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Jeffrey Smith, founding director of the pro-democracy group Vanguard Africa, said he had been in contact with Bobi Wine.
“Ideally in this circumstance, you’d be speaking to Bobi Wine himself or one of his colleagues, but due to the ongoing internet shutdown in the country and the ongoing restriction of information, obviously you’re unable to do that,” Smith told Al Jazeera.
The news of the break-in was confirmed by Jeffrey Smith, founder of Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit based in Washington that has worked with Mr. Wine for three years. In an interview, Mr. Smith said he got a call from Mr. Wine after 4:30 p.m. Kampala time during which he heard “lots of shouting and banging.” During the call, which lasted five minutes, Mr. Wine told him that security officers had assaulted some of his staff members and arrested a gardener, Mr. Smith said.
During a live virtual press conference — hosted by Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit promoting democracy in African countries — a stunned global audience watched as singer-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, was forcibly removed from his vehicle by Ugandan police as gunshots were fired.
We proudly join this initiative alongside Nobel Peace Prize laureates Wole Soyinka, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, artists like Femi Kuti, Peter Gabriel and Chris Martin, as well as academics like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Together, we urgently call on world leaders and citizens of good conscience to demand that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni commit to holding a free and fair election on January 14, one that is free from further violence and adequately reflects the will of the voting public.
ICC Complaint Uganda by Vanguard Africa on Scribd
“The confluence of lobbying work and security experts is really concerning but not surprising,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit that supports democracy movements on the continent. “For so long US foreign policy has been based around this notion of stability and security, oftentimes at the expense of human rights and democracy. But when you deny a free and fair vote, you’re planting the seeds of instability in the long term. It’s reinforcing this notion that leaders who steal elections are somehow good or somehow provide stability and security.”
Jeffrey Smith, Founding Director of Vanguard Africa, a Washington DC-based pro-democracy advocacy group, says truth, facts and objectivity are a dictator’s worst enemy while a free media and an informed citizenry represent their kryptonite.
“This is why leaders like Paul Biya, who have failed their citizens for generations, need to silence or quite literally kill journalists. It’s because they expose him for the supreme failure that he is,” Smith said.
“For African opposition leaders, another key lobbyist is Jeffrey Smith, a U.S.-based democracy advocate who gained fame with his social-media campaigning to help Gambians topple their long-ruling dictator, Yahya Jammeh, in 2017.
Today, through his firm, Vanguard Africa, he provides support to opposition leaders in Uganda, Cameroon and Tanzania, among others, by building their relationships with North American and European politicians and media.”
“The violence perpetrated against those in Tanzania who are not card-carrying members of the ruling party is unsurprising. The warning signs have long been there,” said Jeffrey Smith, founding director of Vanguard Africa a Washington, based pro-democracy advocacy group, whose board is composed of a bipartisan team of high-powered public relations professionals and political consultants.
“Magufuli and the Chama Cha Mapinduzi [Party] are running roughshod and bulldozing any semblance of democracy,” Smith added.
