Photo of President Museveni taking #selfie goes viral

Apr 23, 2014

The world has been captivated by the taking of ‘selfies’ by prominent personalities, a fad that has not left Uganda''s President Yoweri Museveni behind.

By Vision Reporter

The world has been captivated by the taking of ‘selfies’ by prominent personalities, a fad that has not left President Yoweri Museveni behind.

A ‘selfie’ is a photograph taken by oneself using a phone or camera.

On Monday, President Museveni was photographed taking a selfie with a Samsung Galaxy.This was at the launch by Uganda's leading media house VISION GROUP of its two platforms in Arua, Urban TV and Arua One FM radio as West Nile celebrated 100 years in Uganda.

Later, Uganda's leading website New Vision posted the photographs online using official twitter account, @newvisionwire that has over 40,000 followers and on Facebook, where they have more than 200,000 likes, with the words, “President #Museveni taking a first ever #selfie.”

The photos were also posted on the President’s Facebook account and have attracted thousands of comments and gone viral.

On his Facebook page, President Museveni said: “I have over time received numerous requests from our young people for a selfie, and I dedicate this to you, to the online community and to all my followers.”

In one of the photographs, the President is taking his own portrait with some people peering curiously in the background. In the second photo, he is seen giving a ‘thumbs up’ after taking his selfie.

By yesterday afternoon, Museveni’s selfie posts on the micro-blogging site Twitter had a total of 2,331,951 views. Also, twitter mentions about Museveni were among the most trending yesterday.

On New Vision's Facebook page, the post of the ‘Presidential selfie’ received over 30,000 views.

Sarah Kagingo the President’s Special Assistant for Communications, said: “Young people have over time requested for the President’s selfie. They are simply amazed.”

The public comments on the selfie posted on Facebook and Twitter ranged from unsavoriness to warm felicitations. Others asked him to post the real image he had taken

of himself.

Lindah Nabusayi, the deputy presidential press secretary, said the President was also aware of the great publicity of his selfie.

In the past year alone, photographs of key international figures taking selfies has trended worldwide. They include Pope Francis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, German leaders and US leader Obama. In all these cases, the photos of the selfies being taken have overshaddowed the selfie photo itself.