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Bobi Wine sues EC for using his song in elections campaign
The self-styled Ghetto President, singer Bobi Wine has opened up a legal battle against the Electoral commission (EC) for using his “Obululu’ song without his consent.
Bobi charges the electoral commission with piracy for using his song in the campaign of promoting the violence free 2016 general elections.
The commercials were used to counter the campaign of defiance of standing orders and laws announced by one of the presidential candidates Dr Kizza Besigye.
The Ghetto president has retained the Namirembe road based Busingye and company advocates to pursue compensation on his behalf from the commercial section of the high court.
The artist whose real name is Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi does not disclose the exact amount of money he wants the electoral commission to pay him. He promises to lead evidence at the time of hearing of the dispute to determine what he deserves.
Besides committing a civil wrong against him, Bobi adds that the electoral commission’s actions breach a number of his constitutional rights such as the right to own intellectual property and to earn from his works as well as engage in lawful trade.
Bobi complains that whereas his intention in composing the song was to reduce it into an album containing other educative and entertaining hits and then sell the same to the highest bidder in September this year, he is unlikely to get a serious buyer after the electoral commission commercial jingles diluted it.
He says the offending commercials were widely circulated in Uganda and beyond it, which ended up cheapening his song.
Bobi starts off by taking court through his music worth during which he refers to himself as one of the leading artists in Uganda, East Africa, Africa and the rest of the world.
He points out his singing career has since he hit the music scene in the year 200o has been revolving around the issues of promoting peace, girl education, improvement of health and youth empowerment, among others.
He explains that he has been carrying out the above campaign under the banner of edutainment education, adding that the project has been quite successful.
The lawsuit has been placed before Justice Billy Kainamura while the deputy registrar of the commercial court one Thaddeus Opisen has written to the Electoral commission giving it 15 days to give their side of the story in a written form.
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