Kakwenza recollects his time in dungeons

And trouble responded with vengeance.
“In the next minutes, I was bundled into a waiting white drone (Toyota Hiace Van), which had parked at my gate in the company of another of the same make and two other small white and grey Toyota Corolla cars,” he writes of his arrest.
Blindfolded and bound, he was soon delivered to the Crime Intelligence Directorate in Naguru, a Kampala suburb. But then, after fifteen minutes, he was on the road again connecting to the Entebbe Express Highway en route a military barracks that he designates as “torture dungeons.”
He then narrates how he was routinely beaten until his legs were swollen and how he was made to dance, too. Here Kakwenza’s gift for gallows humour comes alive as he relates how the last time he danced was when he was 14 years. In trying to imitate Michael Jackson, the satirist further reveals, he turned the dance floor into a casualty ward.
“Accidentally, my hand swatted into a boy’s head with a whack, the leg stretched into his crotch with an indescribable swoosh, and he groaned. I was shown exit, and I vowed never to dance again,” he writes.

The humour aside, here he was in military custody back in December of 2021, handcuffed and blindfolded. He was being forced to dance an excruciating dance as his swollen legs ached for respite and reggae music blared in the background. He was made to dance the whole night and only when he rested momentarily did he realise that he was in the company of about six other detainees who had been subjected to the same dance with death, so to speak.

The lurid details of his torture are brought to vivid life as agony amplifies his every word. His experience is harrowing enough to make every government critic give pause and give thanks that they were not in Kakwenza’s proverbial shoes.  
He is subjected to so much pain that when he is made to make an apology in order to stay the stick he is being beaten with, he grasps at the carrot.
“I, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija from Rukungiri do hereby apologise to you, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Muhoozi Kainerugaba. I promise that I will never criticise nor write about you again. Please find a place in your heart and forgive me. I LIED (emphasis his),” he narrates.

The phoney apology lands him a meeting with Gen Kainerugaba. The latter comes across as firm and somewhat forbidding in his demeanour, sending chills down Kakwenza’s spine. Kakwenza then claims that he is offered, by the General, a chance to join the many so-called opposition leaders who have been bought off and so do not have to suffer the ignominy of being reduced to being subhuman by the torture he suffered.
At this point, the story seems somewhat surreal as Gen Kainerugaba seemingly transfigures, by way of his menacing calm and sweet-talking, into a Pablo Escobar incarnate. This happens because Gen Kainerugaba’s offer remotely echoes the infamous “Plata o plomo”, which translates from Spanish to “silver or lead”, meaning “money or bullets.”

This phrase was used by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar who would offer government officials and law enforcement the choice of taking a bribe, or having a murder contract placed against them. Kakwenza claims that he was unmoved by the General’s offer even though he was too frightened to tell him so.
His refusal to be bribed is consistent with his turning down other material inducements made at the start of the book by an alluring lady. The lady called Jojo reportedly offers Kakwenza a life cushioned by hefty paydays and the possibility of a romantic liaison with her. She is beautiful and also almost lures Kakwenza into her honey traps, but then he extricates himself from her bewitching appeal long enough to realise that she was a spy sent to suborn him.

“I am buying you new clothes. We are releasing you,” says Gen Kainerugaba, according to Kakwenza.
“I came with clothes, sir,” Kakwenza replies.
Gen Kainerugaba then insists that Kakwenza must dress smartly because he is an “important person” and he had “forgiven” him for the online indiscretions which landed him in this fine mess.
He then takes Kakwenza’s measurements before the suitable clothing is procured for him.
“You will cooperate. We need to work together and develop our country,” Gen Kainerugaba says to Kakwenza.
At that point, Kakwenza’s mind flashes back to April 2020 when he was reportedly taken to meet President Museveni at a Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence-owned property. Kakwenza says that he found the President less threatening than his son. And he even manages to throw some barbs at the President.
“What is wrong with people from Rukungiri?” the President rhetorically asks after learning where Kakwenza hails from and observing his irreverence.
Before long, the President asks for Kakwenza to be taken away.
“I thought we were still talking, Mzee,” Kakwenza says moments before he is dragged away “like a sack of rubbish.”

After that flashback, Kakwenza returns to his narration as his audience with Gen Kainerugaba comes to an end. He is then taken to the Special Investigations Unit in Kireka. All the while, Kakwenza is moved around while under heavy guard before winding up with Matthew Kanyamunyu at Kitalya Maximum Prison.
“Kanyamunyu took very good care of me,” Kakwenza writes.
He then chronicles his other encounters while in custody before being released, re-arrested, and then released.
He meets Odrek Rwabwogo and later escapes, as it were, into exile in Germany.
However, he doesn’t say how he escaped, promising to commit that experience to a subsequent book.