institutions, published with this story. He lied to security minister Jim Muhwezi, that he was in touch with exiled Kakwenza which turned out be false. Indeed, Nuwagaba has been collecting money from many government and government-affiliated officials on claims that he is bringing back Kakwenza to Uganda. Among the victims of his extortion are Anita Among, Capt Mike Mukula, the Director General of External Security Organisation (ESO), Joseph Ocwet, and Crime Intelligence chief, Brig Damulira Serunjoji.

According to sources, Nuwagaba contacted Crime Intelligence (CI) using his status as a State House person and claimed to be in direct contact with novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija. When The Independent contacted Kakwenza, the author denied ever talking to the young man. But Nuwagaba gave CI a German telephone number which he claimed was for Kakwenza and with which he had been chatting on WhatsApp. CI agents began talking to Kakwenza on that number and even gave it to their boss, Damulira, to speak to the exiled author. Then one day Nuwagaba went to see Damulira in his office. During the conversation, the CI chief recognised that Nuwagaba’s voice was exactly that of Kakwenza he had been speaking to on the phone. That is when he saw the fraud and kicked him out of his office and stopped all the money they were giving him to give to Kakwenza.