Popular Uganda opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, posted on Twitter that he and his campaign team were arrested in the country’s central region on Wednesday.
There have not been any further details of the arrest made available so far. Wine, in the post, tweeted that the team was arrested in Kalangala, central Uganda.
Joel Senyonyi, the spokesman for Bobi Wine’s party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), confirmed the tweet: “Yes police has arrested him together with his whole campaign team. They (police) put them in police trucks and started driving but we don’t know where they are taking them.”
Sources say Spokesman for the Police, Fred Enanga, was not immediately available for comment.
Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine who is also a singer, is currently the strongest challenger to the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, 76, in the presidential election scheduled to hold on January 14.
Back in November this year, at least 54 people lost their lives after protests broke out following Wine’s brief detention over alleged violation of COVID-19-related social distancing measures.
The police reported that at the time, they had arrested close to 600 people and accused protesters of rioting and looting. United Nations human rights experts on Tuesday, called on Uganda to rein in violent security forces and drop all charges against political opponents and activists arrested in what the experts called an ‘election clampdown’.