Free? Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, addresses mourners at the burial of the former Bugiri District chairperson, Hajj Siraji Lavala, yesterday. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKIMIRIZI
KAMPALA. Police yesterday said they called off the siege on the home of Kyadondo East MP, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine, and said he was free to move and go about his normal work.
On Tuesday morning, police blocked Bobi Wine from delivering his letter to police headquarters about the notice of his plan to lead countrywide public demonstrations against police brutality. They laid siege on his home in Magere, Kasangati in Wakiso District and said they would not leave until they were convinced he would not hold a public assembly.
Reason for house arrest
“It was just a preventive measure of seeing that he does not jeopardise national security. He is free and we have also withdrawn from his home,” Mr Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson, told Daily Monitor by telephone yesterday.
Mr Enanga said they had finally realised that Bobi Wine would not cause any mayhem in the public and the police had withdrawn from his home at around 7 am yesterday.
“We said we would let him free when we see that he was not a threat, have you seen any threat? If we wanted him, by the time we realised he was out. We would have pursued him. We are, however, working on summons to have him record a statement at CID. We shall go through Parliament since he is honourable,” Mr Enanga said.
Sources had told Daily Monitor that Bobi Wine had escaped the police siege at his home at about 4am and moved in a covert car, which was waiting for him some distance away, and drove to Bugiri, eastern Uganda, for the burial of the district’s former LC 5 chairperson Siraji Lyavala yesterday.
Lyavala, succumbed to kidney cancer on April 24 at Norvik Hospital in Kampala where he had been admitted for about a month.
Bobi Wine escape
It is not yet clear how Bobi Wine eluded the security surveillance to get out of his house in the wee hours of the morning. Bobi Wine yesterday afternoon posted on social media confirming he was in Bugiri, about 158km from Kampala.
“I had to find a way of attending the burial of our patriotic elder Haji Siraji Samanya Lyavala in Bugiri. No matter how much the regime tries to keep us apart, we shall always find a way of coming together,” Bobi Wine posted on Facebook, suggesting he escaped from his home rather than allowed by police.
dwandera@ug.nationmedia.com