IN a significant move, Ugandan soldiers and police sealed off the headquarters of the country’s largest opposition party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), on Monday. This action comes as a precautionary measure ahead of planned anti-government protests scheduled for Tuesday, despite an official ban on the demonstrations.
Robert Kyagulanyi, known popularly as Bobi Wine and the NUP party chief, took to social media platform X to announce that security personnel had surrounded the NUP headquarters in Kampala. He reported that entry and exit from the premises were barred, and several NUP leaders had been ‘violently arrested.’ Photos accompanying his posts showed military personnel and parked army trucks at the location.
‘The military and police have raided and surrounded the National Unity Platform offices,’ Wine said. ‘The cowardly regime is so afraid of the people because they know how much they have wronged them!’
Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke described the security measures as precautionary, citing concerns over NUP’s mobilisation for the protest. ‘We have been monitoring their activities, which raised a red flag, and we took precautionary measures,’ he stated.
Bobi Wine, a 42-year-old pop star turned politician, has emerged as the most prominent challenger to Uganda’s long-standing President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled since 1986. The recent protests, led by Ugandan youth, aim to march to parliament onuesday to protest alleged widespread corruption and human rights abuses under Museveni’s regime.
While Wine clarified that NUP was not organising the protests, he expressed the party’s support for them. Protests in Uganda are constitutionally legal, but organisers are required to secure permits from the police, which are rarely granted.
Opposition leaders and rights activists accuse Museveni of failing to prosecute corrupt officials who are either politically loyal or related to him. In response, Museveni has consistently denied tolerating corruption, asserting that culprits are prosecuted whenever there is sufficient evidence. On Monday, Museveni directed the Criminal Investigations Directorate to ‘arrest and prosecute all government officials linked to ghost civil servants on the payroll,’ according to an announcement on X.
In a speech on Saturday, Museveni warned Ugandan youth against participating in the planned protests, alleging foreign sponsorship. ‘Some elements, some of them from the opposition, are always working with 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 warned.
The upcoming protests are inspired partly by demonstrations in neighbouring Kenya, where mass protests led President William Ruto to drop plans to increase taxes. The protests in Kenya have since evolved into calls for Ruto’s resignation.
As the situation unfolds, the actions of both the Ugandan government and the opposition will be closely watched by both domestic and international observers.
