On Wednesday night, social media was awash with images of the Children of Kyadondo East legislator and NUP Presidential Candidate at the airport, accompanied by their travel information.
Information of the travels showed that the children were getting out of the country and headed to the US, in the company of a relative, just a week to what is primed to be the most heated and involving presidential electoral process the country has seen in a while.
Many people in opposition camps called out the breach of privacy in the way the intricate details of their travels became common knowledge for every Uganda who cared to check their social with proponents of the incumbent NRM government calling out the “hypocrisy” in Kyagulanyi “securing” the lives of his children. In contrast, many other Ugandans who believe in him as a symbol of change were left behind. In response to the latter, the opposition called out this reasoning as gaslighting and expectant of chaos.
“For many months, you have watched and come to see that myself, my family, and the people around me have targets of the regime,” said NUP Presidential Hopeful Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu.
I got credible information that my family was in the crosshairs of my political opponents, to use them as leverage for me to drop out of active politics. My family and kids always have cars tailing them.
Kyagulanyi continued to say that he disagreed with colleagues on taking his young family out of the nation amidst his radioactive political atmosphere but spoke extensively with his wife and agreed to have the children sent out of the country.
“My children are very young and are not voters, and I do not want them to go through that uncertainty,” continued Kyagulanyi.
Musician Moses Ssali, alias Bebe Cool, was again at the center of the controversy when he posted the children’s travel information on his Twitter account, a tweet that many Ugandans treated with disdain. The tweet has since been removed.
Uganda goes into the polls on Thursday 14th January 2021, with Kyagulanyi, ANT’s Mugisha Muntu, Joseph Kabuleta, DP’s Norbert Mao, FDC’s Amuriat, and 6 others hope to be Uganda’s 10th President, with incumbent President Yoweri Kaguta seeking to take his reign to 40 years, if re-elected.
