This is not the first time that dictators and tourism ministers have “tried to use mega-events to launder their images,” pointed out U.S. human rights activist Jeffrey Smith, the founding director of Vanguard Africa, which works on issues related to public advocacy (and who also works with Bobi Wine). Smith gave the example of a 2014 scrapped performance by Grammy-award-winning American singer Erykah Badu for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh. Smith had encouraged social media users on January 29 to take over the #VisitUganda hashtag before the MTV event in Kampala was canceled.

“Today, there is a sense that, while we may disagree on policy strategy, there is a fundamental agreement, across the board, that democracy and human rights are important - not just morally and ethically, but also for U.S. national security and for our standing in the world,” said Jeffrey Smith, founding director of Vanguard Africa, a pro-democracy advocacy group.

The American rap artist and singer Akon is helping to rehabilitate longtime President Yoweri Museveni’s reputation after an election earlier this year marred by violence, an internet shutdown and allegations of vote rigging, the U.S. based groups Human Rights Foundation and Vanguard Africa said in a joint letter to Akon shared late Monday.

Global human rights activists, like Vanguard Africa’s Jeffrey Smith, say Idris Deby's election win is a foregone conclusion.

“It is long past due for the United States to revamp and overhaul its policy towards Uganda,” said Jeffrey Smith, founding director of Vanguard Africa, a US-based non-profit, which works on governance.

“General Museveni is a military dictator who has used every tool at his disposal, for nearly four decades now, to deny democracy to Ugandans,” added Smith, who has worked with Bobi Wine for several years.

Bobi Wine‘s man in Washington harbors no illusions that President Yoweri Museveni will quietly step down after three and a half decades in power.

Instead, Jeffrey Smith‘s mission is at once simpler and more ambitious: Keeping his pop star-turned-opposition leader client — and the dreams of countless people he has inspired across Africa — alive as he challenges the results of last month’s election that saw Museveni win a sixth term in office.

In Washington, Jeffrey Smith, founding director of the advocacy nonprofit Vanguard Africa, has doubled down on calls for the government to reevaluate its dealings with Uganda. “There needs to be a review of U.S. policy towards Uganda, including a comprehensive review of the millions of dollars we provide on an annual basis to their security forces and military,” said Smith, who has worked closely with Wine for the past three years, connecting him with journalists and politicians in the U.S.

Jeffrey Smith, head of Vanguard Africa, a U.S.-based democracy advocacy group that has worked closely with Mr. Kyagulanyi, said the statements by [Biden’s incoming national security adviser] “are a powerful indication that the new administration might elevate human rights and democracy promotion from their current place, in the basement, to their rightful places as a pillar of U.S. foreign policy.”

Mr. Biden has also nominated several other human-rights advocates to key posts in his administration, which “bodes well for the future,” Mr. Smith told The Globe.

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.