By Mulengera Reporters
Intrigued by the indifference with which President Museveni’s security forces on Thursday teargassed Presidential Candidate Bobi Wine and a large crowd that had come for his rally in Kayunga district’s Bbale County, Senior Advocate Asuman Kiyingi (who until 2016 was a senior Minister in Museveni’s Cabinet) has publicly declared-Enough is Enough.
Leveraging his social media platforms, Kiyingi (who in 2006 famously helped Museveni overcome then Bugabula South MP Salaam Musumba who had taken to personally insulting the President over term limits removal) registered his fury on Friday afternoon.
He posted the video depicting a teargas-stricken Bobi Wine struggling to breath as police showered him and his entire crowd with teargas, and accompanied it with the following caption: “What a shame!!! Silence isn’t neutrality-it’s complicity. Violence, arbitrary arrests, trumped up charges, and brutal suppression aren’t ‘law & order.’ They are fascism. No Ugandan should be treated this way.”
He ended his social media posting, which has since caused many of his friends, peers and allies to joke that he might soon get himself booked into the basement for some political tutorials, with this: “POLICE STOP THIS VIOLENCE.”
Speaking separately to Mulengera News whose reporter (via telephone link) sought to clarify if this was indeed him since his phone had days earlier on been hacked, enabling hackers to communicate many things on his behalf (which he later denied and reported to Police), Asuman Kiyingi (sounding unrepentant) said these were his views-and there was nothing wrong with an adult calling out the Police over the Kyagulanyi persecution.
He asserted that where things had reached, it was no longer sustainable for any sane Ugandan to continue pretending or claiming to be neutral between right and wrong. He predicted that such unprovoked brutality by Police will only deepen and increase Kyagulanyi’s popularity while bruising the image of the Uganda Police Force and by extension the NRM, the party Kiyingi consciously joined and says he still loves very much.
The Kyagulanyi persecution video has gone viral online prompting hundreds of human rights defenders within Uganda, the African region and globally to furiously castigate the regime in Kampala. On his part, Bobi Wine has declared war on EC Chairman Simon Byabakama who he says will be harshly judged by history.
He predicts that history will judge Byabakama more harshly than it judged Paul Muwanga who presided over the controversial 1980 general elections. The alleged mismanagement of that election gave justification for Gen Museveni to go to the bush where he led NRA fighters for five years (1981-1986) culminating into victory in January 1986. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
