IGIHE

Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Uganda:What awaits Ms Museveni in the education ministry

    {In his re-election manifesto, President Museveni promised that his government would build a primary school in every parish to reduce the distance pupils walk to school; he pledged a technical institute in each constituency, more classrooms and teachers’ houses to achieve a 50:1 pupils-to-classroom and pupils-to-teacher thresholds.}

    Mr Museveni on the strength of this and other promises won a fresh mandate with 61 per cent in the February 2016 election, but he is now confronted with the challenge to translate them into reality within the next five years.

    The President was aware accomplishing his additional commitments to increase the budget for scholastic materials, establishing a semi-autonomous entity for schools’ inspection and introducing a continuous primary education assessment examination and integrating the results in the final marks would require more able hands at the helm of the Education ministry than before.

    And he did not look far, turning to his household, for the answer. Announcing the new Cabinet he billed will catapult Uganda into a middle-income economy by 2020, the President tapped his wife Janet and assigned her as Education minister to superintend its Shs2.2 trillion budget, the third-highest of national budget allocations.

    She assumed the new duty yesterday, but her first day at work was overshadowed by a security lockdown, drowning her prepared message for reform and new ways of doing things for results.

    The ruling NRM, known prior by other political nomenclature, has ruled Uganda for 31 years and has, in spite of drawbacks, earned praise for introducing free primary and secondary as well as post-primary education.

    The challenges
    However, erosion of quality for the convenience of higher enrolment persists. Studies show low literacy levels, for instance, among UPE graduates.

    The ministry is also grappling with corruption, absenteeism and low staffing, disjointed supervision and administration structure.

    So is the First Lady, a former Karamoja Affairs minister, the panacea?

    Will she deliver on President Museveni’s promise to build a technical institute in every constituency, provide free scholastic materials and sanitary pads to pupils to improve learning and retain girls at schools?

    Ms Museveni’s first degree, obtained at Makerere University, is in Education, theoretically meaning that she is at home in the new Cabinet slot. She took over office yesterday from Major (rtd) Jessica Alupo.

    State House explains
    According to Mr Moses Byaruhanga, the presidential adviser on political affairs, and sources close to State House, the First Lady was given the Education ministry because of its significance and the prospect that her charm would engender required reforms.

    “She is hard working [and] most of the challenges in service delivery are based on poor supervision and not lack of money,” said Mr Byaruhanga, adding: “I have no doubt that the First Lady will do good work in the education sector as her hard work and determination to achieve results in all that she lays her hands on. She has succeeded in Karamoja and her achievements are visible.”

    Others disagree. Retired Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba a former cabinet minister in Museveni’s government who has now fallen out of favour, said Education is a “wrong docket” for the First Lady to superintend because of her “forgiving heart as a born-again Christian”.

    He said: “She should have gone to [the] Ethics and Integrity ministry; her forgiving nature will come in and thieves will not be punished. But we pray that she changes her methods of work.”

    Because she is at the centre of power and closest to the President, many Ugandans consider the First Lady as wielding the necessary clout to move things and attract resources.

    Mr Nicholas Opiyo, a lawyer and policy analyst, subscribes to this school of thought.

    Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni (Left) receives documents from her predecessor Jessica Alupo during the hand-over ceremony at the ministry head quarters in Kampala yesterday. To ensure security at the premises, no individual with any electronic gadget was allowed to access the venue

  • Kenya:Fire breaks out at Nyamache Boys’ school, hours after Matiang’i visit

    {The Education CS Dr Matiang’i had presided over a fundraiser for the rebuilding of the school‘s dormitories}

    Fire broke out in Nyamache Boys’ High School in Kisii County Monday, on the same day that Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i visited the institution.

    “A fire is ongoing in the institution, but I cannot speculate on the cause of the fire just yet,” Kisii County Commander Ms Agnes Mudamba said, confirming the Monday night incident.

    When the Nation team arrived, students had already evacuated their beddings from the affected dormitory named “Manga”.

    Nyamache police boss (OCP) Japheth Mwirichia said the fire began at around 7pm.

    “The fire begun at around 7pm when the electricity supply went back on after a day-long blackout. We managed to put it out with the help of students, staff and members of the public,” he said.

    School captain Obadiah David said the students were in class when the fire broke out.

    “We were in class attending prep when some students who were in the laboratory raised the alarm,” he said.

