“They should not resort to these measures,…it will simply embolden me” -Kabuleta.
Former New Vision scribe turned preacher Joseph Kabuleta has scoffed at his ‘tormentors’ saying torturing him will not break his spirit but further embolden him instead.
Kabuleta made the remarks during an interview with a local television station NBS TV on the “Focal Point” hosted by Samson Kasumba.
Talking about the ordeal he went through while in detention at Police Special Investigations Unit where he was taken and allegedly tortured, Kabuleta said the torture he went through served to further embolden his spirit than break it.
“Bundling me up with hardened criminals just because I was trying to express myself, can only do two things; either it will make so cowardly and never write again, or it will simply embolden me. And do I look to be scared?” Kabuleta asked his interviewer.
“I was tortured. Showered with water, stripped down to underpants, made to stand out in the cold through the night until morning, for the most time with my hands up over my head. Every part of me was shivering and i don’t remember having waited so anxiously for the morning to come” he narrated.
“What they did was cowardly and a sign of ideological bankruptcy that somebody writes something on social media and you think the best way to do it is to arrest them and keep them held them for four days? They have budgets for PR, let them engage me! if i told lies, come and tell the truth” Kabuleta ranted.
“Right now there are people out there on social media who i see have been sent out to dismantle my character using rhetoric. some of them are good writers, that’s the way they should respond. lets meet there” he dared his critics.
Kabuleta a lead pastor at Watchman Ministries in Kampala, Kabuleta was a few weeks ago arrested and detained for four days at Kireka Police Investigations Unit, before he was released on police bond.
Police said they were holding Kabuleta on charges of offensive communication when he allegedly used his social media account to annoy the President. He has been publishing articles on his social media account about an alleged succession battle raging within the ruling NRM party.
During the interview, Kabuleta dismissed allegations that his source of courage might be routed in the fact that he is an insider close to power and playing around as a government critic. He said that he has never been an insider though there was an attempt to lure him into government 12 years ago which he rejected.
Kabuleta said everything he wrote is public knowledge only that it had not been published like he did. He said he knows that his predicament was effected on orders from “somewhere above” and his dislike for government has grown such that he will never support President Museveni more so after the torture he went through during detention.
He also used the opportunity to dismiss social media talk that Prophet Elvis Mbonye of Zoe Ministries had told his inner circle that Kabuleta has intentions to run as president, saying that it is not true.