A senior figure from Uganda's main opposition party said its leader Bobi Wine had been arrested on Thursday at the Entebbe International Airport as he arrived from abroad.
"Our President (Bobi Wine) picked up by regime operatives as soon as he landed at the airport," David Lewis Rubongoya, the general secretary of Wine's National Unity Platform (NUP) said on X, formerly Twitter.
The post was accompanied by a photo appearing to show two men seizing him by the arms on the tarmac at Entebbe International Airport.
Wine's supporters had planned to accompany him en masse to his home north of the capital, Kampala, to welcome him back, but police had said such gatherings were illegal.
'House arrest'
Bobi Wine later told journalists that he was under house arrest after being seized by security officials.
Wine, a popstar-turned-politician who ran against veteran President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda's last election in 2021, has been arrested numerous times.
"They picked me illegally like you saw and as we speak right now I'm under house arrest. Soldiers and police are all over," Wine told journalists at his home north of the capital Kampala.
"As soon as I landed goons grabbed me, dragged me, twisted my hands and bundled me into a waiting private car,'' he alleged. The authorities have not yet commented on Wine's claims.
Strongest challenger
In recent years Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, has emerged as the strongest challenger to President Yoweri Museveni, 79, who has been in power in the east African country since 1986.
"The cowardly regime has arrested our President upon arrival at Entebbe Airport. We set out to receive him today, but the panicky regime security could not even allow him into immigration," Mathias Mpuuga, leader of the National Unity Platform in the Ugandan parliament, said on his X account.
Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Wine ran against Museveni in the last presidential election in 2021 and lost although he rejected the results, saying there was widespread rigging and intimidation by security forces.
