Tears Flow as Eddie Mutwe’s Daughter Prevented from Reaching Him in Court

It was a moment that lasted less than a minute, but its emotional weight will linger for much longer. When Edward Ssebuufu, better known as Eddie Mutwe, was led into the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Kawempe alongside fellow activist Achileo Kivumbi, the courtroom fell silent. The silence broke only when a child, Eddie’s young daughter, rushed forward to greet her father.

She barely made it halfway before prison warders swept her up and carried her out. In that instant, Mutwe’s face crumbled. He raised his shackled hands ever so slightly, as if to reach out, but the distance remained unbridgeable. Kivumbi, standing by his side, bowed his head, visibly overwhelmed. Supporters in the gallery wiped tears, some muttering prayers, others shaking their heads in disbelief.

For many Ugandans, Mutwe is known as a fierce opposition figure and close aide to Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine. He has faced repeated arrests, beatings, and humiliations at the hands of security forces. But in that courtroom, he was not a political detainee. He was simply a father yearning to embrace his child.

“Prison strips away many things—freedom, dignity, even hope sometimes,” said one supporter outside court. “But to strip away the touch of your own child… that is inhumane.”

Families of political prisoners often bear a silent weight. Children grow up with absent parents, wives and husbands juggle survival with the constant fear of rearrests, and aging parents battle despair. For Mutwe’s daughter, today was another reminder that her father’s love must travel through prison bars and courtroom walls.

“She doesn’t understand why she cannot hug her father,” a family member confided. “She only knows he is there, but unreachable. Imagine explaining that to a child.”

A Cycle of Pain

Kivumbi, too, showed the strain. Though less publicly known than Mutwe, he has walked the same painful road of arrests and courtrooms. As the two men stood together, their expressions carried the weight of hundreds of Ugandan families who live this reality daily.

The courtroom drama reflected a broader truth: opposition politics in Uganda is not fought only on the streets or in Parliament. It is fought in living rooms where children ask when their fathers are coming home, in kitchens where meals are stretched thinner because a breadwinner is in prison, and in visits cut short by prison guards who bark more than they speak.

The legal arguments of the day faded into the background. What people carried home from Kawempe was not the fine print of charges, but the sight of a father and child kept apart. It became a symbol of how political struggles bleed into private lives, leaving scars no court ruling can erase.

For Eddie Mutwe and Achileo Kivumbi, the battle continues inside the courtroom. For their families, the battle is outside—finding resilience in separation, hope in despair, and strength in the simple belief that love can outlast politics.

As supporters left the court compound, one man summed it up quietly: “You can chain a man’s hands, but you cannot chain his heart. That child knows her father loves her. And that love is stronger than their prison walls.”