MUSEVENI: Don’t allow strangers in churches, bars

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has advised parishioners and patrons not to allow people they don’t know to access their churches and bars respectively.

Museveni’s advice also extended to hotels, lodges, and other rentals to ask for identification before allowing anybody to have access to their property.

In his address on Thursday, Museveni said although there is no reason for anybody to panic over the recent bomb scare in the country, nonetheless, there is a need to be vigilant.

Last week the police working with the military allegedly intercepted bombs before they were detonated in the different pasts of Kampala. Museveni said they have intelligence information that the Allied Democratic Forces-ADF a Ugandan rebel group headquartered in the Democratic Republic of Congo-DRC was the force behind these bombs. “I sent a message to the IGP to tell our people to be alert; don’t allow anybody you don’t know in our church. Mine, in Kyamate, we know everybody by name. Anybody carrying a bag or somebody you don’t know in the area should not enter your bar or church. That is, your assignment now, contact the police. For the hotels and the lodges take particulars of the people, and make sure they bring their ID cards with their pictures.

The landlords are the same, the moment you block the people from the housing, they must stay with families in the homes and some of these groups don’t have many sympathizers. We are hunting them in Congo, we shall get them, we have been improving methods of detection,” Museveni said. he assured the country that this bomb scare was going to be short-lived because his security forces defeated the ADF way back in 2007 in the Semliki Valley fighting when over 80 rebels were killed. “I don’t know whether I should advise them to surrender, because there they might not die. There is still some advantage to surrender otherwise they will die, they have done so many bad things, the only option is to surrender I can’t say we shall give them amnesty but they might get a punishment better than death,” Museveni said.

Meanwhile, Museveni asked the UPDF to make available the former ADF rebels who had been either captured or surrendered so that they could be interviewed by the journalists to tell the story themselves. Museveni wondered why it should be him to speak about ADF yet there were people who used to belong to the force who could speak authoritatively about it. “This is the problem with the NRM people; why should Museveni talk about ADF, you should make the people involved tell the story, you got the abductees to bring them and the journalists ask them questions instead of keeping the war as if it’s a secret. What has happened in the past should be known. I direct the UPDF to bring those people to the journalists and inform you about what is happening,” Museveni said.