President Yoweri Museveni says cases of terrorism, damaging property, manslaughter, against the newly elect MP for Arua Municipality Kassiano Wadri and Kyadondo East legislator Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine and other suspects, will continue in courts law following chaotic scenes that were witnessed in Arua last Monday.
Wadri appeared in the Magistrate Court and charged with treason while Kyagulanyi was charged in the general court martial, Mityana Municipality MP Francis Zaake, Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga, Jinja East MP Paul Mwiru and others were arrested in Arua over allegations of pelting stones and damaging one of the presidents car in convey. Some of the group members have been produced before Gulu magistrate’s court and charged with treason.
Wadri was yesterday elected MP for Arua Municipality after he edged 12 candidates in a hotly contested by-election held after the gun down of MP Ibrahim Abiriga. “I Angom OC Ruth, being the District returning officer for Arua district electoral commission and according to section 58 (1) of the parliament election act of 2005, I declare Wadri Kassiano Ezati to be elected MP for Arua municipality,” she declared.
However, in a statement released earlier in the day, Museveni said cases of terrorism, damaging property, manslaughter etc against Wadri, Bobi Wine and the group will continue saying their actions led to the death of a Ugandan and Robert Kyagulanyi’s driver Yasin Kawuma and causing a grievance harm to a number of people, damaging of property.
He implored all leaders, including the National Resistance Movement (NRM) members to embrace the rule of law and discourage their supporters from violating the law.
“The elections in Arua Municipality were held peacefully because the organisers of violence and criminality had been arrested,” he said in a statement published on his Facebook page.
Wadri was declared the winner and Nusura Tiperu of the NRM emerged the second, this is a step-forward, to having elections without violence and threats. Museveni said nobody has got a right to intimidate a Ugandan by word or action,” reads in part of the statement.
He said violence of the previous days had had the most negative effect. Out of the 46,000 registered voters, only 16,000 turned out to vote. Only 34 per cent of the electorate. The others either feared to come to vote or the register is full of ghosts.
Museveni further noted that they are investigating the allegations that some candidates had imported illegal voters from other areas to the municipality. The Opposition has been doing this repeatedly, such as in Jinja East and Bugiri Municipality.
“NRM agents have got a weakness of not auditing the voters’ registers in time to discover these imported voters. In the case of Arua Municipality, there is an allegation that the illegal voters were brought to the attention of the Electoral Commission but that it did not pay heed,”
Processions through populated centres without co-ordination with the Police should never happen. I never organize processions. I always drive to and from the rally site in my convoy. Sometimes, only the boda-boda riders join me.
Museveni said his convoy moves fairly fast to the rally site and from the rally site, never touching the passers-by, the property of the people or the convoys of the other candidates.
“In the elections of 2016, my convoy to Namboole met the one of Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi around the Naguru area. We just waved at one another and that was all, why should a Ugandan be beaten, intimidated or have his property or life destroyed on account of politics? With uncontrolled violence in elections, many voters will fear to go for voting. This will mean the disenfranchisement of Ugandans,” he wrote.
He argued why, then, did the Ugandans shed their blood? It was in order for them to run their country through fair and free elections. I will defend that right today and tomorrow as I did in the past.
On the side of the NRM, many of the actors need to distance themselves from egoism. The NRM is about principles: Patriotism, Pan-Africanism, Social- Economic Transformation and Democracy.
Anybody who supports these, you should support if he/she emerges as the flag- bearer of the NRM. Not to support a flag-bearer for any reason, when you are a leader, is a failure of leadership. When you support the cause instead of supporting individual interests, your contribution will blossom, even if you meet potholes on the way.
“This has been my experience in the last 58 years. Support principles, not opportunism, you will triumph in the end,” the president noted.