Bobi Wine says soldiers have stormed his home as Uganda counts vote

Opposition leader tweets ‘we are under siege’, while President Yoweri Museveni takes early lead in election

Emmanuel Akinwotu and Samuel Okiror in Kampala

Fri 15 Jan 2021 

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1:16 Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine says he and wife fear for lives – video

Soldiers have stormed the home of Bobi Wine, the Ugandan opposition leader has said, as votes continued to be counted in the country’s election.

“We are under siege,” the pop star turned politician tweeted. “The military has jumped over the fence and has now taken control of our home.”

President Yoweri Museveni has taken an early lead as votes are counted in Uganda’s most keenly watched election in years, while opposition figures said the vote had been marred by fraud and violence.

With a third of the votes counted, Museveni had more than 65% of the tallied ballots and was ahead of Wine in almost every region. Wine, one of 10 opposition challengers, had gained about a quarter of the vote, according to Uganda’s electoral body.

Lt Col Deo Akiiki, Uganda’s deputy military spokesperson, said the soldiers were at Wine’s house to protect him. “As presidential candidate, do you want his security to be compromised? It’s not a deployment to arrest him. Its a deployment to keep his security like any other presidential candidate has. It’s a simple as that.”

Wine, who has galvanised a mass movement of young people challenging the president’s 34-year rule, said at a press conference on Friday morning that Ugandans should reject the results.

“I am very confident that we defeated the dictator by far,” he said. “The people of Uganda voted massively for change of leadership from a dictatorship to a democratic government. But Mr Museveni is trying to paint a picture that he is in the lead.”

Results are expected to be announced by Saturday. A candidate must win more than 50% to avoid a runoff vote.

Helicopters and tanks were on patrol as millions went to the polls on Thursday following one of the most turbulent and violent election campaigns. Wine’s rejection of the results could prolong heightened tensions in the east African country.

Election officials count the ballots after polls closed in Kampala on Thursday. 

Photograph: Jérôme Delay/AP

Security forces loyal to Museveni violently suppressed opposition supporters during the campaign. Museveni’s bid for a sixth term in power was only made possible when MPs changed the constitution to remove age limits. He has repeatedly accused Wine of being a foreign-backed “traitor”, while Wine has branded him a “dictator”.


Many in Africa see the challenge to Museveni, who at 76 is twice as old as Wine, as emblematic of a continent-wide generational struggle between ageing leaders who refuse to relinquish power and younger voters mobilising against them.

Bobi Wine: the reggae singer vying to be Uganda’s next president


The charismatic Wine has the backing of many young people in Uganda – where the median age is 15.7 – who are drawn to his anti-establishment message.

Many observers have expressed fears of state-backed moves to prevent transparency during the polls. On Wednesday night internet access was cut off for most users in the east African country, though some have used VPNs to communicate online. Uganda’s electoral commission said the lack of internet access had not affected the tallying of the count from around the country.

After polls closed on Thursday, hundreds of Wine supporters in Kampala returned to their polling stations to heed his call to “protect the vote” by watching the count. At the station where Wine had voted, security forces chased his supporters away.

Isabella Akiteng, a civil society activist, said late on Thursday that she and 29 others who were observing the polls had been arrested at a hotel in Kampala and were being interrogated by police.

On Wednesday, the US and EU said they would not observe the elections, after several officials were denied accreditation.

Peter Mwesigye, director of the Africa Media Centre of Excellence, said it would take time to determine the extent of voter fraud and violence at the polls.

“We know definitely there have been credible reports of fraud, but it’s going to be much harder and it will take many more days for us to begin to get the sense and scope of it,” he said. “The shutdown of the internet robbed the process of transparency that is required of an election. It has basically been an environment that doesn’t qualify for one to call it a free and fair election.”

Lina Zedriga, deputy president of Wine’s National Unity Platform for northern Uganda, said it would use all non-violent means to challenge the result. “It’s a mess. We have witnessed yet another false and great sham election […] They are just alleging and creating their own results.

“We are calling upon our supporters to be calm. They want us to provoke and make us violent. We are non-violent people. We will definitely use all non-violent means possible that is going to be discussed by our legal teams.”