Inspector General of Police (IGP) Gen. Kale Kayihura has vowed to crackdown any moves and intentions by leaders to take the age limit debate to tertiary institutions.
“Age limit debate is strictly in parliament, but not in schools or villages. It is supposed to be debated in parliament and should be among MPs,” he said.
While talking to reporters on July 9 at Lake View Resort hotel in Mbarara, Kayihura said he had received intelligence reports that some opposition leaders are inciting youths, especially university students, to cause chaos, hiding under the so-called age limit bill.
Gen. Kayihura in a crisis meeting held in Mbarara, is also said to have asked his commanders to strengthen their spy network in universities such that acts intended to protest the age limit bill such as the mocking of president Museveni do not happen again.
“It was an embarrassment to security to see students carrying the coffin with the picture of the president in Mbarara. It showed there is no intelligence network in Mbarara,” Kayihura is reported to have said during the meeting.
The police boss had travelled to Mbarara to meet security chiefs following an incident where two students of Bishop Stuart University held a mock burial for President Museveni. The students, Rodgers Asiimwe and Abert Nangumya were still in detention by press time.
Reports also reveal that the Police is investigating circumstances under which opposition members allegedly met university students from western Uganda at a hotel and urged them to fight against plans to keep President Museveni in power beyond 2021.
The students are said to have been gathered from Bishop Stuart University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Kabale University.
Also on Wednesday, police arrested Robert Rutaro, a former Guild President of Makerere University and an NRM youth leader, at the university guesthouse where he had gone to address a press conference denouncing the proposal to amend the presidential age limit clause in the Constitution. He was briefly detained at Wandegeya police station.
According to sources, the meeting which was chaired by Gen. Kayihura himself, was attended by Brig. Paul Lokech, the UPDF Second Division commander, district police commanders from greater Mbarara districts, and intelligence chiefs from the sub-region.
Additional reporting from The Observer.
