Main opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye has complained of issues with his Twitter account hours after Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi’s Ghetto TV Facebook page was hacked.
An active tweep, Dr Besigye says he has in recent days had some of his longtime followers restricted from accessing his tweets. He is suspecting that some invisible hand is replacing his ardent followers with fake ones.
“I’ve got lots of new-on-Twitter (fake) people following me and real people that have followed me for sometime find that they “unfollowed” or are blocked!” tweeted Besigye on August 10.
“A change of password etc hasn’t helped. Would anyone know what’s going on and action to take?”
Some tweeps suggested to Besigye that he could be facing the Twitter purge.
But, that Besigye is experiencing issues online just hours after the hacking of Bobi Wine’s Ghetto TV has sent fears into political opposition camps that there could be a deliberate move to frustrate them.
Uganda is headed for ‘scientific elections’ in which campaigning will largely be conducted via social and mainstream media channels.
Besigye is President Yoweri Museveni’s fiercest critic for almost two decades. He has reportedly been reluctant to stand as a presidential candidate in the 2021 general elections.
Main opposition political party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president Patrick Oboi Amuriat recently said the National Executive Committee (NEC) had resolved Besigye should not be subjected to an internal election if he accepts to run again.
A former personal physician to Museveni during the 1981-86 bush war that brought the National Resistance Army (NRA) into power, Besigye has challenged his former boss in four elections since 2001.
For months now, Besigye, a trained medical doctor, has in recent months been using his social media accounts to hold virtual sessions on Covid19.
But he has also severally complained of interference with the social media sensitization sessions.
Read: Here’s Besigye’s answer on whether he’ll run for president in 2021