Buganda Road Court has this afternoon granted bail to the nine students of Makerere and Kyambogo University who last week took to the streets to peacefully march to the EU headquarters to deliver a petition supporting the ban on the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project.
The students were however intercepted by police officers from the Field Force Unit, violently arrested and prosecuted in court before eventually getting remanded to Luzira prison till today. An EU directive challenging the arrest of the students was disregarded by the Ugandan government.
In today’s session, NUP lawyer Shamim Malende was substituted for Eron Kiiza, following a protest by Dr. Stella Nyanzi who claimed the celebrated NUP attorney was squarely to blame for the remand of the students amongst whom contained her lover, Musiri David, the head of the NUP party institutions wing.
Court today resumed with Eron Kiiza in session. It was adjourned for an hour from 10am to 11am to enable the counsel to arrange his substantial sureties for the nine students grappling with charges of public nuisance. The students have been successfully bailed out on cash worth UGX 100,000 for each of them. The widely condemned detention of students was justified by the Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango who said it was necessary as they never sought permission to hold the protest. Onyango went on to accuse the student protesters with having allegedly been hired and paid by external and political actors opposed to EACOP.
