Museveni’s boda boda riders remark draws public outrage

Kampala. Human rights activists and former presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye yesterday castigated President Museveni for asking motorists to preemptively attack any boda-boda rider who is deemed to be following their vehicles in a suspicious manner.

The President’s call of “sorting out boda boda riders” who suspiciously trail people’s cars followed the Friday assassination of the Assistant Inspector General of Police Andrew Felix Kaweesi by gunmen moving on motorcycles resembling boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis).

The President made the shocking call on Sunday evening at the home of Kaweesi where he had gone to condole with the family.

He bragged how his government had wiped out killer gangsters of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels and said the current wave of killings is being orchestrated by assailants riding on boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis).

Kaweesi, former police spokesperson, was gunned down on his way to work on Friday morning, a short distance from his residence in Kulambiro, a city outskirt. The killers who rained a volley of bullets on his vehicle and also killed his driver Godfrey Wambewo and bodyguard Kenneth Erau, were moving on boda-bodas.

In response, the President advised citizens that once they see suspicious boda bodas riding behind them, they should “stop and sort them out.”

The President’s statement has triggered a barrage of counter-reactions from various actors including Opposition leader Dr Besigye who branded the remark as “reckless” and “scandalous.”

Dr Besigye added that such reckless statements were least expected from a person of the President given that boda boda riders are all-over the country and wondered whether people with guns should go on a shooting spree of everyone riding a boda-boda behind them.

“Somebody going by the title of the President who is supposed to be in charge of all the security organs and for that kind of person to say that if you see a boda-boda following you, stop and if you have guns sort them out.

I mean this is horrific, horrifying.” Dr Besigye said yesterday shortly after appearing in Nakawa Court over his ongoing treason case. (NMG)