Mbabazi compares Museveni to Idi Amin
Uganda’s former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has compared the country’s President Yoweri Museveni to dictator Idi Amin.
Mbabazi – a former ally of Museveni – was speaking moments after his release from a day long detention in Jinja on Thursday.
Mbabazi alongside his daughter, drivers and bodyguards, has been placed under “preventive arrest” as confirmed by Jinja District police commander Apollo Kateeba.
The Ugandan government is accusing Mbabazi and opposition leader Kiiza Besigye – who was also detained on Thursday – for starting “early campaigns”.
GENERAL ELECTIONS
Upon his release, the senior politician, who is seeking to unseat Museveni as the ruling party NRM flagbearer and eventually replace him as the country’s President during next year’s general elections, insisted that he will not back down in his preparations for a presidential bid.
“Even Idi Amin did not arrest my children,” he told BBC.
If I didn’t fear Idi Amin then, I wont have fear now,” the former Premier told The Independent, another UK based paper.
Amin, Uganda’s third President, ruled the country for eight years starting 1971, a period during which he committed several atrocities against the country’s citizens with activists estimating about half a million deaths caused directly by his army against perceived dissidents.