    The school’s principal, Mr Phillip Ogechi, declined to talk to the press.

    The school fire is its second in two months.

    {{School fundraiser }}

    The Education CS Dr Matiang’i had presided over a fundraiser for the rebuilding of the school‘s dormitories, which raised more than Sh2 million.

    He was accompanied by political leaders from the county and an official from the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut).

    Government officials at the function included Principal Secretary Dr Belio Kipsang and Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) chief executive officer Ms Nancy Macharia.

    The team had earlier visited Itierio Boys High School, which suffered extensive fire damage following a Saturday evening strike by students.

    During the Itierio visit, Dr Kipsang said the State would not fund the school’s reconstruction.

    “We cannot subsidise crime,” he said.

    Ms Macharia warned of stern disciplinary action against any teacher found to have been involved in student unrest.

    “We will take action against any teacher found to have incited the students,” she said.

    Dr Matiang’i said parents would be forced to shoulder the burden of rebuilding schools damaged by their children.

    {{Report in 48 hours }}

    The Education ministry boss also said he had formed a team to investigate the cause of the incident and report to him within 48 hours.

    He announced he had released a circular banning the transfer of students from one school to another without the authority of the sub-county director of education.

    The CS said some parents transfer their indisciplined children to different schools after they were involved in cases of misbehaviour.

    He called on parents to instil values in their children so as to prevent them from taking antisocial behaviour tendencies to school.

    Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i (second right) and other Education ministry officials when they toured Itierio Boys High School in Kisii County, Monday, June 27, 2016, after seven burnt dormitories were burnt by rioting students the previous day.

  • Tanzania:Bandits linked to Mwanza, Tanga killings shot in Dar

    {Police in Dar es Salaam have killed two people suspected to be behind the recent machete attacks in a Mwanza mosque and a wave of killings in Tanga in which 11 people were killed}

    The Dar es Salaam Special Zone Commander, Mr Simon Sirro, mentioned the dead suspects as Salum Said Mhango (30), who was linked to the Mwanza mosque bloodbath.

    The second suspect killed is Mohamed Abdallah alias Abou Seif, who was alleged to be behind the recent killings in Tanga. Mr Sirro told reporters in the city yesterday that Mhango died on the way as he was being rushed to Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH).

    Police officers sprayed the bandit with bullets as he was trying to escape through a window, according to the zonal police chief.

    “Law enforcers had temporarily put the suspect’s house under siege; he did all he could to escape but in vain as our officers were ready to act,” he said. Mr Sirro added that the suspect threw a hand grenade in the direction of the police officers, but it did not explode.

    He affirmed that police officers swiftly hit back, shooting him on his leg as he defied the order to surrender.

    The police boss noted that the man behind the Tanga machete attack, Mohamed Abdallah, exchanged fire with police officers in Temeke before he was ultimately overpowered. The slain criminal was found in possession of a pistol, 19 rounds of ammunitions and a hand bomb. “The suspect was one of the most wanted criminals.

    Preliminary investigations have established that he has been behind a number of crimes, including operating a gang that recently caused insecurity in Tanga Region,” he said. He added that investigations are underway to get to the root of the entire network involved in several crimes in the country.

    Meanwhile, two people thought to be Ugandans, Juma Said (54) and Ally Sharif (26), have been arrested for allegedly being found in possession of 660 pieces of ivory tusks. The suspects were arrested over the weekend at Mbezi Msakuzi area in Kinondoni District.

    They were also found in possession of a device used for cutting ivory tusks. According to Mr Sirro, the suspects will be arraigned as soon as investigations are over.

    The Dar es Salaam Special Zone Commander, Mr Simon Sirro. The Dar es Salaam Special Zone Commander, Mr Simon Sirro.

  • Uganda:Search for justice: The dilemma of mentally ill inmates

    {Nobody believed Eric Bushoborozi when he said he always heard voices. The voices, inside his head, would first talk, laugh and then bark at him. He played along. When the voices persisted, relatives advised that he sees a local Born-Again pastor. These voices, relatives said, were “evil clan spirits.”}

    He gladly did so, and after the church service, he took pain killers – the voices had been preceded by an intermittent throbbing headache, which he says, he had grown used to.

    On Friday, July 5, 2002, he went about his daily business but returned home early after feeling nauseated. What happened next, he does not remember. The heinous incident left the entire village of Rwimi, Kabarole District in downright shock.
    Bushoborozi crept with a machete to where his eight-year-old son was napping and cut his head off.

