UGANDA ELECTIONS: Museveni’s Police Abduct Bobi Wine To Unknown Place
Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine’s party reported he was removed by the army from his home and transferred to an unknown location on Friday, as President Yoweri Museveni neared a resounding reelection victory.
Wine’s National Unity Platform party stated in a Facebook post on Friday evening that an army helicopter had landed in his property in Kampala and “forcibly taken him away to an unknown destination.”
Reuters could not immediately verify the story, and some top party leaders acknowledged they lacked confirmation.
Yoweri Museveni will win a 7th term as Uganda's president shortly. He has 75% of the votes so far, against Bobi Wine's 21% with 70% of all the polling stations.
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) January 16, 2026
Bobi Wine says "ignore the fake results," adding that "the people of Uganda will have the final say on this nonsense" pic.twitter.com/YDWa6EKUkS
Representatives from Uganda’s government and military did not immediately reply to calls for comment.
Wine accused major fraud in Thursday’s poll, which was held during an internet shutdown, and urged followers to demonstrate. His party announced on Thursday that he had been placed under effective home arrest.
The poll is widely regarded as a test of Museveni’s political strength and capacity to escape the instability that has engulfed neighbouring Tanzania and Kenya.
As of Friday evening, Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, had about 74% of the vote, according to the election commission. Wine lagged at 23%.
Following a campaign characterized by confrontations at opposition rallies and what the United Nations described as widespread repression and intimidation, voting took place peacefully on Thursday.
But violence broke out overnight in the town of Butambala, about 55 km (35 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala, according to a police spokesperson and a member of parliament from the area, who gave differing accounts of events.
Local police spokesperson Lydia Tumushabe said machete-wielding opposition “goons” organised by local MP Muwanga Kivumbi attacked a police station and vote-tallying centre.
“Security responded in self-defence because these people came in big numbers. Police fired in self-defence,” she told Reuters, adding that 25 people were arrested.
BREAKING: Ugandan police deny reports that Bobi Wine was abducted overnight and taken to an unknown location.
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) January 17, 2026
They’re “deceitful & inciteful allegations intended to depict the security agencies as brutal & violators of the rights of a political candidate” pic.twitter.com/ugndJkolyb
Kivumbi, however, told Reuters the victims were killed at around 3 a.m. (midnight GMT) inside his house, where they were waiting for election results for his parliamentary seat to be announced.
“They killed 10 people inside my house,” he said. “There were people inside the garage who were waiting for the results to celebrate my victory.”
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“They broke the front door and began shooting inside the garage. It was a massacre.”
He said security forces had earlier dispersed crowds outside but disputed the police’s assertion that the deaths occurred during clashes between the two sides.
Tumushabe, the police spokesperson, said she was not aware of an incident at Kivumbi’s house, which she said was close to the police station.
Reuters was not able to independently confirm the circumstances of the violence.
UGANDA ELECTIONS: Museveni’s Police Abduct Bobi Wine To Unknown Place
