The leader of opposition in Parliament Hon. Mathias Mpuuga has threatened to repeat a boycott on the August house if the government doesn’t respond to the whereabouts of 19 missing National Unity Platform party supporters.
Mpuuga made the statement on the floor of parliament on Tuesday afternoon during the plenary chaired by the Hon. Deputy speaker Anita Among. This is his first statement since he led opposition MPs to protest plenary last week over the re-arrest of NUP legislators
Mpuuga clad in a nevi blue suit and white shirt first applauded the deputy speaker and members of the August house for understanding a decision made by the opposition to exit and boycott plenary .
He stated:”‘We are not back because things are okay but because we are the Legislators of our people. thankyou for understanding us when we took that decision, non of the members here went out of their way to ostracise us, so it speaks to the extent that we go to understand each other when things happen. ‘‘
He however went on to demand the whereabouts of 19 missing NUP supporters who remain unaccounted for to date. Mpuuga suggested that if nothing is done to ensure their justice, the opposition Mps might be forced to protest plenary again.
”We need the government to respond to the state of those citizens who were taken by state actors, they are not in court, the trace in any prison did not yield any output,so we don’t want to leave parliament next time because of those 19 citizens”
The deputy speaker responded; ”thankyou LOP, gov’t you have heard the concerns, and you will have to come with a written statement on what was raised in response to the state of the nation address but before that, we can have a meeting on Thursday with the LOP for a way forward.”
Security Minister Jim Muhwezi said he was willing to meet with the LOP although he asked for more clarity on the missing persons.
”We need more info from the LOP because he is talking about dead actors ”
In January 2021, 19 people were arrested in Kyotera District by unknown gunmen who are said to have taken them to unknown destinations.
In the 10th parliament ,the Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen Jejje Odongo, tabled a list of 177 NUP supporters who were held in different places. This was about a quarter of NUP paty list that had 680 names of missing persons.
Of the government list, only 71 names appeared on the NUP list, leaving the whereabouts of 106 people unknown.
A week later, the NUP party president, Robert Kyagulanyi alias, Bobi Wine, indicated that since he called for peaceful protests, the number of supporters who are being held had risen from 423 to 512.
By Zainab Ali
