President Museveni has directed security forces to locate and arrest sources using social media to spread fake news regarding his presumed death.
“So the security service needs to solve that problem. I will check with them to locate the one who tells such a story because you waste people’s time. They should locate you and we go for you,” he said.
Mr Museveni made the remarks while presiding over the swearing in ceremony of another batch of recently appointed ministers at Kololo Independence Grounds today (Thursday).
His directive follows social media reports and photos indicating that the president is dead while others suggested that he is in bad shape.
The president said that spreading false information on social media is not a security problem but instead an idiotic problem.
The claims that have become vocal, even after the president has made several public appearances started circulating on the night of June 26 in form of multimedia from anonymous sources on microblogging platforms including the government banned Facebook mobile application.
“Another problem that we need to solve, I don’t think it’s not a security problem but it’s an idiotic problem. Social media have apparently been saying that Museveni is dead. Now the other day, I went to that side of Bombo, people were looking clearly because they had been told that Museveni is dead,” he said.
He added that those who are in Europe spreading such rumours that he is dead will be denounced.
“If you are in Europe we denounce you and say go to hell,” Mr Museveni said.
