Meet The Three People Behind Uganda’s Biggest Parliament Corruption Bust

KAMPALA — When seven senior officials of the Parliament of Uganda were arrested and charged this week over a UGX 27.2 billion corruption scandal, the case did not begin in a courtroom or a government office. It began on social media, in the hands of three Ugandans who risked their reputations and personal safety to put the truth in front of the public two years before the law caught up with the thieves.

Their names are Agatha Atuhaire, Dr. Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, and Godwin Toko. Together, they ran the #UgandaParliamentExhibition, an online campaign that from February 2024 released leaked documents detailing how billions of shillings from Parliament’s budget were being diverted into personal accounts of staff and used to enrich a small network of officials. The same facts in those documents are now cited word for word in charge sheets before Uganda’s Anti-Corruption Court.

Agatha Atuhaire

Atuhaire is a journalist and lawyer from Sheema District in western Uganda, born around 1988. She studied journalism at Makerere University before returning to complete a law degree at the same institution. She worked in mainstream media for years, including stints at The Independent, Daily Monitor, NBS Television, and NTV Uganda, where she hosted the political talk show Fourth Estate.

After leaving mainstream media, she shifted to independent investigative journalism using social media, particularly X, as her primary platform. She co-founded Agora Discourse, a non-profit that describes itself as doing evidence-based activism and investigative journalism. Before the Parliament campaign, she had already drawn national attention for exposing alleged maladministration at the Law Development Centre and questionable spending by parliamentary leadership on luxury vehicles.

During the Parliament Exhibition, Atuhaire published documents showing that senior officials, including the then-Speaker, had allocated billions of shillings to travel that never happened, used personal bank accounts of staff as conduits to draw public funds, and enriched a tight circle of associates under the cover of community outreaches and donations. She was attacked as a foreign agent and accused of fabricating documents. In March 2024, the United States Department of State awarded her the International Women of Courage Award, presented by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and First Lady Jill Biden in Washington, recognizing her commitment to transparency and accountability.

Dr. Jimmy Spire Ssentongo

Ssentongo is an academic, columnist, and editorial cartoonist based at Uganda Martyrs University, where he is an associate professor of Ethics and Identity Studies. He also teaches Ethics and Research Methods at Makerere University. He holds a doctorate in Humanistic Studies from the University of Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands, completed in 2015, and has a background in philosophy, ethics, and education for sustainability.

He has been the editorial cartoonist for The Observer newspaper since 2006, using satire to hold power to account. He pioneered the use of social media exhibitions in Uganda, starting with the #KampalaPotholeExhibition in 2023, which prompted President Museveni to order funds for road repairs, followed by a health system exhibition that forced responses from the Ministry of Health.

The Parliament Exhibition began on February 25, 2024, when Ssentongo posted a poll on X asking whether Parliament should be exhibited. Within 14 hours, more than 12,500 people had voted, with 95 percent saying yes. The exhibition that followed dominated national debate for weeks. Parliament’s own communications director, Chris Obore, now one of the arrested officials, appeared on national television to dismiss the allegations. He is now facing charges of embezzling UGX 5.25 billion. During the campaign, Parliament secretly requested Ssentongo’s communication records from the Uganda Communications Commission, and reports emerged of plans to have him abducted, though he continued posting regardless.

Godwin Toko

Toko is a lawyer who worked closely with Atuhaire and Ssentongo during the Parliament Exhibition. His role focused on analysing the financial documents the team published and breaking down their legal and policy implications for a public audience. His posts on X broke down complex financial transactions within the parliamentary budget into plain language, showing how money meant for donations and community work was channeled through the accounts of staff and their associates. He pointed out patterns in the data, including which regions received funds and which were left out, and framed the transactions within Uganda’s legal framework to show where laws had been broken.

Together, the three operated under the Agora Discourse platform alongside a wider research and writing team that worked largely in the background. Their campaign drew a formal research report from the Evidence and Methods Lab, Agora, and ActionAid International, which analysed public discourse around the hashtag and concluded there was a significant national outcry for accountability and reform in Parliament.

For their work, all three were dismissed by government officials and Parliament loyalists as foreign-funded agents working to destabilize Uganda. Two years later, the Inspectorate of Government has confirmed that their evidence was accurate, and the officials they named are now in Luzira Prison awaiting trial.