Police Fire Teargas To Disperse Ssenyonyi, Politicians From Lubigi Demolished Site

Police have used teargas to block Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi and other political leaders in the areas of Kampala and Wakiso from touring the Lubigi wetland site, where National Environmental Management Authority(NEMA ) recently evicted residents for illegally occupying the wetlands.

Earlier in the morning of today monday 17th June2024,LOP Joel Ssenyonyi posted okn his offficial X account his intenstion to visit the site to acertain the amount of damanges caused by NEMA.

The Leader of Opposition urged the residents to fight all forms of human rights violations, saying evictions of this nature don’t discriminate against political affiliations, citing the recent kidnap of lawmaker, Paul Akamba (Busiki County) who was ruthlessly kidnapped just after being given bail by court, saying when such matters were raised, they were dismissed as merely oppositions attempts to politic.

After addressing residents, Ssenyonyi moved to start touring the wreckage, but Police moved swiftly to block him and the two groups engaged in an exchange that lasted five minutes, before teargas canisters were thrown to disburse the residents who were protesting Police’s actions of blocking Ssenyonyi from touring the wreckage.

“I told the NEMA Executive Director that there is a lot of destruction that has taken place and there are more places that have been marked for eviction, I asked him to allow us hold a meeting with the local leaders around Lubigi, also representatives from the people who have been evicted so that they listen to you. And I assured him that these people are Ugandans, that is why they aren’t in the bush hiding, so before anything else happens, let this meeting be held. Have they ever held meetings with you? That is what I am against, I don’t want these people to operate on remote control," said Ssenyonyi.

“These issues of evictions don’t discriminate against political affiliations, these issues of violating the rights of Ugandans don’t bother about your political parties because when such a day comes, you all face the wrath. We have been raising concern about human rights violations and for long, our concerns have been ignored because they are raised by members of the National Unity Platform, now recently, you saw one MP, Paul Akamba was given bail but later kidnapped, but this is the same issue we raised with Muhammad Ssegirinya (Kawempe North) and the NRM MPs didn’t seem concerned. But now, the same issue came right to their door steps," Added Ssenyonyi