By Mulengera Reporters
During the Thursday plenary session of Parliament, Older Persons MP Ofwono Opondo took the Kahinda Otafiire path and veiledly called out PLU and its top leadership for priding themselves in indulgence in acts of torture among other human rights violations.
Ofwono Opondo, who months ago was alienated and missed out on the list of NRM Committee Chairpersons largely because State House and the President considered him unpredictable, made reference to Aloikin Praise Opoloje, a young human rights defender and governance activist, who recently was lured to one of the Police Stations in Kampala’s Rubaga Division from where she was handed over to men who the long-serving Musevenist said legally have no power to detain anyone.
Ofwono Opondo demanded that the Speaker (Thomas Tayebwa was in the chair) compels the Minister of Internal Affairs to explain to the country if, when and why luring citizens to Police Stations only to be kidnapped from there by unknown actors for incommunicado detention had become the new normal in Uganda.
Opondo indicated that enforced disappearances of innocent citizens would amount to total repudiation of the values he had known the NRM to espouse for more than 35 years of his adult life.
Since leaving Makerere in the late 1980s, Ofwono Opondo (who Tayebwa repeatedly referred to as senior elder) hasn’t done any other work apart from serving the Movement as one of its leading ideologues and most effective spin-doctors.
Opondo said the manner in which Aloikin was arrested, yet she is a woman and a young person, runs counter to the NRM he has known and served his entire life.
Opondo made reference to the controversial utterances Aloikin has been making since walking out of prison on bail (all of which are on social media) to arrive at a conclusion that things are currently going in the wrong direction in the way public affairs are being conducted in contemporary Uganda.
Opondo challenged the Police leadership and those to whom Aloikin was handed, days after she had recorded a viral video criticizing the CDF Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to come out and rebut the torture and human rights violations claims the young mother has been making asserting abusive treatment while in detention.
Opondo said the NRM, whose DNA he knows the way he knows the back of his palm, should be ashamed of citizens’ rights being violated with impunity (as he called it) when its founding Chairman Gen YK Museveni is still the President.
Opondo vigorously pushed back and immediately destroyed a sycophantic PLU MP who dared challenge him on the floor as he delivered his submission. The youthful MP sought to put Opondo to order by calling on him to stop attributing rogue actions of some individual security officers to the entire NRM party or the country’s security forces.
Calling the PLU MP uninformed, Opondo (whose every word was wildly cheered by legislators on the opposition side because they saw him as amplifying their own talking points) asserted that there is no way NRM can escape blame for such human rights violations (such as what Aloikin endured at the hands of her captors) because its the ruling party whose National Chairman doubles as the President who is charged with appointing all public officials including those leading or commanding the impugned security agencies.
Renowned for fearlessness and for taking no prisoners, Opondo spoke from the same platform where Kahinda Otafiire (famous for recently calling out the much-feared PLU boss) spoke from a few weeks ago.
It’s quite predictable that the man from Mulanda’s utterances is going to cause him to be harangued by Gen MK and thousands of his supporters on social media.
They are going to add him on the list of Milly Babalanda, the presidency minister, who stands accused of not being supportive enough of RDCs who exhibit appetite to sign onto Gen MK’s 2031 presidential ambitions endorsement forms. Kyambogo-based ONC Manager Hajjat Hadijah Uzeiye Namyalo is another powerful adversary PLU adherents have vowed to destroy, for repeatedly contradicting them. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
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