Big Blow to Museveni As International Body Takes A Tough Action

Monday the 11th was a slap on the face to some top officials in the Ugandan government as Facebook shut down their accounts on the grounds of their plans to manipulate public debate ahead of the presidential and legislative elections on Thursday. This is according to Kezia Anim-Addo, the head of Facebook communication in sub-Saharan Africa who said that Facebook accounts for a section of leaders who have been manipulating content on the platform had been suspended and others deleted completely.

“This month, we removed a network of accounts and pages in Uganda that engaged in CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour) to target public debate ahead of the election… They used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were.” Annim-Addo revealed to the media.

The move by Facebook has seen Museveni’s senior press secretary Don Wanyama’s Instagram and Facebook accounts being shut. Wanyama has retaliated by condemning the action saying that it had been influenced by some foreign forces who intend to influence the election.

“Shame on the foreign forces that think they can aid and plant a puppet leadership on Uganda by disabling online accounts of NRM supporters. You won’t take away President Kaguta Museveni,” the senior press secretary pinned on Twitter.

The move by Facebook comes at a time when Ugandans are expected to exercise their democratic right of voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for Thursday the 14th.

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