Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine)

Uganda's Chief of Defence Forces General David Muhoozi is in the spotlight over suspicious dealings with the man who is seeking to deregister a political party he handed over to opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi also known as Bobi Wine...

Uganda's Chief of Defence Forces General David Muhoozi is in the spotlight over suspicious dealings with the man who is seeking to deregister a political party he handed over to opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi also known as Bobi Wine...

Moses Kibalama a little-known former police officer who guarded two former presidents came to public attention in July when he handed over to Bobi Wine the National Unity Platform (NUP) previously known as the National Unity Reconciliation and Development Party (NURP)...

Despite its popularity Bobi Wine's People Power movement was unregistered and risked being locked out of the electoral process...

To overcome this Bobi Wine unveiled the NUP on 22 July prompting praise that he had outsmarted Museveni's establishment that sought to block his candidacy...

The party had also selected Bobi Wine as its presidential candidate...

But in August Difas Basile and Hassan Twala who claim to be NURP founder members dragged Bobi Wine other NUP leaders and the Electoral Commission to court claiming they had illegally changed the party leadership and its name...

With Kibalama nowhere to be seen Bobi Wine and the NUP leadership accused the military of holding him against his will...

The hopes that the political sensation Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine could rally a national alliance against President Yoweri Museveni have been thwarted by political differences...

The hopes that the political sensation Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine could rally a national alliance against President Yoweri Museveni have been thwarted by political differences...

It is from the younger generation that Bobi Wine draws his strongest support...

Besigye and Bobi Wine have a formal alliance but it has little practical effect as their supporters still see themselves as rivals...

The veteran oppositionist although friendly with Bobi Wine is keeping his options open and favours a mass street protest campaign against Museveni...

Other leaders who have long campaigned against Museveni can't bring themselves to throw their lot in with Bobi Wine...

However Bobi Wine believes he can reproduce on a national scale his stunning by-election victory in Kyadondo East in 2017 which he took with 78% of the vote...

Besigye and Bobi Wine recently held a press conference renewing their alliance but they are on different courses and so risk splitting the anti-Museveni vote...

Their strategic differences became clear when Bobi Wine burst onto the national political scene...

While Bobi Wine mobilised Ugandans to register for National Identity Cards so that they could vote Besigye said planning to overthrow Museveni through elections was futile (AC Vol 60 No 23 Unity or bust for 2021)...

What started as a mild disagreement soon escalated into a full-blown rivalry with Bobi Wine and Besigye supporters attacking each other...

Bobi Wine expressed disappointment in Besigye who stood on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) ticket in four elections – 2001 2006 2011 and 2016 – and lost all rounds and only now has pronounced them a waste of time...

A poll by Research World International (RWI) recently indicated that if elections were held in March 46% of voters would pick President Museveni Bobi Wine would come second with 22% and Besigye third with 17%...

Most of those polled also said Bobi Wine had a better chance of beating Museveni than Besigye...

Besigye took 35% of the vote in 2016 which makes the possibility of Bobi Wine winning not that remote...

Besigye is not the only established opposition politician who has had to face the Bobi Wine challenge...

Bobi Wine still operates under the banner of the People Power movement which is not a political party...

He could state that he must out of loyalty back the candidate the FDC picks and cite that as a reason for not backing Bobi Wine...

FDC insiders jealous of Bobi Wine's success hope that the ruling party will crush his election campaign leaving Besigye's credentials as the main opposition figure intact...

In the wake of the recent brutal attacks by security forces on protestors in Kampala pundits ponder why the formidable mass movement of Bobi Wine and Kizza Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) cannot join forces...

Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine stormed to victory in the Kyadondo East by-election in July 2017 even though the opposition FDC also stood in the poll and has consistently defied the government by attracting thousands to anti-government protests (AC Vol 59 No 18 Wave of protests rattles Museveni)...

Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine stormed to victory in the Kyadondo East by-election in July 2017 even though the opposition FDC also stood in the poll and has consistently defied the government by attracting thousands to anti-government protests (AC Vol 59 No 18 Wave of protests rattles Museveni)...

Bobi Wine's unconventional People Power movement could be barred from uniting with Besigye's FDC which is a registered political party...

None of the above can compete with Bobi Wine's short but impressive political record or his obvious mass appeal to Uganda's youth some 70% of the population...

Besigye and Bobi Wine have spent two years pledging to cooperate with one another without making the union official...

Bobi Wine had repeatedly asked the FDC to make him its candidate at Kyadondo East but he was rebuffed by then party president Muntu supposedly because he hadn't been an FDC member for five years...

Early in November Besigye was asked on national TV why he could not unite with Bobi Wine replying that they 'believe in different things'...

If he boycotted however he would leave the field clear for Bobi Wine...

Bobi Wine's own strategy while hoping that the FDC will support him is to reproduce his by-election victory on a national scale and to build a national network so strong that the size of his vote is too large to be manipulated away by ballot-stuffing and other manoeuvres...

Senior FDC members are resistant and even ridicule Bobi Wine's appeal for mass voter-registration...

One FDC accusation on social media was that Bobi Wine was being tribalist by appealing for voter registration in the language of the largest ethnic group the Baganda...

Besigye apologised immediately for the comment but ill-feeling remains at grassroots level with Bobi Wine supporters accusing the veteran oppositionist of jealousy...

More old-fashioned members of the opposition regard Bobi Wine as a 'queue-jumper'...

