Ugandan pop-star-cum-politician Bobi Wine has asked President Yoweri Museveni to treat citizens the way he would wish to be treated once out of power.
“Mr president, just like there was a time when you were not in power, there will be a time when you will not be in power,” the Kyaddondo East MP, whose official name is Robert Kyagulanyi, said in his first media address since returning from US medical trip.
“So, treat people the way you would want to be treated.”
Mr Wine, who received specialised treatment following his detention and torture by police and the military last month, on Monday said Ugandans who want change will not be silenced by “state brutality”.
“Many times you, Museveni, have reminded us how you are our grandfather but how we are treated does not represent that,” he said.
“I believe a grandparent should not brutalise and frame grandchildren when they try to raise their voices,” he said.
The firebrand MP also had a message to security forces that manhandled him and other opposition leaders during the Arua Municipality by-election.
“We are not fighting you [the police force and UPDF], we are fighting for you, because you are also Ugandans that are going through the same challenges like us,” he said.
He said all Ugandans— irrespective of their profession, religious and political affiliation— should be concerned about the state of Uganda and do something to change it.
People Power, his slogan, he said, is not a political party.
It is an idea that all power, not some power, belongs to the people as provided for in Article 1 of the Ugandan Constitution, he said.
Mr Wine said Ugandans have decided to invoke and implement that constitutional provision because of the way the government treats them.
He said it is an idea for those in the ruling National Resistance Movement, Democratic Party, Forum for Democratic Change, Jeema and other political groups whose supporters believe Uganda needs new leadership.
“It is for the person whose parents sold land to send them to school but they cannot get a job. It’s an idea for the boda boda riders who cannot make ends meet. It is for the investors who are not sure what they invest will be profitable. It’s for everyone,” he said.
He said various legal teams are working day and night to secure the freedom of people who were detained for supporting the People-Power cause.
He said Mr Museveni’s “firefighting” approach to poverty, where the government has been dishing out money to the unemployed youth, cannot solve the current crisis.
