Ugandan opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Bobi Wine was shot in the leg by security agents in a northern suburb of the capital Kampala on Tuesday, September 3.
He is recovering after spending a night in Nsambya Hospital where surgery was done to remove fragments of teargas from his leg, following the latest violent altercation involving him and armed security officers.
Bobi Wine whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as the most formidable opponent of veteran President Yoweri Museveni who has been in power for almost 40 years. He was on his way to meet his lawyers was on his way to visit his lawyers in Bulindo, which is about 20km (12 miles) north of the capital, Kampala.
His party, the National Unity Platform, holds the most seats of any opposition group in the national assembly. In a post on X, the party said that Ugandan security operatives “have attempted the life of” Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.
“He was shot in the leg and seriously injured in Bulindo, Wakiso District,” it said.
The police said officers had attempted to block Wine and his team from marching down a road, resulting in an altercation where Wine sustained injuries. An investigation would be conducted to clarify the facts, the police said in a statement on X.
“Police officers on site claim he stumbled while getting into his vehicle, causing the injury, whereas Hon. Kyagulanyi and his team assert that he was shot,” the police said.
Overnight, NUP spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi said X-ray reports showed “there were some fragments from tear-gas canister embedded in Bobi Wines’s leg.”
Veteran opposition strongman Dr Kizza Besigye denounced the ‘horrible outcome of what, as usual, is uncalled for police aggression against political opposition.”
“From Ssenyonyi’s brief, the injuries Kyagulanyi suffered are from the tear ball grenades (usually blue coloured), that police liberally employ as part of persecution-not policing!” he wrote on X.
In 2018, Bobi Wine’s bodyguard-driver Yasin Kawuma was shot dead as security officers viciously arrested Bobi Wine in Northern Uganda during parliamentary by-election activities.
Wine has amassed huge support amongst the youth in Uganda, a nation of 46 million, with many wooed initially by his rags-to-riches story as a pop star from the ghetto, and in recent years by his bold attacks on Museveni’s government.
Museveni, a U.S. ally on regional security for many years, has held power since 1986 and had the constitution amended to remove the age limit for presidents. Now 79 years old, he has resisted calls to announce when he will retire.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters that Washington was “concerned that violence against opposition voices means the democratic space continues to shrink in Uganda.”
Read also: Babu, the Fiery Critic of the Old System