    Bushoborozi told police, and later argued in court that he saw and killed a big snake in his house.

    “They told me in prison that I had killed my son,” the 47-year-old recounted the events to this newspaper in a recent interview in the leafy gardens of Fort Portal High Court. “They said I was going for murder.”

    Records about his trial later that year are scanty but for such an atrocious crime, his file was swiftly processed and in an instant, paraded before the same court and remanded to Katojo prison in Fort Portal.
    During the course of trial over the next four years, he underwent medical examination, and psychiatric evidence was presented, which confirmed that he suffered severe psychotic and deluded form of depression at the time he killed his son. So, he did not know what he was doing. And, he does not recall these details as well.

    {{The problem}}

    The voices inside Bushoborozi’s head came along with seeing things others around him did not see, a problem that started in 1998 with constant bouts of a hard migraine headache — the kind with symptoms such as pain around the temples [sides of the head], sensitivity to light or sound, blurred vision and more often nausea, but which he shrugged off casually with an occasional visit to a drug store for pain killers.

    “The headache would come and go; sometimes it would be very hard and other times light. I had been advised to take painkillers every time it came,” he narrated. “Sometimes it would go even without taking the pills, so I got used.”

    But year-in and year-out, the headache continued to grow stronger, but he continued to fight it by taking pills over the years, then came advice to see a pastor, and the grisly act that left everyone, including the Church very alarmed.

    According to a 2009 study published in the General Hospital Psychiatry, a bi-monthly peer-review research journal for publications on psychiatry, medicine, and primary care, migraine headaches can precede the onset of mental disorders.
    “Together, migraine and mental disorders cause more impairment than alone,” noted lead study author Gregory Ratcliffe, adding that: “Patients who have one condition should be assessed for the other so they can be treated holistically. Although it is important to know that both are present, treating one will have an effect on the other.”
    Dr Julius Muron, a consultant psychiatrist at the National Mental Referral Hospital, Butabika, says hearing voices or auditory hallucination, may or may not be associated with a mental health problem. “But it is usually a symptom of a mental problem.”

    {{The case}}

    On December 1, 2006, Justice Rugadya Atwooki ruled that Bushoborozi was not guilty because of insanity under section 48 (1) of the Trial on Indictment Act. He was however, remanded back to Katojo Prison pending the minister’s orders – the minister was to decide whether he would be taken for mental treatment or dealt with otherwise.
    After being remanded in 2006 pending the minister’s orders, no further action was taken. He spent another nine years on remand but at the same time while undergoing psychiatry examination, treatment and constant examination until release last year. In fact he would still be in prison by now, like other inmates of his calibre whose files were [and are every year] submitted to the Minister of Justice — who according to the law is supposed to study them take appropriate action.

    Bushoborozi’s luck came around 2014, when a distant relative, Mr Cosmas Kateeba, a lawyer previously working in Kampala handled his case.

    On June 17 2014, Mr Kateeba, a former principal lecturer at the Law Development Centre (LDC), wrote to the Chief Registrar Paul Gadenya bringing to his attention the case of Bushoborizi but got not feedback.

    Against this backdrop, Mr Kateeba filed an application on behalf of Bushoborozi at the Fort Portal Court seeking among others, his release, and to strip the minister of powers to release mentally ill inmates found innocent by court.

    A landmark ruling was delivered on July 10 last year by the court’s Judge David Batema stripping the minister of powers.

    “I am of the strong belief that the trial court retains the power to issue special orders for the confinement, discharge, treatment or otherwise deal with the prisoner that is insane or has ceased to be insane. That criminal file remains open, pending the Judge’s special orders. It is not done with until all is done with the prisoner” ruled the judge, and further ordered for his immediate release.

    {{Paying the painful price}}

    The judge said the Constitution demands that the Judiciary must be independent in executing its work, and that having to wait for the minister’s orders interfered with its independence.

    Even the State prosecutor Adam Wasswa, during the hearing of the case, conceded that the case was a complex one as there were no express procedures or solutions to the same.

    Bushoborozi went back to his family, he was lucky to find his wife still around, and relatives to embrace him again. The nine years he spent in jail, he worked as a tailor, and so he had some money to start a new life. He still undergoes examination but only periodically.

