National Unity Platform (NUP) party president Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine wants to provoke his arrest by making a myriad of claims he cannot substantiate, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo has said.

According to Opondo, while addressing a crowd at Kasana playground in Luwero district on Friday (September 8), Kyagulanyi made false allegations bordering on criminal libel, especially against President Yoweri Museveni.

“He thinks he can provoke an arrest or be summoned to court, but I think we shall not give him that opportunity. He has made Ugandans know what he and his ilk think about the rest of us. A reasonable person thinking to lead Uganda cannot make outlandish accusations which he can’t substantiate,” he told New Vision Online on Monday.

Speaking in Luganda, Kyagulanyi reportedly claimed the State has been killing high profile leaders hailing from Buganda such as the Kampala archbishop Dr Cyprian Kizito Lwanga on April 3, 2021. However, according to a postmortem report, the prelated died of a heart attack.

National Unity Platform (NUP) party president Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.

The postmortem was carried out at Mulago National Referral Hospital by a team of senior pathologists in presence of the late archbishop's two family representatives and two physicians delegated by the church.

“The records of these people's deaths are available with their doctors and their relatives. Their relatives have not said that they were killed and Kyagulanyi is not a competent authority on anything, let alone death matters. If he thinks that he has something privy (to their deaths), let him bring it to court,” Opondo said.

He argued that having been left to mobilise voter support across the country and speak freely as should be, Kyagulanyi is now “exposing his nonsense".

“He has failed to find a new credible message and now thinks by lurching into tribal chauvinism with false accusations he can’t substantiate, he can galvanise support from unsuspecting public, but I think in the end, he has exposed himself," he said.

Luwero war

Opondo also dismissed Kyagulanyi’s claims that President Museveni used the people of Luwero Triangle during the 1981-86 bush war that brought him to power and has not paid them back.

“Luwero today, of all the rural districts of Uganda, is the one with the largest massive industrialisation programme going on. Now, if local people are not taking advantage, no one expects Museveni to carry every Ugandan household on his head. So, Kyagluanyi is falling flat,“ he said.

According to the Government, over 10,000 jobs have already been created by 17 factories in the Liao Shen Industrial Park in Kapeeka sub-county.  Liao Shen Industrial Park covers 600 acres and it is projected to house 80 factories by 2025, with several Chinese investors rallying over $600m to inject into the park.

However, NUP’s spokesman and Nakawa West MP, Joel Ssenyonyi, told the media on Sunday that Kyagulanyi was speaking about the peculiar local problems that were of interest only to the area of Luwero.

What CID says

New Vision of September 11, 2023, quoted Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) director Tom Magambo as saying that such statements Kyagulanyi made normally attract the attention of any investigative body.

“And once the facts are gathered and analysed by our team, the opinion of the Director of Public Prosecutions would be sought to guide in any further action within our legal system. We don’t want to go down the path of tribalism and hate speech as a country,” he said.

“We know what that has caused in some parts of the world, where millions of people were killed because of tribalism and hate speech,” Magambo, who is also the Assistant Inspector General of Police, added.