Opposition leader Col (Rtd) Dr Kizza Besigye has been arrested outside his home in Kasangati, Wakiso District, as he attempted to walk to Kampala City Centre in protest of rising commodity prices and rumored plot to make first son Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba succeed his father Gen Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni.
Besigye’s arrest followed police and other security agencies’ suspicion that the four-time presidential candidate would start walk-to-work protests akin to the demonstrations that shook President Museveni’s government following the controversial 2011 elections.
He had just told reporters at his Kasangati home that he would start a new ‘wake-up call’ campaign to awaken and mobilize Ugandans to ‘regain their country’ from the ‘Museveni junta.’
Some of the protesters alongside Dr Besigye carried placards with statements such as ‘Transition Now, Not Succession;’ and ‘We Can’t Breathe, Reduce the Cost of Living.”
But Besigye and his driver were arrested by police officers and other security officers and returned to the opposition leader’s Kasangati home.
Although Besigye did not stand a candidate in the 2021 presidential election, he remains one of Museveni’s fiercest critics. One of the bush war fighters who particularly served as warlord Museveni’s personal physician and treated other wounded rebels in the 1981-86 guerilla war, Besigye fell out with Museveni and his NRA/NRM government in 1999, and challenged his former boss in four consecutive presidential polls.
RISING COMMODITY PRICES
Like was the case in 2011, commodity prices have shot up across the country, with government largely blaming external factors and not offering tangible solutions for citizens surviving in an economy battered by the effects of the Covid19 pandemic.
President Museveni recently spoke about the rising commodity prices. But his most prominent statement most Ugandans got from his speech was his Marie Antoinette-like piece of advice that if they cannot afford bread, they should eat muwogo/cassava.
RUMORED MUSEVENI-MUHOOZI SUCCESSION
Besigye was also protesting a rumored move by President Museveni to help his son Muhoozi, currenly serving as the Commander of UPDF Land Forces and his father’s senior advisor on special operations, to succeed him.
Muhoozi’s recently concluded 48th birthday celebrations which included a State House dinner hosted by Museveni and parties across the country, seemed to be bolster the possibility of a ‘Muhoozi Project,’ a concept first broached by former coordinator of intelligence services Gen David Tinyefuuza (now Sejusa) in 2013.
Speaking at Justice Forum (Jeema) offices in Mengo, Kampala last week during an event hosted by his People’s Front for Transition (PFT), Besigye made it clear that him and other change-seeking Ugandans were interested in a succession from Museveni to his son Muhoozi, but rather in a meaningful transition of power from those with guns to civilians.
Besigye made it clear that he would never salute Muhoozi even if he became president, becoming the second former bush war fighter to openly say so. (Read Story Here).
Erias Lukwago, Besigye’s deputy at the PFT, described Muhoozi as ‘a very reckless general with nothing but the gun and a birth certificate indicating that Gen Museveni is his father. (Read Story Here).
