Kassanda South MP Simeo Nsubuga has spoken out on an Monday incident in which he was accosted and roughed up for supporting the removal of the age limit to allow Uganda’s three-decade ruler Yoweri Museveni stand for president beyond the age of 75.
Nsubuga has openly come up to support a scheme to delete Article 102b of Uganda’s Constitution that bars everyone below 35 and those over 75 from standing for president.
Born in 1944, Museveni will be over 75 and ineligible for reelection when Uganda next goes to the polls in 2021.
Museveni has termed as “nonsense” and a wastage of time the debate on the age limit amendment.
But a group of MPs, including former Uganda Police publicist Simeo Nsubuga, has continued to market the age limit removal idea to the annoyance of some Ugandans desperate for a peaceful transfer of power from Museveni.
Nsubuga recently asked for police guards, arguing that he and other age limit removal campaigners were being targeted.
But before the MP could get guards, he was thumped before Buganda Kingdom monarch Kabaka Ronald Mutebi during the coronation ceremony anniversary in Buwekuula, Mubende district.
Nsubuga was accosted and beaten up by William Ntege, a freelance news reporter.
Ntege waited for Nsubuga to make steps to shake the king’s hand and beat him for reportedly supporting a plan to make Museveni Uganda’s life president – without the age limit, it is feared, Museveni might only leave power at death.
Nsubuga would later be rescued from Ntege’s wrath by police officers and soldiers at the ceremony.
The unapologetic Ntege, who was whisked to Mubende Police Station, said he had been angry at Nsubuga and has been looking forward to an opportunity to deal with him.
NSUBUGA RESPONDS
The MP has responded with threats on the opposition and Ntege, suggesting they had started a war that the NRM would win.
“This [the attack] is a good signal to know what members of the opposition are planning to do to us as NRM Members who are supporting the constitutional amendments. You have started the music in Mubende… we are getting back to you in the same currency. Nobody will succumb to your intimidation acts,” he threatened.
“Just watch the space.”
He said Ntege was working for the opposition criminal gangs.
“Members the criminal behaviour exhibited by William Ntege [aka Kyuma Kya Yesu a [news reporter] formerly working with [the defunct] WBS [TV] stopping me from paying respect to His Majesty the Kabaka was a well organised and calculated plan by members of the opposition from Kampala to intimidate me and stop me and other members of the Parliament who have come up to express their views in support of the forthcoming constitutional amendment of article 102 (b),” the MP wrote on Facebook Monday evening.
He added that he had survived more life-threatening situations than the age limit, vowing to soldier on.
“My message to Ntege and his sponsors that your manuevers will meet a dead [end]. You can’t intimidate Simeo; try somebody else. I have been in more serious situations than this one. Somalia and South Sudan were more risky and life threatening than this one but I survived.”