Kampala, Uganda | URN | President Museveni’s motorcade on Monday 12, September 2022 knocked and injured three people who were riding on a boda boda along the Northern bypass.
Rogers Nsereko Kawuma, the Kampala Metropolitan traffic police commander said the convoy knocked the boda boda rider and his two passengers at around 11.40 am at a Masanafu roundabout, between Busega and Namungoona.
Kawuma explained that all the passengers and the rider were evacuated to the hospital with serious injuries.
“No one died, the passengers are still alive but with serious injuries and the President wasn’t in the convoy; it was an empty convoy,” Kawuma said.
A video clip that has made rounds on social media shows three people on the tarmac crying for help while one of the victims completely motionless. A woman is heard in the video saying that the victims had been knocked by the president’s mobile “toilet.”
“The president’s convoy has knocked people at the Northern bypass. The toilet driver is the one who knocked them. The other vehicles had passed but the ‘toilet’ driver has knocked these people. The toilet driver has knocked these people…,” a woman is heard repeatedly saying in Luganda in a shaky voice. There has been inconclusive debate about the so-called mobile toilet.
Some security sections claim it is not a toilet per se as many have been made to believe but rather a mobile communications centre for the President to coordinate military operations or engagements.
In the video, soldiers dressed in Special Forces Command (SFC) and Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) are seen checking on the victims scattered on the tarmac. SFC spokesperson, Maj Jimmy Omara, in a statement released in the evening denied the convoy knocking the victims.
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“The accident happened when the rider of a motorcycle Reg. number UFM 260F swerved to avoid hitting a stationary vehicle, hit right rear side as result fell off the bike into the middle of the road with two passengers. In the process, some of the convoy vehicles swerved to avoid hitting them,” said Omara.
The President is guaranteed right of way and road users are at all times advised to give way to his convoy. However, sometimes boda boda riders and drivers tend to miscalculate the distance remaining for the convoy to pass and they end up getting knocked.
Not only people have antagonized the president’s motorcade but animals too. In 2020, Museveni compensated a man after his goat was knocked at Bweyogerere. The owner was paid Shs 800,000.
