MP’s 3 guards among 5 arrested in Teso North gun drama

Three bodyguards attached to Teso North MP Oku Kaunya were among five people police arrested and detained on Tuesday following a fracas that occurred at Mwari Primary School in the constituency.

The MP who spoke to the press at 3 pm denied claims that the bodyguards, alongside two other people arrested had been deployed at Mwari to bribe voters in a bid to beat his opponent, Lawi Mamai.

Mamai is Kaunya’s main challenger in this year’s parliamentary elections in Teso North.

The fracas happened about 100 metres away from Mamai’s home in Mwari and outside the Mwari Primary School polling centre.

During the incident, residents accused the five of being sent to bribe locals and cause chaos in the area as people continued to arrive at the Mwari Primary School and other neighbouring polling stations to cast their votes.

One of the bodyguards who had brandished a pistol was beaten before the gun was confiscated.

Kaunya said the only lady who was in the vehicle from which one of his bodyguards was pulled out and beaten was his campaign coordinator.

She had been assigned to dispatch an appointment letter to one of his agents deployed at the Mwari Primary School polling station.

The other occupant of the vehicle was the driver.

The MP’s bodyguards had been assigned to pick up his coordinator from her home in the same area where she was to drop the appointment letter off to the Mwari Primary School polling agent before proceeding to his Kakemer home.

He said the five were attacked as his agent alighted from the vehicle to deliver the appointment letter.

“That incident that took place was an attack by a group of people on some of my staff which included my escorts. They were driving in a vehicle on a road and not at the polling station whereby they had gone to drop one of my staff who was coming to my home in Kakamer from Amagoro town,” Kaunya said at a press briefing at his home.

“The staff that was being dropped there is a coordinator in my region. She was going to take a letter to an agent to be admitted to the Mwari polling station. Unfortunately, as they stopped on the road, they were quickly blocked by people who came and surrounded the vehicle. It is like it was a planned action because the vehicle was known to be mine.”

Kaunya said his bodyguards had no role to play in the elections in the constituency.

He condemned the attack on his team calling on police to take action against the perpetrator of the attack.

Earlier in the day, Mamai had accused the MP of deploying the five to his home turf to bribe voters to tilt the election results in his disfavour.

Mamai said the act was unlawful and called on law enforcers to arrest and subsequently prosecute for his staff activity in elections.

He said acts of bribery on his supporters amounted to an insult to the democracy that the people of Teso North have enjoyed for a long time.

“This should serve as a warning to all those that are still thinking that they can go around and try to force the will of the people towards them that their actions won’t be accepted,” Mamai said shortly after casting his vote.

But Kaunya at the press conference later accused Mamai of orchestrating violence in a constituency that has known peace for decades.

Just like Mamai, Kaunya called for the immediate arrest of Mamai following the fracas.

“I would expect a respectable leader who is seeking votes in a diplomatic and democratic manner to seek votes peacefully. I note that this incident is a culmination of consistent action by the same candidate,” Kaunya said.

“It was a very unfortunate incident of mob justice where the majority of those who were involved are people associated with Lawi Mamai.”

But Mamai separately shot back:

“I am happy that whatever I raised yesterday has actually been witnessed by the OCPD himself and these people have been arrested and taken to Malaba police station and we hope they will face the full force of the law.”