Ugandan activist flees to Kenya over fear for President Museveni

Ugandan academic cum political activist, Dr Stella Nyanzi, has fled to Nairobi, Kenya.

This was confirmed by her lawyer, Prof George Luchiri Wajackoyah, who cited political persecution by President Yoweri Museveni’s government for the move.

Dr Nyanzi, a former research fellow at Makerere University who ran for Kampala Woman MP seat in last month’s general election, arrived in Nairobi by bus on Saturday.

Prof Wajackoyah, in an interview, said she is seeking political asylum in Kenya.

“The abductions and detentions of political actors were getting closer to me; my children have been targets of police trailing. I just left prison in February last year and I don’t want to go back,” Dr Nyanzi said in a telephone interview.

She crossed the Uganda-Kenya border “in disguise” to avoid detection by security agents. Her children are also “in a safe house” in Nairobi.

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) candidate came third in the January 14, 2021 parliamentary elections won by National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate, Shamim Malende.

President Museveni, who has been in power for 35 years, was declared winner of the bitterly contested polls.

Opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, who termed the polls as fraudulent, spent 11 days under house arrest after the January 14 elections before the High Court ordered security forces to withdraw from his home.

He has filed a petition in the country’s Supreme Court, seeking cancellation of the results.

Across the border, Tanzanian ex-MP Godbless Lema fled to Kenya with his family to escape what he termed as threats to his life, before Canada granted him asylum.

Tanzania opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who rejected the results, is also in asylum in Belgium.