Bobi Wine bodyguard shot in the head. Photo: Facebook.
Leading Ugandan presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi—a.k.a. Bobi Wine—survived a brush with death today when security forces shot his bodyguard in the head and two other members of his entourage. One was shot in the head and another apparently in the mouth.
The armed forces shot the tires of Bobi Wine’s car and disabled the vehicle and also fired teargas in addition to bullets.
“Our lives are in great danger!” the presidential candidate, who is challenging Uganda’s dictator of 34 years, Gen. Yoweri Museveni, posted on his Facebook page. “After blocking our campaign in Kayunga, on our way to the next one in Jinja, the police and military as usual blocked the main road and diverted us to a remote road. This was as if intended to set us into their convenient ‘kill spot’. When they thought no one was watching, the police and military shot the [tires] of my car and directly into our windscreen, narrowly missing Hon Zaake and my driver.”
Francis Zaake is a Ugandan member of Parliament who has been semi-crippled after two previous episodes of arrest and torture by Gen. Museveni’s military intelligence units.
Media accompanying Bobi Wine posted photos of the people who were shot by soldiers and the police as well as a video of thyme incident which shows the candidate demanding to know why he was being blocked by the armed forces—suddenly, a member of the security forces started firing. An entourage member wearing the customary red shirt that’s emblematic of the People Power movement is then shown flat on his back, rolling around in pain while blood poured from his head. Another Bobi Wine aide, music producer Daniel Oyerwot, is shown with blood flowing from his mouth, and one of his bodyguards whose last name is Kato is shown with blood flowing from a bullet graze right above his right eye.
Bobi Wine was to have addressed a campaign rally in Kayunga before driving on to Jinja and Kamuli districts. Instead he was veered into the side road by a combined force of police and army soldiers dressed in full combat fatigue including foliage as if going into war against a foreign army.
Gen. Museveni has been rattled by the size of the rallies—tens of thousands have seen Bobi Wine during his national tour—heading into the 2021 election. Museveni himself campaigns around the country before sparse crowds, unmolested by security forces. In addition to attacking and brutalizing supporters of Bobi Wine the security forces have also harassed another challenger, Patrick Oboi Amuriat, who is the candidate of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
