Heavily-armed military officers yell at us to kneel on the ground in front of the shuttered shop fronts facing Kibuye roundabout in central Kampala as the jolting sounds of gunfire and stun grenades ring out.
Dozens of soldiers gather to enforce the temporary detention. Some are in balaclavas, and others are bare-faced and berating.
It is clear from their threats that journalists are as unwelcome as the protesters calling for an end to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s 40-year rule.
Eventually, we are pardoned by a senior commander who directs his soldiers to return our cameras and says: “I forgive you, but don’t embarrass us.”
Uganda has been plunged into a state-enforced internet blackout, and the media are being forcefully restricted from reporting on the unfolding scenes of unrest, as votes for the next president are tallied and disputed.
When we first arrived at the frenetic roundabout to film the crackdown on protesters, a local journalist showed us the dent of a baton on his bicep and warned: “I told them I was press and they beat me.”
‘People Power’
Across the road, a man sprints away from a huddle of soldiers who hang back to search and beat another man before taking him away.
Men driving Boda Boda motorcycle taxis express their discontent from across the street before nearby gunfire drives them off.
Drivers yell “people power!” from their cars, one of the rallying cries of opposition leader Bobi Wine. One man holds firm on the side of the road to express himself, saying: “Right now, people are voting for Bobi Wine. He has been cheated of his vote!”
A large billboard of Mr Museveni hovers above this chaos. His election campaign slogan, “protecting the gains”, feels violently literal.
The military forces targeting the supporters of his main opponent are led by his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the head of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and, to many, his heir apparent.
All of this unfolded before Bobi Wine‘s National Unity Party (NUP) announced that security agents had broken into his home, an army helicopter landed in his compound and abducted him on Friday night.
The Ugandan government has denied the NUP’s claims.
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Claims of his arrest could fuel national protests to rival those of the 2021 election and be met with an even more brutal response.
The stand-off between his supporters and the state earlier in the day was mirrored by a feverish brawl in Kampala’s Kololo tally centre after a disputed declaration of vote counts, handing wins to Mr Museveni.
“I have the right to speak! I have the right to speak,” an opposition party official yells into the face of the ruling party’s stern agents backed by the military and police flooding the counting tent.
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The screams of objection from a member of Wine’s party spill out of the counting tent: “We want our win! This is a protesting vote! We want our win! They are protecting the criminals.”
The military and police close in on him and violently drag him on to a police truck. He joins 300 other supporters, and officials that the NUP says have been arrested and disappeared in recent weeks.
A fellow NUP member, 23-year-old university student Elizabeth Namagembe, is breathless from frustration.
“We have Ugandans that have voted and this is their right to choose a leader,” she tells us in tears outside the tent with soldiers and police standing watch behind her.
“The international community, what can they do for us? Because us Ugandans have come out to fight – we have voted, and we have requested no violence.”
