Fears for Ugandan pop star
KAMPALA: In his red beret and jumpsuit the Ugandan pop star Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known as Bobi Wine, leads cheering campaigners down a street, punching the air and waving the national flag.
Once considered a marijuana-loving crooner, the 36year-old “ghetto child” is an unlikely new political phenomenon – and that appears to have put him in danger as an opposition figure taking on one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
The new member of parliament urges his countrymen to stand up against what he calls a failing government.
Despite murmurs about his wild past and inexperience in politics, his approach appears to be working: All of the candidates he has backed in strongly contested legislative by-elections this year have emerged victorious.
But after clashes this week led to a smashed window in President Yoweri Museveni’s convoy and Ssentamu’s own driver shot dead, some of the singer’s supporters now wonder if they’ll ever see him again.
The brash young lawmaker was charged on Thursday in a military court with illegal possession of firearms for his alleged role in Monday’s clashes in the north-western town of Arua, where both he and Museveni were campaigning.
As the president’s convoy left a rally, authorities say, a group associated with Ssentamu and the candidate he supported, Kassiano Wadri, pelted it with stones.
Ssentamu quickly posted on Twitter a photo of his dead driver slumped in a car seat, blaming police “thinking they’ve shot at me”. Then he was arrested, and he hasn’t been seen in public since.
Army spokesman Brigadier Richard Karemire said yesterday the lawmaker “is under safe custody”.
The US Embassy said it was “disturbed by reports of brutal treatment” of legislators and others by security forces. – AP/ African News Agency (ANA)