Faith Nyasuguta
Bobi Wine, Ugandan opposition leader has called on the international community to walk the talk on Museveni’s 2021 “electoral fraud”.
The politician revealed this during the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy last week.
He noted that leaders who tolerate dictators and treat them as legitimate partners are complicit in their crimes. Wine has thus called for targeted sanctions for Museveni and his enablers responsible for human rights violations.
According to the opposition leader, over 85% of Ugandans have seen no other president in their lifetime now that President Yoweri Museveni has always changed the constitution to stay in power.
The 40-year-old Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, is the most prominent opposition leader in Uganda.
“Museveni rules Uganda with an iron hand, he deploys the military against citizens and even students. Those who oppose him are either imprisoned, tortured or killed,” he said.
The musician turned politician leads the National Unity Platform (NUP) political party under which he controversially lost the presidential pollsin 2021.
According to Uganda’s electoral commission, Museveni won 58.64% of the vote to Wine’s 34.83%
Wine recalled the day after casting his vote on January 14,2021 as one of the most painful in his life.
“On election day, after casting my ballot, I went home, only to find hundreds of soldiers surrounding my house, and I also learned that the same was happening at our party offices all across the country.
International authorities challenged the results as fraudulent, not free, and not fair, but I remained under house arrest for the next 11 days,” he said.
In his address, Wine called for action to be taken as words alone could not change things since the international community of observers declared the polls not free and fair.
“The international community already recognised that the 2021 election in Uganda was neither free nor fair. It is important that these words be followed with actions,” he said.
He asserted that world leaders who give an ear to dictators were enablers of the oppression faced by Africans back home.
“Leaders who tolerate dictators and treat them as legitimate partners are complicit in their crimes. Please do not be partners in crime,” he said, adding that they should “stand on the right side of history”.
In his closing remarks, he pleaded for world leaders to cut funding and cooperation with Museveni’s government. He also called for direct sanctions against Museveni, his key allies in government and military, adding that they should be tried under international law for human rights abuses.
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