Bobi Wine’s post election challenge

Resort to prayers

Derrick Nyeko, the MP-elect for Makindye East, is one of the youngest legislators to be at 28. Nyeko told The Independent that starting March 12, his constituents in Makindye will be holding daily prayers for 15 minutes.

“It does not matter the location whether you are at a market or a boda stage. We have turned to God because so many of our colleagues are in jail and people have not heard from them,” said the NUP youngster.

Nyeko’s resolution for prayers is part compromise. He had earlier organised some youth to demonstrate peacefully but security operatives disrupted them. The youth who were holding placards with images of those who have been abducted by security agents in the NUP stronghold that is Kampala and Makindye East specifically where Nyeko was elected on the party ticket were swept up by police in typical fashion.

“We decided to make our means even more peaceful because two days after the activities of demonstrating to our (Makindye) division offices, many of our colleagues were picked up by the police,” he said.

Nyeko has been a youth councillor in Makindye at the division level since 2016 until his recent election to parliament under the ‘umbrella wave’ driven by NUP. Nyeko’s sentiments reflect the agonising choice Kyagulanyi faces- demonstrate and draw the wrath of a vengeful state or retreat to save lives and possibly fade into political oblivion in the face of impunity by those you deem to be in power illegitimately.

The police, army and security in general are not leaving anything to chance and do not see Kyagulanyi’s call for protests as a peaceful gesture. On the day Kyagulanyi addressed a press conference, police and the army were fully deployed in the city.

The spokesperson for Kampala Metropolitan Police Patrick Onyango has already told Kyagulanyi and NUP supporters that they must adhere to the Public Order Management Act or face the consequences.

The government has been widely criticised for using the Public Order Management Law passed in 2013 to restrict freedoms of its critics and political opponents.  Where the government uses the above law, the opposition invokes Article 29 in rebuttal.

President Museveni in an article he wrote on March 7 re-echoed his views on protesters and lauded the military.

“The heroic Armed Forces, the UPDF, entered the picture, starting with the 20th of November, 2020. The Commandos, the Military Police, the LDUs, other elements of UPDF etc., started operations in Kampala and crushed the insurrection, killing a number of terrorists, such as Semanda Joshua of Makerere Kivulu, who was shot by a woman Commando, the idiot was trying to attack; Serunjoji Alex of Nakivubo channel etc.”

Nov. 20 was at the peak of the presidential campaign when an estimated 58 Ugandans were shot dead by security forces in Kampala following two day protests triggered by the arrest of Kyagulanyi.

Museveni also revealed that the Special Forces Command (SFC), which ordinarily protects the president and his immediate family was involved in some of the security operations. He said the SFC was holding 53 suspects by the time he made an address on security mid-February.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, a political scientist, says the most important thing is the impact or intention of the protests.

“What is going to be achieved by the protests? They may disrupt people’s lives and what not and the impact of the protests is most likely going to be short term.”

Golooba-Mutebi also weighs in on the argument of taking a less or more confrontational approach. “The notion that people are going to be killed by the government if they protest is sad. Are we now encouraging the government to kill people?” he asks.

“For me, the peaceful protests are legal. It is not our role to indulge the government’s recklessness. The job of the government is not to kill people but to protect them. If they do not want that peaceful protests, they should remove that provision from the constitution,” he says.

Golooba-Mutebi also draws on the fact that Kyagulanyi has emphasised peaceful protests. “For the government to say they do not trust him because he is going to incite violence is a self-serving argument. He has urged Ugandans to individually protest. He is not going to lead them.”

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