    Throughout our interview that ran for two days, he seemed fine; displayed an affable character with poise that hides his erstwhile despair.

    Human rights activists, authorities and legal experts alike, interviewed for this article all concluded that keeping mentally ill inmates behind bars is not only cruel but also demonstrates the ills in our criminal justice system at the time when government is striving to conjure up clean human right slate. But the problem, all officials, said is the law.

    Article 48 of the T.I.A gives powers to court on ruling on the special finding if not guilty by reason of insanity. When the court makes such a ruling, section 2 indicates, it “shall report the case for the order of the Minister, and shall meanwhile order the accused to be kept in custody as a criminal lunatic in such place and in such manner as the court shall direct.”

    “The Minister may order a person in respect of whom a special finding has been made to be confined in a mental hospital, prison or other suitable place of custody.”
    “The Minister clearly has no role in this, and it was until this point I was handling this case that I started wondering what the framers of the legislation were thinking,” Mr Kateeba argued.

    “We might have won the first round [of stripping the minister of the powers] but the law still stands; this case can only serve as precedent in future legal challenges, which in fact should be waged, to scrap specific clauses [in the act] which do not make sense.”

    Bushoborozi might have been lucky but several people with his condition have not been as lucky. The list of such prisoners pending minister’s orders as of 2016, according to available information to this newspaper, has about 40 inmates. All are in prison for either murder or defilement.

    These are committed in various prisons, in Luzira’s Murchison Bay, Upper prison and Women’ wing respectively, Katojo and Masaka Central prison. They were all tried, declared innocent on grounds of insanity and not fewer than 15 have served more than 15 years on remand.

    Through prisons publicist Frank Baine, the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr Johnson Byabashaija, turned down a written request by this newspaper to visit and access some of the inmates on grounds that “a sane person cannot have meaningful conversation with a mentally unstable one”.

    Mr Baine explained that Uganda Prisons Services as the custodian of all prisoners, is “taking good care of them.” “Because it is all we can do.”

    “It is a challenge that we are facing, but what is clear is that those who are supposed to be addressing it are not concerned,” he said.
    “There is a contradiction between the Trial on Indictments Act, which entrusts power over these people to the Minister, and Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution protect personal liberties and respect for human dignity, respectively. Being placed on remand like in the case of these people, means you are still on trial,” he added, saying Article 23 does not stipulate how long should a trial last.

    Remand or pre-trial detention is the “legally permitted time to spend in custody waiting trial or awaiting conclusion of the trial. The Constitution provides that in cases triable by the High Court as well as subordinate courts a person should be granted bail on such conditions as the court considers reasonable after for 60 days, and for cases triable only by the High Court 180 days before the case is committed.
    “There are so many inconsistencies in the laws, but that is the work of lawyers and the judiciary.”

    But even then, he said, “the challenge is that irrespective of how many recommendations are sent the Minister [politicians] do not seem committed to helping these people. So what if they release them and they go out there and do even worse?”

    During our interaction with Bushoborozi, he acknowledged presence of the inmates whom he described as “great friends”, have been undergoing medication and “are now doing fine.”

    The responsibility of proving one’s mental stability lies with the regional hospital psychiatry experts, who occasionally visits and examines these inmates. For a population of 34 million people Uganda has only 34 qualified psychiatrists. But each of the 13 regional referral hospitals have at least one psychiatry consultant.
    When this paper contacted him recently, Justice minister Kahinda Otafiire said he was not aware there is any prisoner waiting for any of his orders to be released, and said if there is any, then probably, because the matter has never been brought to his attention. “I will crosscheck if there is any file.”

    Katojo prison in Fort Portal, Kabarole District. Eric Bushoborozi (Inset), like many mentally ill inmates, was remanded back to prison after being declared not guilty.

  • Kenya:Police officer shoots and kills OCS in Murang’a then flees

    {The OCS is said to have threatened to take disciplinary action against the officer after he went to work drunk.}

    A junior officer Sunday evening shot and killed an officer commanding police Station (OCS) in Kigumo, Murang’a County before fleeing.

    The Muthithi Police Station boss, who was on duty, was shot five times by the police officer based in the same station.

    The OCS died at around 8pm while waiting for an ambulance to take him to Kenyatta National Hospital.

    The junior officer managed to escape with the pistol and other police officers immediately launched a manhunt for him.

    Murang’a County Police Commander Naomi Ichami said the motive of the shooting could not be immediately established.

