The Office of the Senior Presidential Advisor on Special Operations has come out to clarify on allegations that the First Son, Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba and his entourage instigated commotion at a hang out in Kampala during the New Year’s celebrations.
There have been postings on social media alleging that the security detail of Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Senior Presidential Advisor on Special Operations who is also son to President Yoweri Museveni treated revelers with indignity.
The claims hold that the First Son appeared at Sky Lounge in Kisementi near Kamwokya in company of ladies.
A Twitter user who goes by the handle @andsjeff posted a video on Twitter captioned: “Yesterday Muhoozi Kainerugaba entered Sky Lounge with a flock of ladies & started feeling like he owns earth, his SFC guards started chasing lads frm tables so that his flock could get where to sit but one error404 guy couldn’t take it, the place turned into a market for sometime”.
The 9-second-long video clip shows Muhoozi in a crowded lounge and noises by some of the revelers.
But in a statement released Thursday, Maj Chris Magezi who is the mouthpiece for Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has rebutted the claims.
While he admitted that Muhoozi was present at Sky Lounge on New Year’s Eve, Magezi says that the events on that evening have been misrepresented by those seeking “to project a negative image of what was otherwise a happy occasion Muhoozi attended”.
“Our office has been been alerted to some falsehoods circulating on social media about the cross over to 2019 celebrations at a venue called Sky lounge in Kampala. These falsehoods concern Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba,” a statement by Maj Magezi read in part.
“I would like to use the same forum to assure all friends and colleagues of Gen Keinerugaba who might be concerned with these misrepresentations, that these are lies intended to spite and project a negative image of what was otherwise a happy occasion he attended”.
In Magezi’s account, the venue was packed with people happy and enjoying the new year celebrations and no standing room was available.
There was no alleged pushing and shoving intended by anyone, he said.
“There were many people at the venue who were happy Gen Keinerugaba joined them to welcome the new year including the jokes about the ‘red berret’,” adds Magezi.
The red berret, which is a uniform for the Special Forces Command (SFC) that Muhoozi is attached too and formerly commanded, has also in recent months been associated with the political opposition pressure group, ‘People Power’. Popular singer and opposition politician, Bobi Wine who is the lead figure of ‘People Power’ dons a red berret.
Magezi says “what has been taken out of context on social media is that there were friends and colleagues all joking with him [Muhoozi] about the red cap, and him playfully insisting on wearing it since he regularly dons this as an army officer any way”.
He added that nobody intended or pushed anyone in or out of the venue on account of a cap or dress code.
“It is absurd that a joke is politicized and made an issue. There was neither commotion nor any issues with anyone as projected on social media”.
The First Son spent only thirty minutes at Sky Lounge after which he left with other colleagues, according to Magezi.
