Bobi Wine: Museveni treats me like a terrorist

National Unity Platform (NUP) presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has accused incumbent President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni of treating Uganda’s opposition like terrorists.

Bobi Wine, a youthful singer-turned-politician, is one of the 10 opposition candidates seeking to end Museveni’s almost 35-year-rule.

Museveni is also facing competition from Patrick Oboi Amuriat (POA), the candidate of main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and a protégé of his two-decade fiercest rival Dr Kizza Besigye, two of his bush war comrades Maj Gen (Rtd) Gregg Mugisha Muntu of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) and Lt Gen (Rtd) Henry Kakurugu Tumukunde.

Campaigning in Rukungiri, where Besigye and Tumukunde hail from, Museveni described his bush war comrades – Besigye, Muntu and Tumukunde – as useless politicians he always had to push like wheelbarrows.

Opposition presidential candidates, especially Amuriat and Bobi Wine, have faced arrests, their rallies have been blocked, supporters teargassed and cars shot at.

Speaking to BBC Hardtalk on December 18, Bobi Wine described opposition campaigns as wars.

“Campaigning in Uganda under the rulership of President Museveni who has been in power for close to 35 years is actually less of a real presidential campaign and more of war,” said Bobi Wine.

He added that the Museveni administration had chosen to deal with the opposition the way nations would terrorists.

“As the opposition, we are looked at as terrorists,” Bobi Wine continued. “President Museveni is not treating us as political opponents but as terrorists.”