    According to Ichami, the officer is said to have grabbed the pistol from the OCS shooting him in both hands, twice in the stomach and his right leg.

    He later shot at two other officers as he escaped.

    The suspect is said to be a designated police driver at the station.

    According to an officer who is not authorised to speak to the media, the OCS had threatened to take disciplinary action against the officer after he reported to work drunk.

    Police could, however, not deny or confirm this claim, insisting that they had launched investigations into it and would get to the bottom of the matter.

    Ms Ichami urged the public to be on the lookout for the suspect and report to security officers if they spot him.

    She, however, urged the public to be cautious as the officer was armed and dangerous.

    Murang'a County Police Commander Naomi Ichami. She has urged the public to be on the lookout for the officer who shot and killed the Muthithi OCS on June 26, 2016 adding that the suspect was still armed and dangerous.

  • Tanzania:Presidential deadline on desks supply intact

    {The government has reaffirmed on June deadline for school desk crisis as fixed, calling on all relevant authorities to industriously meet the target line.}

    {Minister in President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Governments), TAMISEMI, Mr George Simbachawene, reiterated that the directive issued by President John Magufuli and Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa was unchangeable.}

    “All district and council executive directors who will by June still face shortage of desks in primary and secondary schools they should count themselves failures,” he said in Morogoro at the weekend.

    Official government figures shows primary and secondary schools in the country are facing a shortage of over 3,000,000 desks with primary schools having a shortage of 2,800,000 while 200,000 desks are needed in secondary schools.

    But speaking in Morogoro at a meeting with district commissioners, council directors and head of departments, the minister recalled the president’s order saying it seeks to unseat pupils from the floor.

    He said there is no debate on the presidential directives. All directors whose pupils and students still sit on the floor will be held responsible for failing to execute their duties.

    “One way to address the crisis is by approving the use of forest resources to address the problem,” he told Regional and District Commissioners who doubles as Chairpersons of decision making units at district and regional levels.

    The minister immediately cautioned the directors and commissioners to be vigilant of the forest resources permits for the undertakings.

    Morogoro is facing a shortage of 73,972 desks in primary schools and 11,038 desks in secondary schools. Similarly the region is in short of 4,508 classrooms in primary schools and 352 classrooms in secondary schools. “There is still a big challenge in Morogoro all alone.

    The region is reach in forest resources somewhat more than Coast Region,” he said. The minister warned over likely surge in debts owed by civil servants and bidders offering food service among public schools as a result of corrupt employment and finance officers.

    “No stone shall remain unturned,” the minister said calling the on Regional Commissioner Mr Kebwe Steven Kebwe to start screening deceitful servants before it’s too late. “Accountants are a mere problem in the region.

    You can be surprised a debt amounting to 25bn/- if audited it falls to 5bn/- we will wipe them out,” he said.”

  • Congo volcano brings farmers rich soil but eruption threat

    {GOMA, Congo – Hacking away in the midday sun, 49-year-old farmer Daniel Lazuba remembers vividly his life before one of Africa’s most active volcanos erupted 14 years ago.}

    “All of this was corn before,” he said as he pointed to rows of new banana trees pushing up between black stones. “My cabbage seems to be growing better than ever these days, but in this area, I still have to start from zero.”

    Traumatized farmers like Lazuba are slowly returning to fields decimated by the 2002 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Congo. Flowing lava flattened more than 30 percent of the city of Goma, 20 kilometers away. Nearly 150 people died, and 400,000 fled into neighboring Rwanda.

    Now farmers returning to their fields find increased harvests from the rich volcanic soil, but there are signs that Nyiragongo will erupt again.

    One farmer, Patrick Tamoini, said his harvests have risen over the past two harvests since he returned to his patch of land a short walk from the volcano’s base. The 41-year-old pockets more than $100 a month after taking care of family expenses, more than double his earnings before the eruption, he said. The average per capita monthly income in Congo is nearly $32 a month, according to the World Bank.

    But returning to the fields wasn’t easy.

    “The pain of what I lost kept me from coming back for such a long time,” Tamoini said. “With this level of production, I’m glad I finally did.”

    The chemical makeup of volcanic soil makes for lucrative farming conditions, say researchers at the Goma Volcano Observatory.

