Manipulated: Bobi Wine Does Not Support Or Work For President Museveni

The image on his screen as claimed by Akello is a manipulation of the original

The claim

On February 9th, 2026, an X post  with a hashtag in the claim, #WhyUgDecidedMuseveni, a an online campaign justifying Museveni’s win for the 2026 presidential general elections 

The claim was shared with a photo of Bobi Wine holding a phone next to Museveni’s photo, with the caption claiming that Bobi Wine loves his mentor, President Yoweri Museveni, and always wishes him well, with a hashtag  #WhyUgDecidedMuseveni.

Numerical Impact

This post by Akello Jane Mary, has a traction of 2008 views, 10 comments, 19 retweets, 3 bookmarks, and 54 likes

To verify the claim, we also used the InfoVerifier, a debunk tool used to fact-check false claims, and its findings indicated that there is no verified evidence to suggest that Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi) supports or works for President Yoweri Museveni. In fact, Bobi Wine is a prominent opposition leader in Uganda, often critical of Museveni’s government.

The links provided by the Info Verifier are of fact-check done around images that were previously fact-checked by debunk amidst the 2026 general elections, but not the one in the claim. 

To further verify the contents of the claim, a reverse image search traced a similar photo, but without Museveni’s photo as the wallpaper, using Google Lens, and established that this was shared during Bobi Wine’s presidential campaign in October 2025.

The Ugandan opposition leader was seen making a WhatsApp video call to his wife, Barbie Kyagulanyi, at a campaign rally. 

The photo in the claim was placed on the phone’s screen and is extremely visible and clear, which is not the case when taken in daylight. When you look closely at the original photo, you can see Barbie, but not clearly, and all phone features are visible, as opposed to the latter photo shared in the claim.

Verdict

Manipulated: The photo of Bobi Wine with President Museveni’s campaign poster as wallpaper was manipulated. The original photograph shows Bobi Wine’s wife on the phone during a video call while he was at a campaign rally. 

This fact-check was produced by AHIMBISIBWE AMON with support from the Debunk Media Initiative and BBC Media Action.