Uganda: Bobi Wine, Opposition Presidential Candidate Challenging Yoweri Museveni Arrested in Brutal Police Repression

Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine: Young Popular Musician and Politician

Bobi Wine, 38, has been very popular across Uganda and around the World for his music and the wide support among the young people, the grass-root and the intellectuals. He started attracting the ire from Yoweri Museveni, one of the most brutal dictators in Africa, when he decided to run for political office and challenge the dictator.

In April 2017, Bobi Wine announced his candidacy for parliament for the Kyaddondo East Constituency. He won the contest by a wide margin, beating two veteran candidates: Sitenda Sebalu of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party and Apollo Kantinti of the main opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).

He is an MP and the leader of the National Unity Platoform, that he joined on July 22, 2020.

Bobi Wine and Challenging a Brutal Longest Lasting African Dictator

Yoweri Museveni, 76, Africa's third longest-serving dictator, filed his candidacy Monday as the candiate of the ruling the National Resistance Movement party.

Most Ugandans, in a country of 42 million, the ones now behind Bobi Wine, have only known Yoweri Museveni as the president. He had the constitution amended for a second time to allow him to run a sixth time in 2021.

Since Bobi Wine started challenging the rule, Yoweri Museveni's army, intelligence services, and police have conducted periodic security crackdowns on Bobi Wine and his supporters. He has aften said that his political drive comes from his connection with ordinary Ugandans and his understanding their struggles since he was "born hustling and born to hustling parents, raised in the ghettos".

Since he expressed his presidential ambitions, police and the military have repeatedly dispersed his rallies, and beaten and detained his supporters.

In 2018, Bobi Wine was tortured by the police in a detention and was urgently flow to the United States for medical treatment. In his tweet then, he said: "Safely arrived in the US where I'll be receiving specialised treatment following the brutal torture at the hands of SFC soldiers. We thank the world for standing with us. I will soon tell you what exactly happened to me since 13th August and what is next. #peoplepower Power"

Uganda: 2021 Contested and Already Violent Elections.

Before his arrest on Tuesday, Bobi Wine said in a speech:
"...Mr Museveni, since you have failed to control your greed and lust for power, our generation is determined to save you from yourself and stop your 35-year-old dictatorship,"

Ugandan police used rubber bullets, live rounds and tear gas to crack down on a protest by Bobi Wine's supporters after he was arrested on Tuesday after the filing of his nomination papers.

At least 15 people were injured in the disturbances at the home compound of Wine, 38, also a musician who has parlayed his relative youth and upbringing in a slum into a popular following against veteran President Yoweri Museveni.

Patrick Oboi Amuriat, the leader of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), another opposition party was also arrested and paraded, shoeless, by the police. The police brought him in a van, shoeless and disheveled, to file his candidacy.

Patrick Oboi Amuriat told the media that the police intercepted him on his way to his party headquarters and had him to walk in his socks.

"It is disgusting, disappointing, but this was expected by a regime that is shameless, desperate to cling to power," he told AFP.

The US embassy in Kampala had issued a security alert warning of "elevated potential for civil disturbances" near the university on Tuesday, and advised Americans to steer clear.

Museveni was cleared to run in the elections on Monday. Elections are scheduled for February  2021.

@AfroAmerica Network 2020