    “Lava actually enriches the soil that it initially burned,” said Mathieu Yalira, the chair of observatory’s geochemistry and environment department. Volcanic soil includes fertilizing elements such as iron, phosphorus and potassium, he said. In the years after an eruption, a process known as chemical weathering slowly makes lava soil more fertile than ordinary earth.

    Local farmers didn’t seize on those benefits right away, observers say.

    “Initially, no one was coming back because they were too devastated to see their burned fields,” said the chair of the observatory’s seismology department, Georges Mavonga. “But within the past year, visits toward the volcano have shown new villages in areas that were uninhabited before.”

    He said the increase in lava soil farming may be a result of initial farmers seeing the benefits and spreading information to friends and family.

    But the farmers should not get too attached to the newly fertile fields, warns the Rwanda Red Cross, which cared for many fleeing the 2002 eruption.

    In February, an earthquake far beneath the surface caused rumbling noises near Virunga National Park, where the volcano is located. Since then, a new vent has appeared on the northeastern edge of the crater floor that shoots lava into the air every 30 seconds.

    The Rwanda Red Cross has increased surveillance of the volcano in conjunction with the observatory.

    “There are only presumptions about the next eruption, but people who study the daily life of this volcano tell us it could happen any day,” said Yves Riupi, a Red Cross crisis manager who works with seismologists at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority.

    The risk of another eruption is one that some farmers, whose lives depend on their crops, are now willing to take.

    With vegetation growing more than six feet tall in some places with the rich volcanic soil, farmers say they want to keep working their fields, until the volcano erupts.

    “If another one comes, who am I to stop it?” Lazuba asked. “There is nothing I can do.”

    In this March 29, 2010 file photo, a resident walks past banana trees near the base of Mount Nyiragongo, one of Africa's most active volcanos, in Goma, Congo. Traumatized farmers are slowly returning to fields decimated by the 2002 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Congo. Flowing lava flattened more than 30 percent of the city of Goma, 20 kilometers away.

  • Warning: Don’t hire maids from Tanzania, Burundi

    {The Interior Ministry has warned citizens against travel to Tanzania and Burundi for recruiting domestic workers unless all legal measures have been completed and an official recruitment office has been opened.}

    In a statement to SPA, Mohammed Al-Marool, director general at the ministry’s Department of Public Relations and Media, said the ministry had been informed by the Foreign Ministry that the authorities in Tanzania and Burundi were investigating some Saudi citizens.

    The authorities in Tanzania and Burundi have accused the Saudis of human trafficking, illegally recruiting domestic workers and working without a government permit.
    “The Interior Ministry urges all citizens to keep themselves abreast of the laws and regulations in other countries,” said the statement.

  • Uganda:Nothing to fight for in Parliament, says Besigye

    {Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has urged the Opposition MPs to refrain from scrambling for appointments in the Opposition’s shadow cabinet because there is nothing to fight for since Parliament cannot change anything on the NRM government status quo.}

    “I do not think MPs should be reduced to fighting for small positions in Parliament. What we need to be fighting for is different. We need to struggle to strengthen our position on the ground and form structures like the Power 10 we used in elections to develop capacity to take on the regime that we know has lost credibility. In Parliament, they are just there to make numbers they can’t change anything President Museveni wants whether in Opposition or not,” Dr Besigye said from Luzira prison on Thursday.

    A delegation from Ntungamo District had visited Dr Besigye at the prison where he is on remand on treason charges.

    Talking to Saturday Monitor in an interview at the sidelines of the visitation in the prison, Dr Besigye said the Opposition in Parliament is just there to make numbers but they cannot change anything against President Museveni’s wishes.

    Following the appointment of the Opposition shadow cabinet last week, some senior FDC party officials, including Mr Odonga Otto, said the positions were given as a special reward for supporting the FDC president, Gen Mugisha Muntu, in the past party primary elections.
    Several other analysts described it as a development that could cause major rifts in the biggest Opposition party.
    “We can’t allow positions in Parliament that mean nothing to cause rifts yet we have much to do,” Dr Besigye said.

    He added that fears for his life in prison will not setback his agenda and he shall keep fighting until the regime is removed from power.

    “I have spent much of my youthful age in the struggle, now I am over 60 years, I am not growing younger. What is remaining is that we must fight to the end whoever dies, others will continue. We can’t hold on any more until we get peace, justice, freedom and equality before the law,” he said.

