After bragging of killing 30 members of Wine's party, Uganda's military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of its 81-year-old president and heir apparent, said "our troops have orders to bring him in dead or alive!"
In hiding, Uganda's main opposition leader, Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, said on January 27 that security operatives went to his residence in Busabala and tried bribing one of his staff members for information on his whereabouts.
The military is hunting for the 43-year-old musician-turned-politician, popular among urban youth, ever since the disputed election on January 15. The UN described the electoral environment as one marred by "widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition, human rights defenders, [and] journalists". The opposition alleged ballot stuffing and voter suppression.
After the biometric voter verification kits malfunctioned in several polling stations, the Electoral Commission (EC) suspended the use of this equipment deployed to prevent ballot stuffing.
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Authorities shut down the internet on January 13, two days before the vote, ostensibly to prevent misinformation. It was partially restored on January 18, a day after the EC gave 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, a seventh term, declaring him the winner with 71.65% of the votes. However, the blockade of social media continued until full restoration on January 26.
"Orders to bring him in, dead or alive"
That day, Uganda's military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Museveni and heir apparent to his presidency, said "our troops have orders to bring him in dead or alive!" in a post on X, which he then deleted. With an image of this post, Wine said, "Museveni's criminal son is still looking for me and issuing threats to harm me. Thankfully, our people are still keeping me safe."
Wine, who had campaigned with a helmet and flak jacket as soldiers swarmed the streets ahead of the election, went underground soon after the vote on January 15, evading the military, which raided his family home in Magere, a northern suburb of the national capital, Kampala, the following night.
The government soon launched a fierce crackdown on the opposition. On January 23, Kainerugaba said that 2,000 supporters of Wine's party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), have been detained. "So far we have killed 30 NUP terrorists," he went on to brag on social media, adding in another post that day, "Most NUP terrorist leaders are in hiding. We shall get them all."
Soldiers brutalize Wine's wife
Later, soldiers raided his home again, breaking down its door and allegedly beating his staff. His wife, Barbie Kyagulanyi, said that she was choked, "suspended mid-air by the neck", stripped off her top, and beaten by soldiers demanding to know Wine's whereabouts. She was later hospitalized.
Dismissing the allegation that his soldiers used violence against his wife, Kainerugaba said in a post on January 26, "[W]e do not beat up women. They are not worth our time. We are looking for her cowardly husband."
Only one evening before, however, Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi had insisted that there was no need for Wine to be in hiding. Accusing him of orchestrating "drama and theatrics", Baryomunsi told a TV news channel that Wine was "trying to cause a story where there's no story."
"Nobody wants him," he added. "He's not under pursuit by the police or the army. I'm now speaking as the government of Uganda."
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But military chief Kainerugaba contradicted the minister the next day, saying that his troops had "orders to bring him in dead or alive!".
"The whole army is looking for one person ... but they have failed to find me"
Later that night, Wine said, a drone was hovering over his property in Busabala on the shores of Lake Victoria to Kampala's south, before security operatives went in on January 27, enquiring his staff about his whereabouts, and trying "to compromise one to tip them off if I come around."
Although on the run, Wine has maintained a defiant posture, taunting in a post on January 26, "The whole army is looking for one person. It's now coming to 10 days, but they have failed to find me. That means they are not as strong as they tell you." He called on Ugandans to "do whatever is possible without breaking the law. Yes, they call us outlaws, but we are not lawbreakers."
