Credentials: Mabirizi petitions EC demanding Bobi Wine’s academic papers

City lawyer Hassan Male Mabirizi wants the Electoral Commission (EC) to show him National Unity Platform (NUP) presidential flag bearer Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine’s academic credentials.

Bobi Wine holds a diploma in music, dance and drama from Makerere University, according to the Parliament of Uganda website.

This qualification is enough for Bobi Wine to contest for president, the highest office in the land.

But Mabirizi is questioning the years of attainment of Bobi Wine’s qualifications.

He says he wants the EC to give him copies of Bobi Wine’s academic credentials “to satisfy my doubts that the said Kyagulanyi Robert Ssentamu possess the said qualifications.”

The lawyer has hinged his petition on section 5 of the Access to Information Act, 2005, and Article 41 of the Constitution. 

Mabirizi has referred the EC to Parliament of Uganda website where available records show that “he [Bobi Wine] was born in 1982 and sat A-level in 1998.”

“The peculiarity about this is that if the birth year is true, he sat A-level at 16 years, O-level at 13 years and Primary Leaving Examinations [PLE] at nine years and joined primary one at two years,” observes Mabirizi.

Mabirizi seeks to prove that Bobi Wine didn’t qualify to be elected MP given the questions that now surround the singer-turned-politician’s academic credentials.

According to section 4(3) (c) of the Parliamentary Elections Act, 2005, a person is qualified to be a member of parliament if he/she has completed a minimum formal education of advanced level or its equivalent.  

Read: People Power supporters bash Zari for questioning Bobi Wine presidential credentials

The petition on Bobi Wine’s academic qualifications comes on the heels of another one to the same EC in which people claiming to be founder members of National Unity, Reconciliation and Development Party (NURDP).

These have challenged the manner in which Moses Nkonge Kibalama changed the NURDP’s name to NUP and, consequently, ceded its leadership to Bobi Wine.

Read: NUP’s Kibalama breaks silence on ‘founders’ who petitioned EC to throw Bobi Wine from party leadership