The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary-General, Ms. Justine Kasule Lumuba, has said Kyadondo East Member of Parliament (MP), Mr. Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, should be sued for allegedly ‘peddling lies against the government.’
While being hosted on a local radio station in Jinja District on Sunday, Ms. Lumuba said:
“If there is evidence that Mr. Kyagulanyi made negative remarks against this government, should be sued.”
Without divulging what Mr. Kyagulanyi allegedly uttered, Ms. Lumumba said under the Ugandan constitution, the Attorney General has the mandate to drag the People Power leader to court for uttering false statements against the government to international communities.
President Museveni was on Friday last week quoted as saying that Bobi Wine was ‘an enemy of progress in Uganda’ and was dissuading investors from coming into the country.
Responding to questions during an interview with BBC’s Newsday’s Alan Kasujja at State House Entebbe, Mr. Museveni said:
“Mr. Bobi Wine went to America and said people should not come and invest in Uganda. . . . That is what he said. That means he is an enemy of progress in Uganda.”
Ms. Lumumba added: “The issue of Bobi Wine speaking ‘negative words’ about Uganda is the responsibility of government, through its security organs, to ensure that he is dragged to court because he is not above the law.”
According to Ms Lumumba, Bobi Wine is free to contest for the presidency in 2021but should not block foreign investors from coming to invest in the country.
“His utterances may stop this government from getting HIV/AIDS funds from the American people and cost HIV/AIDS patients here their lives,” Ms Lumumba noted.
However, Mr. Joel Ssenyonyi, the People Power Spokesman, in a telephone interview on Monday, said Ms. Lumumba and the government should ‘carry their cross’.
“The government that Lumumba serves is very corrupt; that is not a lie. Lumumba’s government has brutalized Ugandans, tortured them and even murdered others, all these are facts.
“Lumumba and her government should carry their cross and stop looking for whom to blame for all their failures,” Mr. Ssenyonyi said.
However, the LCII Chairperson Nawangoma Parish in Budondo Sub-county, Mr. Simon Nsadha Muwesi, said he supports a move to drag Bobi Wine to court for what he called ‘illegally tarnishing government’s name without evidence’.
