Kalema Lawrence
Last year, the government of Uganda introduced a new form of tax on social media, Over The Top (OTT) that left many talking. A number of social media users rather resorted to using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to bypass this tax restriction and to the shocker, among them is a top Police Officer on the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police.
This revealation followed when twitter most popular Ugandan senior police officer shared a screenshot captioned message with his followers about the state of the Kyadondo East MP Sentamu Kyagulanyi popularly known as Bobi Wine who had been arrest and remanded to Luzira Prison over charges of street protesting against these very taxes earlier in the day.
When this AIGP shared a screenshot, it came with the sign of the VPN and his followers were quick to identify it.
While others sarcastically sided him saying that it wasn’t a crime to use a VPN, many questioned him wondering why the Uganda Police officers came out beating the protestors who were crying foul against OTT, yet they were fighting for people including some of them.
“Afande, why jail Bobi Wine when he is fighting for people like you?” A sharp Twitterati was quick to throw a tantrum to the officer.
However, instead of the officer handling the matter in a more corporate way, he rather fumed insisting that he pays OTT dilligently.
“I didn’t want to go there. Let me say this. My OTT paid for two months expires on June 4. It was paid on April 4 before I even posted the messages. Guys, look for toher ways of being relevant,..” the visibly angry officer replied.
It was later learnt that he decided to delete the tweet before it attracts more attention.
