Kampala July 22–Ugandan Police and army have dispersed a meeting of the opposition National Unity Platform NUP, which had been called to brief Journalists on celebrations to mark 4 years of its existence at the party headquarters at Makerere-Kavule in the outskirts of the capital, Kampala, and closed its offices.
Some members of the Party including the member of Parliament for Mityana municipality, Francis Zzaake Butebi, have been arrested and whisked away in Police vans. NUP’s Deputy President Northern Uganda, Dr. Lina Zedriga was briefly arrested and left to go.
Police say the meeting was illegally organised under the cover of celebrations when in fact it was a plan for the antigovernment rally over alleged corruption and human rights abuses.
The threat of protests has angered longtime President Yoweri Museveni, who claimed it to be a plot being operated by unnamed “foreigners”.
The NUP party had early this month wrote to the government requesting to be allowed to use the Kololo Independence grounds for its celebrations but the ministry of Defence declined to allow them reasoning that the venue was under construction and advised that they wait for some time or find alternative venue capable of hosting such big crowd.
NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi claimed that the blockade prevented people from entering or leaving, while some have been roughly detained.
“These cowards have turned the National Unity Platform Headquarters into a military barracks,” he wrote on X.
Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, added that several opposition leaders had been “violently arrested”.
Bobi Wine, 42, a pop star turned politician, has in recent years emerged as the biggest challenger to President Museveni.
President Museveni, 79, has ruled the East African nation since 1986. However, Ugandan youth have spearheaded unrest recently and are planning to march to parliament on Tuesday to protest against alleged widespread corruption and human rights abuses.
As police was closing NUP offices and arresting its supporters, unknown people in a vehicle dropped pigs with names of the leader of opposition and 1.7b scripted on them.
Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke said security forces had taken precautionary steps against what he called NUP’s “mobilisation for the protest”.
“We have been monitoring this. Their activities raised a red flag and we took precautionary measures,” he said.
Opposition leaders and rights activists say embezzlement and misuse of government funds are pervasive in Uganda. They have long accused Museveni of failing to prosecute corrupt high-level officials who are politically loyal or related to him.
The NGO Transparency International ranks Uganda low on its corruption perceptions index, at 141 out of 180 countries.
Museveni has repeatedly denied tolerating corruption. He says culprits, including lawmakers and ministers, are prosecuted if there is enough evidence.
In a speech on Saturday, the president warned Uganda’s youth against the planned protest, warning them that they are “playing with fire”.
“Some elements, some of them from the opposition, are always working with the foreigners to foment chaos in Uganda – riots, illegal demonstrations, illegal and inconsiderate processions, etc. These people … should check themselves or we shall have no alternative but to check them,” he said.
