The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Acting Director Defence Public Information Col Chris Magezi, has revealed that the recently deployed Military Police soldiers at a number of checkpoints in the Kampala Metropolitan Area are meant to control movement of traffic.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Magezi noted that the UPDF Military Police Brigade, working with the Uganda Police Force have embarked on an operation to restore sanity on Ugandan roads.
“Ensure full compliance with traffic regulations by all motorists, impound unregistered or numberless vehicles, and curb the illegal use of sirens, among other measures” he said.
Magezi said the operation launched on Monday, will proceed in force for as long as necessary. “This is therefore to dismiss the insinuations from some quarters that the snap checkpoints mounted by the Military and Uganda Police traffic corps is an effort to apprehend NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine)” he said.
Magezi reiterated that neither the UPDF nor police has interest to arrest the two time presidential candidate who remains in hiding, following the January polls.
“No one is looking for or interested in the NUP leader, the aim of the police forces is to restore discipline, total observance of traffic regulations, and curtail criminal activities by some motorists on the roads” he said.
Magezi further noted that the enforcement measures are not new, and have been employed in the past to achieve similar objectives.
On Monday, the internet was awash with images of the rarely seen in public Uganda Military Police officers deployed at a number of roadblocks across the kampala metropolitan area.
Following wide reports of the deployment, Bobi Wine in a post on his X account revealed that the deployments were meant to apprehend him.
“They’re staging these roadblocks inconveniencing citizens everywhere in search for a man who’s hiding in plain sight. One would think the Museveni regime learnt from its experience in the bush not to bother searching for anyone the citizens decided to hide, but clearly it didn’t” he posted.
The NUP spokesperson and Leader of Opposition in Parliament Joel Ssenyonyi, has since criticised the operation noting that ordering motorists to open car boots and boda boda riders to remove helmets goes beyond traffic enforcement.
“The impromptu operations we have seen are clearly motivated, each time security gets rumours which they call intelligence that Kyagulanyi is in this area, you will see how heavily they deploy” he said.
