Uganda has suspended all military and defence cooperation with Turkey, effective immediately, after Ankara refused to extradite a prominent political blogger who has been living in exile on Turkish soil for at least five years. The announcement, made on Saturday by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), marks a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries, which had maintained close defence ties for nearly a decade.
At the centre of the dispute is Fred Lumbuye, a political commentator and fierce critic of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has built a following of some 150,000 subscribers on YouTube. Lumbuye, who has been based in Turkey since at least 2021, faces 15 criminal charges in Uganda, including incitement to violence, spreading false information, and computer misuse. Despite repeated requests from Kampala, Ankara has declined to hand him over.
The crisis has been driven in large part by Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda's army chief and Museveni's son, who is widely regarded as his father's likely successor. On Friday, thousands of members of the Patriotic League of Uganda — a civic and political pressure group closely associated with Kainerugaba — demonstrated outside the Turkish embassy in the capital, Kampala, demanding Lumbuye's extradition. The following day, army spokesman Chris Magezi announced the suspension of all defence and military cooperation, stating it would remain in force "until outstanding issues of mutual defence and military cooperation between the two countries are resolved." Kainerugaba reposted the statement on X.
The suspension threatens a relationship that had covered military training, arms supplies, surveillance equipment, technology transfers, and counter-terrorism cooperation. Broader economic ties are also under strain: the freeze follows reported threats to cancel a $3 billion railway contract with Turkish construction firm Yapı Merkezi, and to expel Turkish nationals from Uganda.
The standoff highlights the lengths to which Uganda's leadership is willing to go to silence dissenting voices operating abroad, while also testing the limits of Turkey's willingness to comply with extradition requests that critics argue are politically motivated. For Lumbuye and his followers, Ankara's refusal to yield to pressure represents at least a temporary reprieve — though the diplomatic fallout between the two nations continues to escalate.