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Museveni’s Uganda finally restores internet access countrywide

By Hilary Kimuyu January 18th, 2021 1 min read

Internet access in Uganda has been restored after it was blocked five days ago, hours before the country went into a hotly contested presidential election.

According to AFP News Agency, the order was issued by Uganda Communications Commission Executive Director Irene Sewankambo in a letter addressed to the firms.

“Uganda Communications Commission hereby directs you to immediately suspend any access and use, direct or otherwise, of all social media platforms and online messaging applications over your network until further notice,” the letter read.

Last week, the commission issued an order where they ordered telecommunications companies to immediately suspend any access and use of social media and online messaging platforms.

Read: Uganda in darkness as Museveni orders social media blocked ahead of election

In a television address last week, Yoweri Museveni, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders who was running against his strongest opposition challenger Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine defended the social media shutdown as a response to Facebook’s closure of accounts of the ruling NRM “message senders”.

A week ago, Facebook took down a network linked to Uganda’s ministry of information for using fake and duplicate accounts to post ahead of this week’s election.

“Facebook decided to block NRM message centers. Why would anyone do that? I told my people to close it. If it is to operate in Uganda, it should be used equitably,” Museveni said in his speech.

He apologised for the “inconvenience” caused to users insisting that he cannot tolerate the “arrogance” of anybody coming to decide for Uganda “who is good and who is bad”.