Barbara Itungo aka Barbie Kyagulanyi, wife to National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, has narrated how she was blocked from attending an event at the Mukono-based Uganda Christian University.
Barbie Kyagulanyi insists she was blocked on ‘orders from above’ and that the organizers and speakers were reportedly threatened, clearly being told they risked their jobs if they allowed her to attend.
Bobi Wine’s wife says she had no option but to comply and return home instead of putting organizers and fellow speakers in trouble.
Now, she has given her version of the story regarding what happened on January 25.
In her own Words: Barbie Kyagulanyi on being blocked from UCU Event
After receiving a number of emails requesting for a physical meeting, on Thursday 20th Jan 2022, a group of ladies from Uganda Christian University Mukono physically carried an invitation for me to be a guest at an awareness event themed, “Combating STDS once and for all, an AIDS and STDs free Uganda,” I was supposed to discuss the implications of STDs on young women.
A few days later, a program was shared with me.
Tuesday 25th on the day of the event, at 8am, I was called and told that the program still stood. By 10:15 am, I was parked just a few meters away from Nkoyoyo Hall.
While I got out the car to make my way to the hall, a group of this event’s organizers approached me with shocking news, saying that I was unwelcome to the event.
They gave me different accounts about who gave these last minute orders of my exclusion. I was informed that the main sponsors of the event Uganda Aids Commission had started pulling down their backdrops from the stage in protest saying that they can not imagine me seated on a platform with their backdrops in my background.
Other members of this team said they had received a call from one of the top heads of the institution with a warning that they faced expulsion if they let me speak.
To you the 500 students from 36 Universities who attended this event, I saw you from a distance but I was forced to leave the university compound for the sake of the continuation of the program.
