Africa
By Paul Ejime
BOBI Wine, a reggae star and actor turned political opposition leader says he is under house arrest with security agents surrounding his residence as the electoral commission looks set to declare age-long President Yoweri Museveni re-elected for a sixth term in office from 1986.
With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, Museveni, 76, and who seized power 35 years ago is said to have received 58 percent vote from Thursday’s violence-marred election.
Wine, 38, is placed second with less than 35 percent. After rejecting the electoral process as fraudulent, Wine, had declared himself the poll winner on Friday.
On Saturday, he said soldiers had surrounded and blocked access to his house.
On the eve of the vote, Museveni’s government, which is notorious for its intolerance of opposition and human rights violations, cut off access to the internet and social media in the East African country.
With the death of the Robert Mugabes (Zimbabwe) and Mubutu Sese Sekos (Congo DRC), Museveni still represents the surviving league of Africa’s sit-tight leaders.
In that infamous category are Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Teodoro Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
A new and dangerous method for tenure elongation in Africa is third-term syndrome, involving the indiscrimate change of national constitutions, often resulting in violent conflicts, disputed elections and general political instability.
Win or lose, Bobi Wine (real name Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu), has raised the bar of politics in Africa.
He has shown that youths can revolutionize the political ecosystem in a continent where leadership is blighted by corruption, cronyism, bad governance and marginalization of minorities, particularly youths and women.
- – Jan. 16, 2021 @ 4: 08 GMT /
