KAMPALA – Former Makerere University researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi, events promoter Andrew Mukasa alias Bajjo and several others were on Monday morning arrested in Kampala for staging a protest against the current method of distributing relief food to disadvantaged people in Kampala and Wakiso districts.
The group was intercepted by police near Buganda Road Court in Kampala as they marched to the Office of the Prime Minister.
They were taken to the Central Police Station.
Earlier on Monday, Dr Nyanzi had posted: ” I am marching today through Kampala city with my empty sauce pans and my hungry children, in protest against the HUNGER PANDEMIC spreading all over Uganda during the Covid-19 lockdown. I am marching with my sister-comrade Nana Mbarikiwa and her children.”
“We are taking a petition to the Prime Minister who is the head of the Covid-19 task force. We are going on a lunch date with Dr. Ruhukana Rugunda. We hope he will fill our empty sauce pans and cooking pots with good things.
Please join us as we march through the city with our pots and pans. Please join us as we resist the evils born out of the Covid-19 lockdown in Uganda. Please come and march for the hungry, the starving, the dying, the locked in vulnerable,” She added.
Music promoters Abby Musinguzi aka Abtex and Andrew Mukasa alias Bajjo were on Thursday, May 7 arraigned before Buganda Road Court and charged with allegedly disobeying lawful orders set up by the president in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19.
The duo was charged alongside Junior Matovu and Kikomeko Eyekolera by Grade One magistrate, Dorothy Bagyenyi.
She however granted them bail.
Bajjo was on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 arrested for protesting over what he called “sluggish” food distribution exercise in Kampala and Wakiso.
Mr Mukasa who recently donated two tonnes of maize flour to the National COVID-19 Response Fund said many Ugandans affected by the virus-induced lockdown are starving yet government has not done enough to help them.
He was arrested as he attempted to enter the Office of the Prime Minister with two others and taken to Central Police Station in Kampala.
Abitex was also later picked up from his home.
At the start of the lockdown over coronavirus in March, President Museveni announced that government would distribute food to 1.5 million Ugandans adversely affected by the closure of business.
However, to date many people are yet to receive the food.
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga directed government present to the House a status report on the ongoing distribution of food to the 1.5m people that were targeted in Kampala and Wakiso district in the wake of the lockdown imposed over covid-19 outbreak.
Parliament on April 8 passed a Shs284b Supplementary Budget to help the Ministry of Health and other Ministries in responding to covid-19. The package included Shs59b to the Office of the Prime Minister to procure food to supply to what government described as vulnerable poor whose daily income had been curtailed by the lockdown.
