Kampala, Uganda | URN | Police officers on the security detail of the Forum for Democratic Change [FDC] presidential candidate, Patrick Oboi Amuriat have complained of attacks by their Field Force Police [FFP] colleagues.
The officers say they have become victims of teargas, water cannons and other forms of brutality from their counterparts deployed to break up Amuriat’s rallies.
On Wednesday 18, November 2020 the officers were teargassed by dozens of Field Force Police [FFP] personnel from Gulu Central Police Station while struggling to quell down rowdy FDC supporters who were holding a procession through Gulu city.
The FFP officers threw teargas at the presidential candidate as members of his security detail tried to shield him.
Some of the police guards who are from the Counter-Terrorism Unit were overheard shouting on top of their voices at their colleagues to direct the teargas elsewhere but all in vain.
‘’We are part of you and were deployed from the police headquarters to protect the presidential candidate. Why are you firing at us? This is unrealistic,” some of the officers said.
Some of the officers told this publication on condition of anonymity at Awere open grounds where Amuriat was scheduled to address a rally that it is quite unfortunate that they are being targeted by their colleagues who should protect them.
Another officer wondered the kind of training the FFU officers underwent and capability of their commanding officers because of their conducts.
While at Awere open grounds, John Bosco Nyangkol, the officer in-charge of Gulu central police station who led the operation was seen frantically struggling to stop the FFU officers from firing at their colleagues in vain.
It took almost two hours for the FFU officers to respond to Nyangkol’s orders to stop firing teargas and live bullets.
Patrick Amuriat Oboi, the FDC presidential candidate told this publication in a separate interview that associating with him has become a crime in Uganda that is paid by teargas and live bullets.
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Last week, a police officer on the security detail of the National Unity Platform [NUP] presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulany Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine was injured by a teargas canister that was fired by officers battling NUP supporters in Karamoja.
The Aswa Region Police Spokesperson Jimmy Patrick Okema didn’t respond to queries put to him by our reporter over the matter.
