Singer and opposition politician, Bobi Wine says he is not certain whether his planned music concert scheduled for Saturday will take place.
He said that the Police has frustrated all efforts by his team to secure permission and instead resorted on tossing them around.
The ‘Kyarenga’ concert was scheduled to take place on October 20 in Namboole stadium. But last week, a letter emerged in which the Management of the stadium wrote to the event promoters asking them to reschedule. Reason – there was a pre-booked wedding at the same venue on the date of Bobi Wine’s concert.
At the time, the singer was in Kenya and did not comment on the letter.
Now, Bobi Wine has come out to explain the circumstances surrounding the uncertainty of his concert. He accuses the Uganda Police Force leadership of not being forthright with him regarding clearance for the event, as required by law.
“Dear fans and friends, I am not sure when or whether the Kyarenga Concert will happen. But I advise those in authority to desist from these provocations. I am a Ugandan artiste with a legitimate right to stage a concert,” Bobi Wine wrote on his Facebook on Monday.
He said “we have done everything required of us by law but it is apparent that the people in authority are doing everything possible to frustrate the concert”.
As such, the concert has been left in balance, he said, despite having spent a lot of money and time on advertisements and preparations.
“These problems have been caused by the inconsistency and lack of transparency on the part of Uganda Police Force. For the past three weeks, the event organizers have been tossed up and about by the police,” he said.
According to Bobi Wine, the concert was initially meant to be held on October 13, but they would later be told the national football team was playing Lesotho on the same day. He had to accept to reschedule to October 20.
His team went to the Police headquarters in Naguru with a written request seeking clearance for the show as well as provision for security.
But on arrival, the police officers in charge of receiving and filing letters refused to stamp on it to indicate that it had been received, Bobi Wine says.
When they continued making efforts for clearance. Instead they were referred to different Police offices and later to the Inspector General of Police, Okoth Ochola.
The Kyarenga singer says that when the team went to the IGP’s office, he sent them to his assitant, who in turn sent them to the Police Director for Operations, AIGP Asuman Mugyenyi.
“At this point, these guys started speaking a different language,” the singer said.
He said Police again asked them to get clearance from Namboole stadium only to be referred to Police by stadium Management.
According to Bobi Wine’s account, the team was at one point told by Police to go to the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) if they wanted any information concerning police clearance of the concert.
“My team went back to the Police headquarters on Friday last week and they were told to go back today at 10am on condition that I appear with them in person”.
At this point, the singer had to cut his Kenya trip short and return to Kampala to have this stalemate resolved.
“To my dismay, when my team reached the Police headquarters this morning, they were told that the IGP was out of town,” he wrote.
His efforts to contact the IGP on Monday were futile, he says.
