Squid Flicks: Bobi Wine: The People's President

Title: Bobi Wine: The People's President

Directors: Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo

Original Release: September 1, 2022

My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

In 2021, popular musician Bobi Wine ran for President in Uganda against longtime incumbent Yoweri Museveni.  Academy Award-nominated documentary Bobi Wine: The People's President follows Wine's political career from his first campaign for parliament to his ultimately unsuccessful presidential run.  Museveni, as I post this, is still in power and has been since 1986.  

Unfortunately, free and fair elections don't happen in Uganda.  As is far too common in the world, Museveni uses his essentially absolute power to punish political rivals.  The assaults on Bobi Wine began in 2018, when the popularity of the singer and of his criticism of the regime were on the rise.  He was arrested numerous times and quite obviously tortured to the point where he had to be sent to the United States for medical treatment.  In December 2020, his bodyguard was murdered by military police.  After casting his own vote in the 2021 election, Bobi Wine was placed under house arrest.

My wife felt the documentarians were too enamored of their protagonist.  While I concede that point, the cautionary tale is too important to dismiss.  It was a strange time to watch this movie just as the world learned of the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in a prison colony.  Meanwhile, too many people in my own country are renewing their love affair with a narcissist who openly scoffs at any suggestion that constitutional limits apply to him.  Trevor Noah has been likening Donald Trump to African dictators since 2015.  The global democratic condition seems in woeful decline.  Bobi Wine's story is difficult to watch, largely because it feels too close to American reality for comfort.