The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Buganda Road Magistrates Court has charged Dr. Kizza Besigye with inciting violence.
Besigye was produced at Buganda Road Court by police on Wednesday amidst tight security and charged before Grade One Magistrate Siena Owomugisha.
Court heard that on May 24th, 2022 at Arua Park in Central Division in Kampala district, Besigye without lawful excuse at an assembly made statements to the members of the public indicating or implying that it would be desirable to demonstrate, an act which was reportedly calculated to lead to destruction or damage to property.
Besigye was arrested from Arua Park where he was addressing crowds and taken to the Central Police Station in Kampala. He was later transferred to Nagalama Police Station where he spent a night.
On Wednesday, Besigye denied the charges and asked to be released on bail. His lawyers Chrysostom Katumba and Erias Lukwago argued that he is still innocent until proven to be guilty and that it’s his constitutional right to apply for bail.
They also noted that Besigye has a permanent place of abode and that he is a national leader whose record is well captured in some of the records before the court. Court has also heard that Besigye has been a presidential candidate four times with a performance that is well on record and not disputed and he formerly headed Forum for Democratic Change political party.
Besigye’s sureties were Wafula Ogutu and the Deputy Secretary-General Harlod Kaija.
However, prosecution led by Joan Keko objected to bail saying that if Besigye’s records are known in court, it implies that he should desist from committing crimes that bring him to court.
She added that since he is a leader, he has the capacity to interfere with investigations. Keko asked court to put stringent terms on him.
Owomugisha granted Besigye cash bail of 30 Million Shillings saying that there was no evidence to prove that Besigye was going to interfere with the ongoing investigations. Each of the sureties was bonded at 70 million shillings, not cash. The case was adjourned to June 16.
However, Lukwago said that the bail amount is outrageous since his client has been under preventive arrest at his home for almost two weeks and he has not been working.
According to Lukwago, Besigye has instructed them to appeal against the decision and has chosen to be remanded.
Meanwhile, three people who were jointly arrested with Besigye on Tuesday have also been arraigned before Buganda Rado Court and charged separately.
The former Lubaga South parliamentary candidate Samuel Lubega Mukaku, a resident of Mengo Hill in Kampala Central Division and Yoweri Kintu, a loader at Arua Park and resident of Kanyanya Quarter zone in Kawempe Division in Kampala appeared before the Buganda Road Grade One Magistrate Asuman Muhumuza and charged with obstruction of a police officer in the execution of duty.
They were granted a non-cash bail of 5 million shillings and each of their sureties bonded at 7 Million shillings also not cash. These have been directed to return to court on June 27th as investigations continue.
Besigye’s driver Fred Kato was also charged with an offense related to traffic according to Lukwago and granted a cash bail of 1 million shillings before Buganda Road Grade One Magistrate Fidelis Otwao.
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we are dieng of high commodity amount
Suffering and mediocrity have been normalised in Uganda until talking about them becomes strange and almost redundant. Ugandans have become indifferent to morally acceptable practice in all spheres of life. Substandard is the standard of all products in Uganda. Any seeming effort to change the substandard is itself substandard. Indeed the fish rots from its head. The mediocrity in our country is an evil that must be resisted.
Resisting evil without being one is a huge challenge to anyone desiring to live gently in a world riddled with social injustices where public opinion does not sway those in power. And yet sticking to pacific principles is not an option until those in power can be considered as savages against whom natural law permits the pacifist to act in self defence.
The wisdom necessary for anyone to avoid leading his country men into temptation is available. Greed in high places has robbed masses of their rights to minimum acceptable health care thereby undermining their right to life as well as adequate living standards a living in a good state.
It does not require a miracle from outerspace for Uganda to distribute such public goods as its first responsibility. Ugandans don’t have to put up with daily hassles on a crowded roads without pedestrian lanes where motorists don’t respect zebra crossings. It is not normal to bribe your way to access public service from salaried officials. You don’t have to process your land titles for years simply because you refused to bribe public officials.
Mothers don’t have to die while giving birth or getting arrested for failing to pay their bills after giving birth. Cancer patients don’t have to die silently guessing whether they got bewitched? A cancer patient being sent home because there is no chemotherapy drug is only normalised in Uganda. A lot that happens in Uganda gets one to wonder why do we incur huge public expenditure for no useful public service!
Any casual bystander can tell, that the State is only focused on feeding a small band of stooges at the expense of the masses. The gullible masses have been tranquilized to think that all they go through is very normal in a so called poor country. Millions of Ugandans are misled to accept the fact that they can drink from dirt wells, can live without electricity, can put up with the lack of health facilities, can live in leaky grass thatched houses where they have to put up a night fight with the killer mosquitoes. This kind of life has been normalised.
Meanwhile the government officials live in filthy luxury. Public officials are not ordinary people in Uganda, they are demi-gods. It is these demi-gods that government care about. All this is normal in Uganda.
Occasionally you hear of members of Parliament going abroad to benchmark certain practices in seriously managed countries. But do they learn anything? Hardly! It is a mere opportunity for them to make per diem. And all this is normal in Uganda.
A few individuals (such as Dr. Besigye, Mugisha Muntu, Gashumba) who have attempted to conscientize the tranquilized masses have been looked upon as those against the “peace”. It will take a miracle for the gullible public to discover that governments have responsibilities to mobize public goods and to make them available to the public to ensure adequate social services.
It is not really a miracle for governments to act responsibly. It takes an awakened grassroot mass to produce a responsible government. But in a country where the church has lost its prophetic mission, the stakes are even higher. Obviously, a volunteer church will emerge and it is clear the alliance for national transformation is an organic outgrowth of this ekklesia calling for value based political management of a country.