Four-time presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye has sent a veiled message to Robert Kyagulanyi that he is deluding himself by believing that President Museveni shall be removed from power using mere national identity cards (Endagamuntu) are deluding themselves.
Appearing the Jinja-based NBS Radio Talk show “Endabilwamu” on Saturday, Besigye said “those who think they shall use national IDs to remove Museveni do not understand the man.”
READ MORE: People Power’s Ghetto Youth Attack FDC’s Kizza Besigye
Besigye’s response was prompted by a question from the moderator who said he had in the past discouraged people from getting national IDs which is contrary to the call by the leader of People Power, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine whose signature slogan is for people to get national IDs ahead of the elections. Bobi Wine has already declared that he will stand in 2021.
The former FDC president said there is no problem with people getting national IDs because they are needed to access other services like passports.
He said when he came back from South Africa in 2005, many people rushed to register for the election but on election day, more than 200,000 voters could not trace their names on the voters’ register on election day.
Indeed, Sam Rwakoojo, the Electoral Commission secretary general said last week that no Ugandan will be disenfranchised on the basis of lack of a National Identification Card on the voting day for as long as their name appears on the national voters’ register.
The Commission’s Secretary General who is also the accounting officer said that the electoral officers will only use a voter’s ID generated from the information provided to them by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). In other words, an eligible voter will not be required to carry or present a National ID on polling day.
“Right now NIRA is registering and an individual is required to fill a form with all your particulars including one’s preferred polling station which will be used to process a national ID. It is this information that NIRA sends to us to generate a voter’s ID. So when we are preparing our national register, we generate a voter’s number and not the national ID,” Rwakoojo said.
Besigye said he was surprised that some political players were readying themselves for the 2021 elections yet the feasible plan for the opposition is to find ways of removing President Museveni before the elections.
“Our plan is to ensure that Museveni falls before 2021 because he is grossly unqualified to be in that chair. We defeated him in 2016,” Besigye said.
While attending the thanksgiving ceremony for Francis Zaake, the MP Mityana Municipality in Mityana last week, Kyagulanyi said while he deeply respected Dr Besigye, he disagrees with him on the view that Museveni cannot be removed by an election.