Police have Saturday stopped opposition strongman Dr Kizza Besigye from travelling to Nakivubo Stadium for parallel election ‘victory celebrations’.
Besigye scored 35 percent against President Museveni’s 60 percent of the total vote count in the recently-concluded elections.
But Besigye and his FDC party maintain Museveni did not win the election.
They therefore planned to hold festivities at Nakivubo at a time when NRM is celebrating their victory at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds.
Today morning, Besigye’s cars emerged from his residence at Kasangati enroute to Kampala for FDC’s function only to be intercepted by police.
Police thoroughly checked the cars to ensure Besigye was not inside.
At Besigye’s gate are a black police van, teargas canisters and heavily-armed anti-riot police personnel.
It is unlikely that Besigye will be able to join his colleagues in downtown Kampala.
The Police last night said it would be regulating three public events beginning starting Saturday including the World Fitness Day celebrations in partnership with the Uganda Olympic Committee, the NRM victory celebrations at the Kololo Independence grounds, and securing beforehand the routes to the Kabaka’s Marathon.
“It has however, been noted that there are other groups that are planning on holding public events without duly notifying the police in accordance with Section 5 of the Public Order Management Act (POMA), which deems their intended public events unlawful,” said police spokesperson Fred Enanga.
“The police would like to caution the public, not to be deceived into participating in this very event, because it has not been cleared after the organizers and in particular the Mayor Kawempe ( MP Elect), Munyagwa Mubarak, failed to give at least the 3 days but not more than 15 days’ notice before the proposed date of their public meeting at Nakivubo Primary School,” he added.
“We want to remind him and the other organizers that holding a public meeting without any reasonable excuse and or failure to comply with the conditions under the POMA, tantamount to an offence of disobedience of statutory duty, liable on conviction to the penalty for that offence under Section 116 of the Penal Code Act.”