Staff Writer
Roads are blocked. Activists are detained and beaten, or worse, killed. Internet is being monitored or paid for to use. Citizens paid tax to use Facebook or other social media platforms. Protesters violently disperse. Opposition leaders were harassed, intimated, arrested, or worse, openly shot at by the police. Huh, a child is crying! Women kicked by a man in uniform. This is the tragedy of Uganda.
Bobi Wine, the flag bearer of National Unity Platform-NUP, faced one of the brutal dictators in East Africa, perhaps in the entire continent. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has been in power as Uganda leader for more than 30 years. It is said 70 percent of the Ugandans population were not yet born when President Museveni took over the leadership of the country.
Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu-Bobi Wine was only four years old when president Museveni came to power. Thirty-four years later, he and incumbent Uganda president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni would compete for the 2021 presidential elections. The fourth time the president amended the constitution to be on the ballot. He crushed all his oppositions for nearly half a century. Hopes are lost, and courage is sustaining the fight.
With Museveni having the vast influence of power structures in Uganda, Bobi Wine stole the heart of the people. Songs have been composed to praise young Bobi, he sang to encourage his countrymen and women. Music and people are his tools. The president has the gun and media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are the exceptional external parastatal Bobi Wine had at his disposal. The world is silent on Uganda.
Will Bobi Wine win? Will Bobi Wine, a musician turned politician oust President Museveni out of power? Through ballot or bullet? January 2021 quickly arrived. Two weeks away to determine the destiny of the millions of Ugandans who put their confidence in sensational actor, businessman, and musician, Robert Kyagulanyi. There is only one problem among many, president Museveni controls the electoral body.
More than 60 people were killed since MTV award-winning artist, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu known for his stage name as Bobi Wine declared to run for the presidency. This is the current situation in Uganda. His cameraman was and killed wo days ago. His bodyguard was overrun by the police and later killed, he said. Bobi was again arrested yesterday, many of his arrests by the security forces. He entire team still in custody. His legal team has been barred to access them. More than 90 people arrested. All his campaign team.
Who is Bobi Wine? And why him?
Robert Kyagulanyi Seentamu was born on February 12, 1982. Four years later, the incumbent president, Yoweri Museveni Kaguta, who came to power after his National Resistance Army-NRA, ousted from power a little-known Uganda president at a time, Tito Okello Lutwa, in 1986.
Tito only had six months as the leader of Uganda and was toppled by Museveni after the peace accord failed. Museveni marched his men to the capital city, Kampala. The narrowly escaped Okello found sanctuary in Nairobi, Kenya, and then to Europe until he returned home in 1993 after an amnesty by the current president. He died from an undisclosed illness in 1996. A memory Robert is aware of.
The 38 years old married to sensationalist beauty queen, Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi since 2011, is determined to end more than 30 years of rule of President Yoweri Museveni.
In 2018, Bobi Wine decided to run for a parliamentary seat representing Kyadondo County East constituency in Wakiso District, in Uganda’s central region. He won with a 99 percent vote. The largest in Uganda’s parliamentary elections history.
He eventually won the ticket for the National Unity Platform. In 2019, he began to hit the campaign trail for the 2021 presidential election. His victory surprised both the elites in Kampala and across the region.
Bobi is young and energetic. The reasons for his interest to vie for the top job in the country rest in lack of progress, corruption by the president Museveni regime. Than any other politicians in Uganda, he is the most talks about.
Although the international media outlets come to the rescue by reporting to the international community what is taking place in Uganda, will the world hold the NRM regime accountable? Any sanction? If no help is offered, it will end in tragedy as it is. In the tragedy of Uganda, the world is silent on
Days are near. Hopes are high. Brutality increase. Who will win Uganda’s January 14, 2021, general elections? Uganda’s long-term leader? Yoweri Museveni? Or the young progressive populist, Bobi Wine? How about a reflection on Sudan?
He Museveni, will follow suit? If Museveni unleashed his brutal forces to the street of Kampala in case election goes North, will citizens oust him out of power? Bobi talked of this scenario in the past pointing that, if president Museveni continue in this path, it is likely he will follows “his fellow dictators” like those of Bashir, Gaddafi. A threat not taken for granted by Museveni. He tied up security descending on Bobi’s team like Uganda has ever seen before. Some say it a last kick of a dying horse.
The waiting is intense.