Bobi Wine urges lifting of ‘house arrest’

KAMPALA: Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine on Sunday urged the international community to demand he be released from ‘house arrest’ after a disputed election returned President Yoweri Museveni to office for a sixth term.

The former ragga singer turned lawmaker, who came second in the presidential election, has not left his home since he went out to vote on Thursday, and has said his home is surrounded by hundreds of police and soldiers.

“We are here, we have run out of food, and nobody is allowed to come in or go out,” said Wine, speaking on a crackling ‘clandestine’ line on a Zoom call with journalists as Uganda remains under an internet blackout.

“We have not been charged of any crime.” Wine, 38, has said he has video footage of ballot box stuffing, soldiers forcing people to vote in a certain way or preticking ballots, but that the internet shutdown is preventing his local lawyers from putting together a legal case.

He called for international sanctions against Museveni, the release of political prisoners, the restoration of internet, an international audit of the election and for ‘all the nations to kindly re-audit their relationship with Uganda’.

He said he has been unable to meet his party officials to decide on a way forward but “we are putting all non-violent, all legal and all constitutional options on the table and that includes peaceful and legal protests”.

Museveni has said it was the cleanest election in the country’s history.

Wine’s National Unity Platform earlier said that prominent MP, Francis Zaake, who had been arrested as he tried to visit his house on Friday, had been admitted to hospital ‘badly beaten and brutalised’ by security forces.

Ugandan officials have said the soldiers and police were there for Wine’s own security.

Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said the internet would begin to come back online on Monday.

“We anticipate that by Monday the opposition, who have been misusing the internet, would have come to terms with the loss they suffered in the presidential election”. —