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NUP leaders meet police chiefs over country tours
NUP party president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu stands on top his car as supporters welcome him in Wobulenzi Town Council, Luweero District on September 8, 2023. PHOTO/DAN WANDERA
What you need to know:
- The NUP leaders led by their Secretary General, Mr Lewis Rubongoya, yesterday held a closed-door meeting with police chiefs at the police headquarters at Naguru, Kampala.
Top leaders of the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) have met the police leadership in an effort to resume their nationwide mobilisation tour next week.
The NUP leaders led by their Secretary General, Mr Lewis Rubongoya, yesterday held a closed-door meeting with police chiefs at the police headquarters at Naguru, Kampala.
Although the two parties acknowledged that holding the tours is a constitutional right, they disagreed how they should be held, with police arguing that they would result in violence.
Deputy Police spokesperson Claire Nabakka said they told NUP leaders they will be allowed to hold their countrywide meetings but they should abide by the set guidelines.
“They were told to notify the police about their tours and also meet the guidelines so that we don’t lose lives and property as it was in the previous incidents,” Ms Nabakka said.
The police at the beginning of June suspended the NUP tours after a fatal accident in which three people died at St Lawrence College, Maya, on the Kampala-Masaka highway.
Among the guidelines, the police want NUP to hold the meetings in enclosed places and also stop processions.
However, the party leaders said the police guidelines are discriminatory.
The party spokesperson, Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, who attended the meeting, said the police attempted to blame them for the Masaka road accident.
The concerns
“The police seemed to want to hold us as leaders accountable for the accident, but we told them that can’t happen because we got to learn about the accident after we had left,” Mr Ssenyonyi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, said.
“When we go out there, we will be joined by many different people who love and support us, so you can’t expect us to do the job of the police of determining traffic flow and the people in it,” he added.
“We will not stop our activities because we are a political party and not a nigiina group. What we shall always do as we have always done is observe the law,” he said.
Mr Rubongoya urged their supporters to take part in the assemblies next Monday.
“We are going to do the western stretch from Bundibugyo, Ishaka and Rukungiri, among others. So we encourage and invite our people to come out and not to be afraid since we shall be together with our president,” he said.
Mr Ssenyonyi cautioned the police’s leadership to engage their officials on the ground to follow the solutions from the meetings to avoid clashes.
“As we meet with the police bosses here and have cordial relations and so on, they should also engage the DPCs and RPCs to behave as such. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense if we come and meet the top leaders here, we are smiling, and they are cordial but then when you go on the ground it’s a different situation,” he said.
