Unverified: There’s No Concrete Evidence To Show The Plainclothes Security Operative Firing Live Bullets At NUP Supporters In Arua City

A viral post shared on X by the Kampala Journal News claiming that a security operative with no identification uniform was filmed firing live bullets at National Unity Platform (NUP) supporters in Arua is unverified due to the lack of evidence.

The post with men holding guns garnered 19.1K views and stated: “One of the plain cloth security operative filmed firing live bullets at Bobi Wine supporters in Arua city.”

One of the plain cloth security operative filmed firing live bullets at Bobi Wine supporters in Arua city#KJNews pic.twitter.com/IzYZZNIsvU

— The Kampala Journal (@KampalaJournal) November 20, 2025

Facts

Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu is one of the presidential candidates in the 2026 general elections, and last week he was scheduled to campaign in the West Nile region. Whereas Kyagulanyi was indeed campaigning in Arua on November 19th, and the photo shows security operatives, including one without a uniform, there is no evidence of this officer shooting or aiming at NUP supporters. No video to show the part where he was “filmed”.

The process and analysis.

While the caption suggests recorded footage, no such video is provided. The shared photo does not show any operative firing live bullets.

Nevertheless, in the photo, we realised that all the security operatives were holding their guns pointed downwards, not pointing at people or any target.

We conducted a Google reverse image search and found it here on Facebook; another account that sometimes spreads misinformation also referred to bullets being fired in Arua as Kyagulanyi attempted to escape to access the city.

“Despite police firing many bullets, Kyagulanyi continued and entered the city with over 2 million supporters. Despite the originally agreed route, Mr Kyagulanyi continued with a large and rowdy crowd following him via Rhino Camp Road to the venue at Inzikuru Stadium, Barifa. As a result, some of his supporters threw stones at police, damaging police vehicles,” reads the last paragraph of Ritah Kaggwa’s Facebook post

We also did media monitoring and noticed that there were no reports made about the use of live bullets to disperse people in Arua here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In a report by NTV shared on YouTube, Daniel Kibet, a journalist on that campaign trail in Arua, stated that while Kyangulanyi was on foot moving (1:48) to Arua city to campaign, police fired teargas to disperse the NUP supporters, not bullets.

When still examining that YouTube video to get a clear picture of the events that took place that day, we heard sounds of teargas, not of bullets, and saw smoke produced by the shot teargas canisters.

At time stamp 2:07 of the video, we saw a frame that looked like the one in the picture and concluded that indeed security operatives were dispersing people who were not captured in the picture at that moment, but were using teargas.

Daily Monitor reported in the second paragraph of their story: “The opposition supporters were arrested in a standoff with security operatives as police fired teargas to block Mr Kyagulanyi from accessing the city to hold campaigns…”

We also checked Kyagulanyi’s X account, where he updates his followers about his every move, and saw that he did not mention any use of bullets here.

“They have defied the teargas, the pepper spray, the police brutality and threats just to be part of us. The people of Arua are the true definition of what the protest vote means. These comrades accompanied us through the dusty roads under the scorching sun, braving long distances. We afterwards gathered at Barifa Stadium, where we delivered our message of liberation,” reads the first paragraph of Kyagulanyi’s X post about his campaign in Arua.