Twitter has suspended Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s account. I did not see that coming. And so, it happened shortly after I had ‘facebooked’ that considering the exponential growth of Kakwenza’s Twitter following since his most recent abduction and torture, his Twitter following could potentially grow to a million; and therefore, his anticipated third book, yet to be written, is already a best seller.

The suspension of Kakwenza’s Twitter account combined with seeming frequent suspensions of Facebook accounts of active citizens of Uganda, has got me concerned. Often, the suspensions, moreover, come after my fellow Ugandans and I are of the view that we are exercising our active citizenship; the very essence of democracy.

And when I compare that which has gotten us suspended with that which other citizens of the world write and utter on social media, I wonder why our counterparts in other parts of the world are not similarly suspended. Sometimes, moreover, the suspension is not because one has used foul or abusive language, as Kakwenza is accused of, but that they have discoursed on “sensitive subjects”. What those subjects are depends ….

Sincerely, tuli ku bukenke, as the Banganda, the largest first nation of Uganda, say. We are on pins and needles for sure. And so, yes, on this, Hon. Advocate Doreen Nyanjura speaks for me as well:

And then there are those who frankly shouldn’t be on social media. Those who are there simply to police others and or to foil robust debate. Indeed, I have it on full authority that Kakwenza’s Twitter account was suspended because such saboteurs created a fake Twitter account which they then used to report Kakwenza’s real account as of an impersonator of a celeb. Twitter suspended Kakwenza’s real account in order to allow for a verification to be done. We anticipate Kakwenza’s return on Twitter.