The National Unity Platform (NUP) presidential flag bearer Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine has rejected the security escort detail which was attached to him by the Electoral Commission yesterday after nomination.
Kyagulanyi says that his security detail failed the first test of their duties when they just looked on as he was being brutalized by their colleagues. Yesterday after being declared duly nominated, Kyagulanyi was given a security escort detail of 6 armed police officers and a police patrol vehicle.
Electoral Commission chairman justice Simon Byabakama explained to him that it was being done under the presidential election act and that the officers were only meant to guard and protect him.
According to NUP secretary general David Lewis Lubongoya, Kyagulanyi accuses some of the officers who were given to him by the EC with promises of protecting him, instead helped his tormentors in arresting, beating and dehumanizing him.
Kyagulanyi's message was delivered to journalists by Lubongoya during a press conference held today at Kamwokya NUP head offices. He says that neither EC nor the police should expect his cooperation with the police escorts and that they should be withdrawn from him henceforth.
"To put the Electoral Commission on the spot, how could they allow that to happen and up to now, they have not said anything about it right from their grounds. It is at that point that I want to announce that the honourable Kyagulanyi Ssentamu has asked me to communicate that he's not accepting the security which was given to him yesterday. That is not security, all these things were done to him in the presence of those people and they could not protect him. In fact, some of them participated in torturing him, in brutalizing him. Those people are rejected and they should not expect any cooperation from him because they are not there to protect him but they are there to humiliate him to dehumanize him, to torture him and to cause him other problems," Lubongoya said.
NUP vice president for central Uganda, Mathias Mpuuga said that they are going to continue holding the EC accountable for its mandate on protecting all political parties even when justice Byabakama has kept a deaf ear to all their cries since the police and military raid on their Kamwokya offices recently.
Meanwhile, Lubongoya has also declared that having been blocked from launching their party manifesto yesterday after nominations, they have decided to organize the launch this Friday in Mbarara which will run concurrently with the opening of their western Uganda regional office.
NUP vice president in charge of western Uganda Jolly Ekyomugasho added that although the manifesto launch premises will only accommodate 70 people, they have organized a bigger space outside the hall where several other Ugandans will watch and listen to the proceedings via public address systems.
The NUP vice president for northern Uganda Dr Zedriga Waru asked Ugandans in her region to keenly follow the manifesto because it has been designed to accommodate all Ugandans and eliminate social and economic exclusion.
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