Security forces on the spot over defacing Opposition posters

The roundabout in Kira Town, Wakiso District, was this week the scene of utmost drama regarding campaign posters.

On Tuesday morning, the entire place was painted with yellow President Museveni’s campaign posters.
The day before, just like almost all the campaign period, the roundabout had been dominated by blue posters of Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party spokesperson, who appears to call the shots in the politics of the area.

Multiple residents we interviewed for this story accuse Special Forces Command soldiers who guard President Museveni of having plucked away or covered the posters of Mr Ssemujju, National Unity Platform (NUP) party presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, and other Opposition candidates’ posters with those of President Museveni.

Mr Museveni was in Kira on Tuesday to campaign in Wakiso District but due to the ban on all campaigns in the district instituted by the Electoral Commission (EC), his agents said he would only show up in Kira for the groundbreaking ceremony of the construction of the Kira- Kasangati- Matugga road.
His minders could have been keen to ensure that he did not look at posters for Opposition candidates but his own, hence the decision to deface or cover the others with the President’s posters.   
“Soldiers came at night and plucked away Ssemujju’s photos,” a male resident of the area, who asked not to be named, said.

“They wait until people go to sleep and they pounce. In the morning, you find only Museveni’s posters.”
Asked to comment on claims that soldiers deface campaign posters of Opposition politicians, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesperson, Brig Flavia Byekwaso, said: “If soldiers are seen defacing posters, that’s definitely a crime. Just because they are soldiers doesn’t mean they don’t commit crimes. But we need people to report to us and with evidence.”

In the see-saw that Kira roundabout had become, the roundabout was blue again by Wednesday morning. The moment President Museveni and his entourage left Kira Town, residents descended on his posters and tore them away, throwing them on the tarmac.
The posters of Mr Ssemujju, Mr Kyagulanyi and other Opposition candidates which had been covered were in view again, and fresh posters, especially of Mr Ssemujju, were put up.

“This is an Opposition stronghold,” another resident who works near the roundabout, who was sporting Mr Ssemujju’s campaign T-shirt, said. “People can’t allow Museveni’s posters to be pinned here, more so after soldiers plucked away those of Ssemujju.”  

Lukwago appeals in vain
Since rallies were banned and many candidates have not held significant rallies as a result, many candidates say they have spent a lot of money on printing posters to mark territory.
But many candidates, especially those in the Opposition, have cried foul that theirs have been vandalised with the culprits not being apprehended.
Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago calls himself “the rule of law general” and he often runs to the law whenever he feels wronged.

In October, through his assistant Kintu Nsonyi, Mr Lukwago petitioned the police to release to him closed circuit Television camera (CCTV) footage of the people who vandalised his giant campaign billboard near the Kyadondo Ruby grounds in Lugogo, Kampala.

Mr Lukwago argued that there are CCTV cameras very close to where his vandalised billboard was and, therefore, the police would help him by revealing those who vandalised them. The Kampala Lord Mayor, who is vying to keep the seat, said he wanted to take legal action against the culprits, stating that particular billboard cost him Shs5m to erect.
Three months later, the police have not arrested anybody or written back to Mr Lukwago or availed him the footage that he requested.

“The police haven’t got back to us,” Mr Lukwago’s personal assistant told this newspaper. “We have given up and are now doing other things.”  
Several other Opposition candidates have accused the armed forces of defacing or removing their campaign posters.

FDC’s Mubarak Munyagwa, who is running for a second term to represent Kawempe South in Kampala, has had his billboards put up near Mulago hospital. His supporters insist they saw a group of soldiers taking down the billboards twice.
“I have been a target and also [Robert] Kyagulanyi,” Mr Munyagwa said. “I have spent a lot of money on billboards but they keep taking them down.”
Once, his second billboard found on the Mulago roundabout was torn, Mr Munywagwa, it seems, had had enough as he never paid for another and he instead rechanneled the resources to making posters which are cheaper.

“It wasn’t making sense to continue buying space for billboards around that area,” Mr Munyagwa said. “A month, I was paying Shs5 million to keep it there yet it kept getting vandalised, so I stopped.”
In October, Mr Kyagulanyi’s NUP party accused the police of pulling down campaign posters of their presidential candidate while at the same time overseeing the hanging up of those of Mr Museveni in the places in the same spots.   

By way of evidence, the party presented pictures of policemen, who they accused of supervising the hanging up of Mr Museveni’s posters in Kireka, Wakiso District, while other pictures showed policemen dismantling posters of Mr Kyagulanyi and throwing them on a pickup truck to take them away.
The party’s secretary general, Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, back then asked the EC to take action against what he termed as police “vandalism and involvement in partisan politics”, which he said was contrary to the Constitution.

