'So painful': NUP deputy spokesperson Mufumbiro’s wife eulogised

KAMPALA - Politicians across the political aisle have mourned the death of the wife of jailed National Unity Platform (NUP) party deputy spokesperson Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, which occurred on Wednesday (April 8).

Edith Katende Mufumbiro died following a hard-fought battle with cancer, according to NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi.

The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs, Rebecca Kadaga, offered her sincere condolences to Mufumbiro and the children.

“May God bring you comfort at this very difficult time,” Kadaga, who is also the Kamuli Woman MP, told Mufumbiro in a post on social media platform X.

The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LOP), Joel Ssenyonyi, said the passing of Mufumbiro’s wife was “so painful, especially because of the circumstances that surround it”.

He recalled that by the time her husband was arrested last year, she was on treatment for cancer.

“Her situation kept deteriorating, and the pressures of her husband’s detention didn’t make things any better,” added the Nakawa West MP and NUP spokesperson.
Former LOP Winnie Kiiza also took to X to eulogise the deceased for her “brave fight” with cancer.

“In her, I mourn a wife, a mother, and a quiet force of strength that carried unimaginable burdens alone while her spouse, comrade Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, remains [in] prison,” she wrote.

Kiiza, who is also the former Kasese Woman MP, added that the deceased embodied that silent courage and fought for her life while his husband was in jail.  

NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya, who visited Mufumbiro at Luzira Upper Prison in Kampala alongside other party members, said he (Mufumbiro) was devastated by the sad news, which he first learnt from fellow prisoners who heard it on radio.

“His greatest regret is that he was not able to be by her side as she breathed her last. He hopes against hope that he can be released on bail so that he lays her to rest,” he said in a post on X.

Mufumbiro is accused of holding unlawful assembly and military drilling alongside 10 others on February 12, 2025, at the NUP headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Kampala.

Prosecution alleges that he and his co-accused conducted a meeting where individuals were trained in military-style exercises without authorisation from the internal affairs minister, contrary to Section 45 of the Penal Code Act.   

He was denied bail on October 30, 2025, on grounds that his release could interfere with ongoing investigations. 

However, his party dismisses the charge of “unlawful drilling” as sham.

“In fact, on that day [February 12, 2025], Waiswa never stepped there as he was at Mulago Cancer Institute with his wife,” NUP president Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi said in an X post that announced the death of Mufumbiro’s wife.

Request for temporary release

Meanwhile, through his legal team, Mufumbiro has written to the Chief Justice requesting to be temporarily released to send off his wife.

"In the final days of her release, as her condition deteriorated and became clear that she would not recover, Edith, in the presence of my family members, expressed her last and most earnest wish; that I be by her side and that I be permitted to lay her to rest," he wrote in the April 8, 2026 letter.

"And it's the very reason I have decided to appeal to your office for my temporary release. I pray thee that you entreat the Chief Magistrate, Kawempe Chief Magistrate's Court and the Grade I as their supervisor, to grant me bail to be able to bury my wife."