By KT Reporter
Police in Kiira region have gone ahead to block Busoga one radio’s music festival despite earlier guidance by the internal affairs minister, Kahinda Otafiire.
Busoga one was slated to hold their annual music festival codenamed, “Endigito ya Busoga, tunga ntunge,” tomorrow, Sunday, 07th, December, 2025.
The Jinja resident city commissioner, Richard Gulume, yesterday morning issued a directive, blocking the festival, noting that, it would be used for political reasons.
Gulume advised the radio owners to consider organizing their festival next year after the general elections.
However this decision was overturned by the letter from Otafiire, who advised that the radio should be offered greenlight to organize their festival, despite this being a political season.
His later stated that the country is going through a political period and it was unavoidable to deter usage of political statements. “The reason to stop the event is because this is a political period. I want to guide that the event should be allowed to take place. In this political period, political statements are not banned and we must be seen to allow political space,” reads his letter in part.
However, while setting up their music stage, police officers attached to the field force Unit-FFU rounded up the planned event venue, the agricultural show grounds and directed all the setup teams to depart.
They also directed all the Busoga one staff to depart from the venue with immediate effect or risk arrest.
The manager of Busoga one radio, Innocent Anyole says that they have fulfilled all the requirements, including presenting Otafiire’s letter to police authorities, but they still declined to listen.
All police officials contacted have declined to comment about the matter over undisclosed reasons. However, a police source who preferred anonymity says that intelligence reports indicate that this music festival might be used to promote the opposition messages against the ruling National Resistance Movement-NRM.
THe source adds: “This radio is owned by a National Unity Platform-NUP supporter and some people think this festival would be used to promote an opposition agenda rather than the sole purpose of entertainment.”
Busoga One is owned by Paul Mwiru, the NUP chairperson for Busoga West, who also doubles as the Jinja South East parliamentary flagbearer.
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