On his part, Mr Kyagulanyi used his Twitter handle to lambast security agencies and by extension Mr Museveni: “The same Uganda Police Force, which guards NRM agents installing Museveni’s posters, pull down my posters and banners without quoting any section of the law. And if truly people love President Museveni as he has always claims, then why use police to guard those showing support for the most loved man in the land?”

Mr Paul Bukenya, the EC acting spokesperson, promised to follow up the matter with the police at the time but nothing has been communicated about the matter since.
“We have said these elections will be supported by posters, flyers and banners, among other media platforms. If the police and security are removing them, then that is wrong. We need to engage them and all other stakeholders on what and how to use the posters,” Mr Bukenya said in October.   

While vandalism of campaign materials are a problem every election year for candidates of all parties, and are an ongoing source of headaches for candidates at all levels and party officials, some Opposition candidates insist it’s worse for them this year and it illustrates the emotional intensity of the forthcoming elections.

“My posters have been torn down by the NRM,” says Ms Doreen Nyanjura, the deputy Kampala Lord Mayor and councillor for Makerere University at Kampala City Capital City Authority (KCCA).
“My opponent’s posters are not torn down yet mine are. I have spent around Shs10m on campaign materials but all that money is wasted. ”  

The law
The Parliamentary Elections Act (2005) states that it is an offence to maliciously damage, deface or even remove an election poster of a nominated candidate.  If found guilty by a court of law, the convict can be fined to Shs500,000 or serve one-year’s imprisonment or both.

NRM posters not spared
There have also been complaints from the ruling party. While campaigning in Mpigi District on December 22, Mr Museveni told NRM cadres who had narrated to him how Opposition supporters were vandalising their posters to collect evidence against the Opposition individuals threatening violence and those defacing candidates’ posters in a bid to quicken the process of punishing them as per the dictates of the law.

Whereas the police are yet to arrest any person who is defacing posters and billboards of Opposition candidates, they have arrested several across the country who have been accused of defacing Mr Museveni’s posters.
On December 23, the police in the border district of Busia arrested six people they claimed had defaced the President’s posters.

Mr Museveni’s agents had littered Busia Town with his posters and once he left the area, the police claimed that Opposition supporters they didn’t mention descended on the posters and tore them to pieces.  
Mr Museveni’s campaign posters and billboards were also targeted in November following the arrest of Mr Kyagulanyi, who was then campaigning in the eastern district of Luuka.

During the protests that claimed more than 50 people, Mr Museveni’s billboards in various parts of the country were either defaced or set on fire in a vice that seems to gain traction.  
The riots prompted police to use its CCTV cameras, which led to the arrest of two people who were seen damaging Mr Museveni’s campaign material.
In late December, Innocent Naturinda, the NUP Kabale District vice-chairperson, was arrested by police for allegedly defacing Mr Museveni’s posters, a charge he denied.
 
Mr Naturinda was put in jail when police acted on complaints it registered from Kabale NRM officials, who accused the NUP official of vandalism.   
Still in western Uganda, while the police had been quick with arresting  Opposition members, FDC officials in the districts of Ntungamo and Mbarara have complained how posters of their presidential candidate Patrick Oboi Amuriat that  they had put up on Christmas Eve were torn.  

They put all the blame on the NRM which they accuse of deploying “goons” to see that no other presidential candidate has a presence in terms of posters in those districts.  
“The NRM people can campaign. They can match around Kampala and Wakiso even after the EC has said there is no campaigning in those districts but for us, even our posters are never spared,” Ms Nyanjura said.           

What some key players they say...
Eyewitness (Kira, Wakiso resident)
Soldiers came at night and plucked away Ssemujju’s photos [posters]. They wait until people go to sleep and they pounce. In the morning, you find only Museveni’s posters.

Brig Flavia Byekwaso (UPDF)
If soldiers are seen defacing posters, that’s definitely a crime. Just because they are soldiers doesn’t mean they don’t commit crimes. But we need people to report to us and with evidence.

Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine - NUP)
The same Uganda Police Force, which guards NRM agents installing [President] Museveni’s posters, pull down my posters and banners without quoting any section of the law.

Paul Bukenya (Electoral Commission)
We have said these elections will be supported by posters, flyers and banners, among other media platforms. If the police and security are removing them, then that is wrong.

Doreen Nyanjura  (FDC)
The NRM people can campaign. They can match around Kampala and Wakiso even after the EC has said there is no campaigning in those districts but for us, even our posters are never spared