Bobi Wine recently gave an interview to the Daily Beast to speak about his recent ordeal and his vision of democracy in Uganda going forward. Excerpt below:
Wine put it simply in a phone interview with The Daily Beast, “The rest of Africa stood with us because our situation is not unique to us.”
Wine’s message is straightforward: people deserve the agency to shape their futures. “If we want to change our lives, than we need to change the leadership.”
With the given name, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, at the 36-year-old Wine serves as a member of the Ugandan parliament. But he says he never expected to become a politician. His mind changed about 10 years ago when a man he describes as a “military operative” attacked him at a nightclub. Wine believes he was targeted just because he was in an expensive car, and though it could have been a trivial incident, for him it epitomized the regime’s growing abuse of power. “That was a turning point,” he recalls. “I decided I would not condone injustice.” (…)
Wine has emerged as a leading challenger. First in his songs, then in his stump speeches, he has been one of Museveni’s most outspoken critics and represents one of the keenest threats to his more-than-three-decade rule.
“Museveni is already defeated as a person,” Wine told The Daily Beast. “He has nothing new. He has always thrived on division among tribes… social status. He has never seen Ugandans so united, so determined to speak with one voice, and that is exactly what is happening.”