Kampala, Uganda | URN | Details have emerged of how human rights activist and lawyer Aloikin Praise Opoloje was reportedly taken by force to a yet unknown detention centre from Namungoona Police Station after she was summoned over a carpet theft complaint. Opoloje, a member of Agora Discourse, had gone to the police station with a friend and the disputed carpet, expecting to explain why she believed it belonged to her.
Instead, according to her friend Raus Ninsima, events at the station quickly took a different turn, with men she says identified themselves as security operatives telling Opoloje that she had been under surveillance. Ninsima, who had visited Opoloje at her home in Namungoona earlier that day, told Uganda Radio Network that the sequence of events left her convinced that the carpet complaint had been used to get Opoloje to the police station.
The incident began earlier in the day when Opoloje reportedly collected her carpet from a car-washing and carpet-cleaning business near her home. At about 1:00 pm, Ninsima said the carpet washer called Opoloje and claimed that the carpet she had collected belonged to another woman, whose housemaid had reportedly come looking for it. Opoloje maintained that the carpet was hers.
To establish ownership, Ninsima said they took photographs and videos of the carpet and sent them to the washer, asking him to share them with the woman so that she could compare them with her own. According to Ninsima, the photographs were not opened. The woman later reportedly called Opoloje directly and, when asked to describe her carpet, gave details that did not match the one in Opoloje’s possession.
Opoloje then asked for a WhatsApp number to which she could send the photographs and videos, but the woman reportedly said she did not use WhatsApp and would instead report the matter to police. “I intervened and told the woman to go to the police, and we would come with our carpet and prove our ownership, and then she hung up. Shortly, the carpet washer called and said the woman had gone to the police,” Ninsima narrated.
At around 6:30 pm, Opoloje received a call from Namungoona Police Station informing her that a case of carpet theft had been reported against her and asking her to report to the station. Ninsima said they asked for directions and went to the police station, located near Namungoona Orthodox Church, carrying the disputed carpet. It was at the station, she said, that the situation became confusing.
“When we reached the counter, we inquired about the case, but the officer on the counter told us to proceed to another room. Inside that room, a man in a maroon shirt was already waiting. He did not ask about any carpet,” Ninsima said. Instead, according to Ninsima, the man told them that security operatives had been tracking Opoloje and that she was going to be taken to the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF).
“He started telling us that they have been tracking my friend. That the operatives from Defence Intelligence and Security, formerly CMI, had been tracking her and they were going to take her to the CDF,” Ninsima said. Ninsima said Opoloje then realised that the carpet complaint might not have been the reason she had been summoned and began taking photographs of the man with her phone. She said an army officer then emerged and attempted to stop Opoloje from recording, sparking a scuffle.
Ninsima said officers in army-green uniforms subsequently called in other operatives dressed in plain clothes. Outside the station, she said, a van, registration number UA875AG locally described as a drone, was already parked near the entrance with its engine running. “They dragged and pushed Praise inside and disappeared. When I tried to intervene, I was put at gunpoint and later asked to leave the police station,” Ninsima said.
She added that one of the officers at the reception told her that Opoloje would be taken to Entebbe Police Station, where they allegedly handle “indisciplined people of her calibre.” Opoloje’s whereabouts remained unknown as of press time. The reported incident came only hours after Opoloje had recorded and widely shared a video in which she criticised Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces.
The reported circumstances of her disappearance have since triggered concern among lawyers and human rights activists. The Uganda Law Society has called for her immediate release, while lawyers and civil society actors have demanded that authorities account for where she is being held. Police and defence authorities had not publicly confirmed her detention location or legal status as of Sunday, September 27. Opoloje has previously been involved in civic and human rights activism.
She was among activists arrested during anti-corruption protests in 2024 and later granted bail; the case against her and two others was eventually dismissed in 2025 after repeated failure by the prosecution to produce witnesses. The latest reported incident has therefore raised fresh questions about the treatment of civic activists and the circumstances under which people are summoned to police stations and subsequently taken away by security personnel.
