Uganda's Inspector General of Police Martin Okoth Ochola and President Uhuru Kenyatta were at the centre of a hilarious controversy that dominated online discourse in the country.
Old tweets from the Inspector General's official account were uncovered, in which he seemed to pose as President Kenyatta, responding to foreign leaders and promising to assist Kenyans who reached out to him.
It later emerged that the account initially had the handle @_ukenyatta, and was a bot account allegedly used by President Kenyatta's team to sway opinion during the 2017 Presidential election.
According to Ugandan publication The Sqoop, Kenyan PR expert Cynthia Nyamai's firm was running the IG's official account and when Gen Kale Kayihura, the former Inspector General, was sacked by President Yoweri Museveni on March 4, they changed the IG's account to Gen Kayihura’s personal account then modified the bot account under the handle @_Ukenyatta and gave it to the new IG, Ochola.
Keen Twitter users uncovered old tweets from the account where the Inspector General was commenting on everything from football to the 2017 elections.
[caption caption="Old tweets from the account"]
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In one instance, the IG seemed to have responded to Kenya's First lady Margaret Kenyatta when she congratulated Uhuru for winning the August 8 election that was eventually nullified.
"Congratulations sweetheart and thank you #Elections2017," the IG wrote.
The account was quickly protected after the tweets surfaced.
Following the uproar, the Ugandan police distanced itself from the 2 accounts.
"Please note that none of the accounts below are the official accounts of the the Inspector General of Police. We will share the details of his account in due course," they posted.
[caption caption="The statement by Uganda's police"]
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