Uganda opposition leader Bobi Wine arrested, says party

Ugandan opposition leader, Bobi Wine, was arrested Thursday on his return home from a trip abroad, a top party official said.

“Our President (Bobi Wine) picked up by regime operatives as soon as he landed at the airport,” David Lewis Rubongoya, the general secretary of Wine’s National Unity Platform said on X, formerly Twitter.

The post was accompanied by a photo appearing to show two men seizing him by the arms on the tarmac at Entebbe International Airport.

Wine’s supporters had planned to accompany him en masse to his home north of the capital, Kampala, to welcome him back, but police had said such gatherings were illegal.

Last month, Ugandan police announced they were banning rallies being organised by the National Unity Platform across the country because of public order issues.

Wine, a former singer whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, is a prominent critic of President Yoweri Museveni’s government and has faced numerous arrests and alleged human rights abuses in the past.

He made a failed bid for the presidency in 2021 against Museveni, who is serving a sixth term in power.

AFP