Drone kidnaps: Museveni government denies targeting Baganda as punishment for voting Bobi Wine, NUP

Internal affairs minister Gen Jeje Odongo has denied claims that the kidnapping of tens of Ugandans from the Buganda districts of Kampala, Mukono and Masaka is related to the fact that these and other central region areas voted National Unity Platform (NUP) and its presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.

Bobi Wine beat Museveni and nine other presidential candidates in Buganda, from where the singer-turned-politician hails from; and his NUP party swept most parliamentary contests in the January 14 elections.

Museveni rushed to blame his and National Resistance Movement (NRM) party loss to sectarianism.

When the matter of kidnaps came up for discussion in Parliament on February 04, some MPs suggested the disappearance of people in Buganda could be related to the way the central region voted.

“I am wor­ried why these kid­naps are tak­ing place in Buganda & that the next re­gion will be the North. We don’t like the sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple think Baganda are dif­fer­ent. You touch a Mu­ganda, you have touched an Acholi, a Langi or an Ite­sot.”

But Minister Odongo said it was not true Baganda were being targeted over the 2021 election voting behavior.

Other MPs raised issues on the effectiveness of the street cameras, with some people reportedly kidnapped near these machines.

More others were concerned with the number of guns in communities, wondering whether police’s gun census was effective.