KAMPALA-UGANDA/NEWSDAY: The Foreign Affairs State Minister Henry Okello Oryem was Wednesday cheerful and rallied Ugandans to follow suit that blogger Fred Lumbuye, a fierce government social media critic, had been arrested.
Speaking to reporters at the government-owned Uganda Media Centre in Kampala, Oryem said although he couldn’t confirm whether Lumbuye had been arrested, it should be known to everybody that nobody is above the law.
Oryem said that whoever breaks the law will be prosecuted regardless of where they stay.
Lumbuye is based in Turkey and has consistently been an anti-government blogger. He commands a huge following and viewership, and has lately taken the cyber waves by storm. His characteristically acerbic live shows seem to whip up anti-government mood and sentiments across a section of the public who religiously listen to him.
Mr Lumbuye regularly claims to be privy to sensational highly classified intelligence from within the Ugandan establishment via his “drones”, and on a few occasions, his information has happened with astonishing accuracy.
In July, police linked him along with other bloggers for spreading the fake news that President Museveni was very ill and admitted to a hospital in Germany. And the following days they allegedly announced that Museveni had actually died from the hospital where he had been taken. Lumbuye denies the allegation.
Speaking a few days later, President Museveni said the country has got another challenge of social media that it must deal with urgently. He ordered security agencies to hunt down anybody who is trading rumours that he was dead and for those outside the country, their citizenship should be revoked.
According to Lumbuye’s associates online, he was arrested at the Ugandan Embassy in Istanbul where he had gone to renew his passport. The embassy is yet to make any statement on the issue.
Neither the Turkish government nor Uganda have provided details of how Lumbuye ended up in custody.
On July 12, the Police’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID) spokesperson Charles Twiine indicated in an interview that after a long time of Kajubi’s falsehoods, it had now dawned on him.
He accused him of circulating unfounded allegations via his social media accounts.
At the time, police widened the list of the wanted individuals to include two Sweden based bloggers Eddie Messiah and Peng Peng; Uganda based Jakana Nadduli also son of NRM stalwart Alhaji Abdul Nadduli, Kojja Omugezi based in Ireland and others are all to be arrested “as wherever and soon as spotted”.
Earlier on Jamir Ssekyondwa suspected to have authored the fake news relating to the death of the President had been arrested. The 22-year old was arrested from Luwero and has since been charged and remanded over computer misuse and cyber harassment.
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