Kabaka Mutebi cancels Kayunga visit

By vision reporter

KABAKA Ronald Mutebi yesterday suspended his visit to Kayunga pending talks with the central Government, Mengo announced last night.

The Mengo deputy minister for information, Medard Lubega Segoona, said a new date for the visit would be announced. “We have suspended the youth celebrations. Mengo and Government will sit and decide when we will be holding it.”
The Kabaka also sent his condolence to the families that lost their relatives in the riot.

At the same time Mengo youth minister Florence Bagunywa Nkalubo, who has been in charge of organising the Kayunga function, appealed the Kabaka’s subjects to avoid any acts of violence.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mengo had issued a statement saying they would push ahead with the visit despite Police advice not to go to Kayunga.

“We are still engaged with the Government to ensure that Ssabasajja Kabaka attends the (youth) celebrations in Bugerere in a peaceful and secure environment,” said the Katikkiro in a statement issued yesterday afternoon.

Walusimbi regretted that this year’s celebrations had been ‘unduly politicised’, adding that all ethnicities in Buganda had been living harmoniously ‘until the creation of the institution of the Sabanyala’.

The cultural leader of the Banyala, a minority group in the area, had opposed the visit, saying Mengo should have first informed him about it.

On the riots by Mengo supporters, which left a trail of destruction across Buganda, the premier said the kingdom regretted the “loss of life and destruction of property that followed the refusal of the Katikkiro to access Bugerere.”

Mengo, he continued, “regrets and abhors the closure of its radio-station, CBS FM, something that has heightened the unnecessary chaos and tension.”

President Yoweri Museveni has accused the CBS radio of inciting violence and promoting sectarianism.

The Katikkiro, in his statement, repeated Mengo’s demands for federo and the ‘unconditional return of our expropriated properties’.