Bobi Wine is seen by many as a worthy inheritor of Besigye's record of opposition but in State House President Museveni has had endless trouble finding someone to succeed him...

The media has hesitated to cover protests since April when the Uganda Broadcasting Commission accused broadcasters of breaching standards by covering marches and arrests of Bobi Wine and other opposition leaders...

He also invited a number of leading regional and national allies to the congress including the Ugandan opposition firebrand Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) Chief Ndiweni and the former ZANU-PF activist Temba Mliswa...

He also invited a number of leading regional and national allies to the congress including the Ugandan opposition firebrand Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) Chief Ndiweni and the former ZANU-PF activist Temba Mliswa...

The President means to divide the opposition and repair the damage to his reputation caused by the Bobi Wine protests and defuse them Kampala pundits are saying (AC Vol 59 No 18 Wave of protests rattles Museveni)...

Thousands of new security personnel are being deployed to meet the threat of mass civil unrest after the triumphant return to Kampala of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine to huge crowds on 20 September...

Thousands of new security personnel are being deployed to meet the threat of mass civil unrest after the triumphant return to Kampala of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine to huge crowds on 20 September...

In yet another rambling address to the nation on TV and radio on 18 September President Yoweri Museveni prepared for Bobi Wine's return by saying he was mobilising self-defence forces and reserves totalling 24 000 men and women...

The show of force is characteristic of the tactics developed by disgraced former police chief General Kale Kayihura to crack down on urban protest movements led by opposition figures such as Bobi Wine and his People Power movement and his predecessor in widespread social protest Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change...

So far Bobi Wine has the backing of former army commander Gen Mugisha Muntu but not the more radical opposition faction led by Besigye...

When Bobi Wine was expected at Entebbe Airport the police and the army sealed off the road to Kampala and deployed tear-gas trucks armoured cars roablocks and scores of armed patrols...

Soldiers in trucks swamped the area near Bobi Wine's home beating civilians with sticks in an effort to deter people from going out...

Foreign interestsAccording to the President Bobi Wine is a catspaw of foreign interests such as NGOs which are often blamed for instigating protests...

The prevailing wisdom in the intelligence services is that if Bobi Wine is cut off from international support the protests will fade away...

Jacqueline Wolfson founder and chief executive of the Shule Foundation an education charity was deported on 9 September after the state accused her of using her organisation as a cover to fund Bobi Wine...

That the 'Crime Preventers' whom the opposition accuse of being a pro-government militia for example did not rise up in a counter-protest against Bobi Wine suggests that the strategy has been a failure...

Ever since President Yoweri Museveni's personal guards beat up and almost killed the popular musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine on 14 August the normally effective mixture of security force brutality and mass detentions has failed to quell growing protest...

Ever since President Yoweri Museveni's personal guards beat up and almost killed the popular musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine on 14 August the normally effective mixture of security force brutality and mass detentions has failed to quell growing protest...

What began as popular outrage at the treatment of Bobi Wine in detention including savage beatings and torture has become a general protest against the impunity of Museveni his family the security forces and their arbitrary exercise of power...

A private member's bill to raise the limit caused a furore two years ago and when legislation came to parliament in September last year passing eventually troops were sent into the parliamentary chamber after fisticuffs broke out among the MPs among them Bobi Wine...

Bobi Wine's diffuse 'People Power' movement might have eventually faded away had it not been for Museveni's personal order – so Kampala sources report – to have him 'disciplined' after he went to the north-western border town of Arua to hold an election meeting on 13 August...

Members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) were challenging the ruling National Resistence Movement (NRM) for the seat but it was Kasiano Wadri an ex-MP backed as an independent by Bobi Wine who was victorious in the poll...

Hotel attackSoldiers with the elite Special Forces Command (SFC – the new name for the Presidential Guard) of which Museveni's son Major General Muhoozi Kainerugaba has been commander descended on the hotel where Bobi Wine and other opposition politicians were staying breaking down doors firing their weapons and beating Bobi Wine and others with metal bars...

Witnesses say Bobi Wine's driver Yasin Kawuma was shot dead...

Bobi Wine's whereabouts were unknown for 72 hours...

He may have been provoked sources say by stones hitting one of the cars in his convoy or possibly by the sheer size of the crowds that have been greeting Bobi Wine at his rallies and concerts...

When it appeared that Bobi Wine and another critically battered MP Francis Zaake might die in custody they were hurriedly treated – Bobi Wine by army doctors – before being released...

Bobi Wine is among 33 who have been charged with treason...

The treason charges and a hastily released picture of guns supposedly recovered from Bobi Wine's hotel did not do the trick...

Public pressure –especially from international coverage of the affair – forced the army on Museveni's orders to suspend the court martial of Bobi Wine and allow him to leave the country...

In a meeting with NRM MPs after the Bobi Wine controversy started – after which Speaker of the House Rebecca Kadaga wrote to him asking him to explain the torture allegations – he reportedly said he could even abolish Parliament if he wanted to...

The day the bill was tabled police cordoned off the home of opposition leader Kizza Besigye and arrested MP Robert Kyagulanyi aka 'Bobi Wine' who has become one of the main faces of resistance against the amendment...

The day the bill was tabled police cordoned off the home of opposition leader Kizza Besigye and arrested MP Robert Kyagulanyi aka 'Bobi Wine' who has become one of the main faces of resistance against the amendment...