Pop star-turned-politician tweets police arrested him while he was on the campaign trail for the 2021 election.
Protests have erupted in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, after police arrested presidential candidate Bobi Wine in the east of the country. The musician-turned-opposition leader, said on Twitter on Wednesday police violently broke into his vehicle in the town of Luuka and took him into custody.
“The price of freedom is high but we shall certainly overcome,” the 38-year-old politician’s account said in one of the tweets. Officials accused him of violating coronavirus restrictions while out campaigning for next year’s presidential election.
After news of the arrest reached the capital, Bobi Wine’s supporters blocked roads and burned tires, prompting police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters. It was “total chaos” in the city, said the chairman of the Kampala City Traders Association, Evarest Kayongo. “The streets are empty … We have closed business because of tear gas and bullets,” he said.
Kampala Metropolitan police spokesman Patrick Onyango said they would soon issue a statement. “Bobi has been arrested this morning in Luuka town, but we do not know his whereabouts right now,” the politician’s brother, opposition activist Fred Nyanzi, told the dpa news agency.
“We have not been allowed to see him and we don’t know what is happening,” asserted Joel Ssenyonyi, the spokesman for Bobi Wine’s political party, the National Unity Platform.