National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has claimed that his singing partner and political ally Nubian Li was punished for two days for presenting a petition detailing bad conditions at Kitalya Prison before MPs on the human rights Committee of Parliament.
Committee MPs visited the prison last week after Mityana Municipality MP Francis Zaake raised the matter of prison conditions on the floor of Parliament.
Zaake had told Parliament that NUP detainees had complained of diarrhoea, poor feeding, congestion, poor sanitation, lack of water, physical and psychological torture.
When the MPs visited the prison, Nubian Li had handed them a petition that is said to have exposed the poor living conditions in the facility.
Nubian Li’s petition is said to have, among other claims, included how Prisons authorities reportedly transferred inmates from the facility to make MPs believe Kitalya was not congested.
Now, Bobi Wine has alleged that “as soon as the Members of Parliament left, the prison officers promised to deal with Nubian Li and other comrades who spoke.”
“Later that day, deep in the night, power was switched off and several men came to Nubian Li’s ward. They ordered him out of the ward and violently took him to a place he did not recognise for two days,” further claimed Bobi Wine.
“His captors told him they had orders from the OC of Kitalya, one Bitariho Onesmus, to punish him for speaking to the Committee about the evil that goes on behind the walls of Kitalya.”
Bobi Wine further alleged that Nubian Li was returned to the facility after two days due to protests from inmates, only to be detained with hardcore criminals.
“He was brought back to the prison two days later, but ordered not to stay with our comrades moving forward. He was instead taken to a ward where hard core criminals are imprisoned,” claimed the NUP leader.
“Amongst the people he lives with now is Musa Musasizi, the man who was recently arrested for allegedly killing several women after sleeping with them.”
This publication couldn’t independently verify Bobi Wine’s claims but reports of horrible conditions due to congestion in Uganda’s prisons are not new.
But Uganda Prisons Service has previously denied claims of horrible conditions at Kitalya.
Nubian Li and other NUP supporters have been detained since December 2020 over charges, including unlawful possession of firearms.
Their next bail application hearing is due on May 10.