    Dressed in a yellow trouser and short-sleeved yellow shirt of the prison uniform, blue Umoja sandals, a smiling Dr Besigye said he had not been badly treated in prison, only that he still has a lot of fear about his life, especially on what he experienced while in Moroto prison.

    Dr Besigye said he is not yet sure whether a poisonous material was not sprayed in his cell to cause him slow death since he was left there alone and the cell was left open.

    He said deep in the night he saw a policeman with something resembling a poison mask standing at the cell door but the policeman fled when he flashed a torch light on him.
    Dr Besigye said since he has not received specialised medication he still fears his life might be in undetected danger.

    He added that the growing connivance between prisons authorities, police and other security agencies makes him feel more unsafe even inside the cells in Luzira Upper Prison.

    His visitors are subjected to various checks, including biometrics registration, scanning of individual identity cards, with only national IDs and passports acceptable.

    Five officers, four cadet and one Assistant Inspector of Police sit in the room where Dr Besigye meets his guests in front of the office of the officer in charge of the maximum security prison.

    Commenting on the recent insurgency and arrests of key individuals for suspected treason, Dr Besigye said the attacks could have been self-made to frame Opposition individuals and ruled out rebellion.

    “President Museveni should also know that there are some people who think like him. When he lost an election he never went to court he just went directly to the bush. There are people who also believe that they can acquire power that way and do not want to sit on their dissatisfaction. But also they (NRM) can stage-manage something,” Dr Besigye said.

  • State to intervene for four Kenyans jailed in Juba

    {Unless transfers are initiated, the four could spend life in Juba Prison}

    The government says it will start negotiations for an extradition agreement with South Sudan to relocate four Kenyans jailed in Juba on fraud charges if their appeal fails.

    Kenya’s Ambassador to South Sudan Cleland Leshore told the Sunday Nation that a prisoner exchange deal with Juba is among the three options being pursued.

    “The accused are currently in remand in Juba Prison and they will await the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said on the phone from Juba.

    The four Kenyans — Mr Anthony Mwadime, Mr Ravi Ramesh, Mr Boniface Muriuki and Mr Anthony Keya — were sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzlement of government funds.

    They were in a group including 12 South Sudan nationals who were also cumulatively jailed for 67 years.

    Under South Sudan’s Criminal Procedure Act of 2008, all sentences of death or life imprisonment must be confirmed by the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, before taking effect.

    This also means that the four cannot appeal the verdict until the higher court confirms the sentences, which is legally supposed to take 30 days.

    At the moment, Kenya and South Sudan do not have a prisoner exchange or extradition arrangement, meaning the four could spend the rest of their lives away from Kenya, unless the government initiates a bilateral transfer.

    “We have an option of negotiating extradition and exchange of prisoners’ agreement or initiate a high-level political intervention into the matter. These are paths we will pursue depending on the outcome of the appeal,” Mr Leshore said.

    The families of the four are already appealing to the United Nations Human Rights Council to intervene. They say the four were not given a fair hearing.

    They say the sentences were harsh and that they were proxy victims of business wars between rivals, one of whom was their employer, for lucrative government tenders.

    SUPPLY ELECTRONIC ITEMS

    The South Sudanese include businessman John Agou, who used to work as a senior security officer in Salva Kiir’s office, and his wife Anyeth Chat Bol.

    The two founded the business Click Technologies which used to supply electronic items to the Juba government and employed the four Kenyans.

    Mr Agou, the court found, conspired with his employees to swindle the Office of the President of South Sudan and other ministries, by receiving payments for deliveries that never were.

    In addition, he was found guilty of forging a presidential seal in an attempt to withdraw the funds from the Central Bank.
    They were arrested in May last year, detained without charge for several months and later charged with stealing $14 million (Sh1.4 billion) from the Office of the President through forgery.

    The court on June 13 ruled that their laptops, mobile phones, flash disks, CDs and used car tyres be seized, emptied and sold to recover the stolen money.

    This directive is among a list of harsh orders made by South Sudanese High Court Judge Lado Arminto Sikot when he handed down the sentence.

    The detention of Kenyans caused a stir in the country as government officials were put under pressure to ensure they were released.

    But Foreign Ministry officials at the time argued they would not interfere with the justice system of another country.

    The parents of Antony Keya Munia, one of the Kenyans jailed for life in South Sudan, recollect their time with him. The government will start negotiations for an extradition agreement with South Sudan to relocate four Kenyans.