The country's best-known religious leader barely survived an attack. The police keep a low profile. This fuels conspiracy theories.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni calls perpetrators “mafia” Photo: Xinhua/imago

The issue dominates the news in Uganda: last week, unknown persons shot dead one of the country's most famous preachers. Aloysius Bugingo was in his car on his way home in a quiet suburban area of ​​the capital, Kampala.

The next morning, Bugingo told reporters about the attack: “When the shots rang out, I felt a cold pain in my back.” His bodyguard leaned over him to protect him with her body, she said. “I was afraid, but a voice whispered to me not to tremble so that the attackers would think he was dead.” When no more gunshots were heard, he went straight to the hospital.

His bodyguard, a Ugandan special forces soldier, died from gunshot wounds and preacher Bugingo was treated. Bugingo is a leader of the Prayer Ministries International Church, one of the countless free churches in Uganda. Hundreds of his followers gathered outside his house to pray for him the morning after the attack.

“God saved me,” Bugingo pathetically told believers: “The devil wanted to kill me, but God gave me a second chance.” When reporters started asking questions, he blocked them.

More than a dozen assassination attempts

It is not uncommon in Uganda for famous people's cars to be shot at. In 2015, Attorney General Joan Magezi was murdered while she was taking her children to school. The attackers arrived on a motorcycle and opened fire with an assault rifle.

In 2021, perpetrators shot hundreds of times at Transport Minister Kazumba Wamala's car. He himself survived, his daughter and his bodyguard died.

In total, there have been more than a dozen such incidents in recent years. All of them were left without explanation. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni calls the perpetrators a “mafia.”

Museveni's son and one of the country's top generals, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has now intervened in the ongoing Bugingo preacher case. “Who are these criminals? “We need answers!” he wrote the morning after the attack on X. He also made it known that preacher Bugingo Kainerugaba was close to the political movement. He called him “our powerful supporter” and mentioned having spoken personally with the preacher even before he was questioned by police.

Muhoozi Kainerugaba is considered the second most powerful man in Uganda after President Museveni and is seen as the successor to his 79-year-old father.

Luxury villa and bodyguard of the presidential guard.

So who is this preacher, ask Uganda's anti-government press and countless Ugandans on social media? Where does the money for his castle-like villa really come from? Why does a preacher have bodyguards who are not ordinary police officers, but are subordinate to the presidential guard? Who is targeting his church, which obviously also includes the presidential family?

The police keep a low profile. Due to the lack of substantiated information, conspiracy theories are now circulating: the preacher was attacked by homosexuals because he supported in his sermons the anti-homosexual law approved in 2023. Other preachers suspect that Islamist rebels were behind the attack and are now demanding protection from bodyguards . Others suspect mafia feuds between leaders of rival churches. Or did the opposition really want to prevent the succession of the president's son, Kainerugaba?

Uganda’s main opposition leader, musician Bobi Wine, seen as Kainerugaba’s immediate political rival, casually wrote about Protection of God.”