The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT & URN | State Minister for Karamoja Affairs Agnes Nandutu has been charged and committed to High Court for trial on charges of dealing with suspect property contrary to section 21A(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2009. Investigations on the matter are complete.
The Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala today remanded her to Luzira until May 3.
Nandutu, the Bududa Woman Member of Parliament and a resident of Nantabulilwa in Seeta Mukono, was arraigned on Wednesday before the Court presided over by Grade One Magistrate Esther Asiimwe and charged with one count of dealing with suspect property.
The court has heard that during the month of June 2022 at the Office of the Prime Minister’s Stores in Namanve and Kkola Cell Bulwanyi Parish Mukono District, Nandutu dealt with government property that is 2,000 prepainted iron sheets Gauge 28 by receiving and holding the said iron sheets.
According to the prosecution, Nandutu had reason to believe the iron sheets were acquired as a result of loss of public property an offense under section 10 of the Anti-Corruption Act of 2000 as amended.
She denied the charges and the prosecution led by David Bisamunyu and Jonathan Muwaganya informed the court that investigations are complete and immediately asked Court to commit her to the High Court for trial.
According to the summary of the case read, the iron sheets were bought but allegedly ended up in the wrong hands of third parties including Minister for Karamoja Affairs Mary Gorreti Kitutu Kimono and her Personal Assistant Joshua Abaho among others.
Later Asiimwe committed the file to High Court for trial.
Nandutu’s lawyers led by Charles Nandaah Wamukoota, Humphrey Tumwesigye, and John Nalera informed the Court that they were ready to apply for bail for their client.
Nandaah told the court that they had lined up a team of Ministers and Members of Parliament with their documents and in court to stand surety for their client.
But the Magistrate said that the file has been forwarded to the High Court for trial following a speedy process of finalizing investigations by the State.
Although the law provides that an accused person is entitled to a speedy trial, Nandutu’s lawyers in rare circumstances complained that the process of finalizing investigations has been fast adding that the State did this hurriedly with intention of making their client not get bail.
Asiimwe remanded Nandutu to Luzira Prison until May 3rd, 2023.
Nandutu who spent a night at Kira Division Police in Wakiso District prior to her production in Court becomes the third Minister to be arraigned before the Anti-Corruption Court over the iron sheets scandal.
Recently, the Minister for Karamoja Affairs Mary Gorreti Kitutu Kimono, and State Minister for Finance and Economic Planning Amos Lugoloobi were also charged in relation to the diversion of the iron sheets in question.
Although the Criminal Investigations Department-CID stated that they were investigating 22 Ministers, 31 MPs, and 13 Chief Administrative Officers over the iron sheets scandal, the Spokesperson of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Jacquelyn Okui stated that files of those implicated will be coming in piecemeal as and when they are forwarded by the Police which is investigating the matter.
On Tuesday, lawyer Male Mabirizi petitioned the Anti-Corruption Court seeking to declare that the investigations, arrests, detentions, and subsequent Prosecutions of the Speaker, Vice President, Ministers, and Members of Parliament in this scandal are illegal on the basis that they are by law not supposed to be held criminally liable but the liability should rest on the accounting officers.
Mabirizi who wants the investigations and Prosecutions halted pending the determination of his case also argues that the piecemeal investigations, arrests, detentions, and Prosecutions derogate the right to a fair hearing and easy legal representation.
Mabirizi’s matter is fixed for hearing on May 22nd, 2023 before Justice Lawrence Gidudu.
Olujjuliro and Uganda’s Political Nudity
A typical African woman always had her work-cut out in a full dairy. She would start the day with a reassuring mantra that…”I will pull through the day”… and after feeding her husband and children on a morning morsel, she would put out for bigger family and community chores. Here in Buganda, women were the packhorses of their homes they took the rough row to hoe (before slaying took shape)…. since the frontrunners (the men), were always out and about. Dressed in her Busuuti or, kikoyi (a woven fabric of floor length, normally wrapped underneath the armpits covering the cleavage upto the ankles), she would drag a hoe across her shoulder, a knife in her hands and a basket over her head and set for the bananery (olusuku). In her garden, she would till or weed, she would prune or simply harvest. Matooke being our staple food, she’ll cut some banana leaves for which she will use in the preparation. The Baganda believed that the process was as good as the outcome….they believed that for a sumptuous delicious meal, a clean process was of vital mind-focus. So, before she started to peel, she made sure that her hands were clean. In case, she didn’t have water, a Muganda woman was meant to exercise her improvising skills,…..she would normally cut through the outer layer of the banana trunk and take out the spongy piece/cartridge-like, which is filled with a sweet smelling liquid and wash off all the smells and dirt in her hands so that no stains are spotted on the peeled banana fingers. Next, she would place the peeled bananas in a shallow basket (ekibbo), lined with banana leaves. The banana leaves are then firmly strapped with dry fibre (ebyai) which criss-cross at right-angles from beneath and a knot is tied at the top. It’s then placed in a saucepan which is half-filled with water, and, the cut pieces of the midrib (emigogo) are placed at the bottom of the saucepan… Meanwhile, as the woman is tending to the bananas, a young man is busy exercising his youthful biceps, pounding groundnuts in a mortar (ekinnu) using a pestle (omusekuzo). The g.nuts are pounded to fine particles before being placed into a tinned-box …but matooke could also be supplemented with meat or chicken. Small amounts of water added into, with salt, onions and tomatoes before it is covered and placed over and above the tied banana bundle….however, and in certain instances, little lovely parcels of satiny green leaves (empombo) are neatly tied up with fibre and pocketed around the wrapped bananas… more layers of the banana leaves are added… ideally, to hasten/quicken the cooking process…. but paradoxically, the steam that is generated within the banana leaves somehow is “condensed” onto the walls of the “tinned-box” or, of the mpombo, “generating” more soup 🍲…(this is uniquely ingenious to Baganda women!!!)
When the food is finally cooked, the bundled bananas are lifted from the steamy banana leaves and placed into ekibbo for mashing/kneading (okunyigga.) When it is all soft, it’s placed back into the saucepan for slow-heating (okubobeza) which will turn the cooked matooke to a golden-yellow colour.
The second segment of the cooking is the eating. The eating starts with the serving but before the serving, every single member of the family… alive… must…(emphasis mine), every single member of the family alive and presently present must attend.. unless, when one is sick or serving a punishment… the other requirement was that all attendees must have had clean hands… this was the standard. Food is then served on fresh banana leaves spread out on a tarpaulin. No hands of the server ever touched the food…no! Small pieces of banana leaves (obuwuuwo) that are of the size of a handkerchief are used to serve. The sitting took a circular form and everyone was handed a plate of soup/sauce/paste and in front of everyone, is a sliced piece(s) of matooke which is dipped into the sauce before mauling. The table etiquettes, this time, tarpaulin etiquettes were strictly followed; no talking or chewing aloud (okuswakula.) No eating while leaning on your left arm (olukono)…it was equally taboo asking for more soup before finishing the food put before you…so, matooke eating required a certain level of planning…. And a word of appreciation went towards whoever was involved in the preparations……. there was also an encrypted message, one of hard work, cleanliness, transparency, equity, togetherness/communalism, a sense of purpose and a source of happiness… and this was the unsullied childhood innocence that we carried forward arriving at gates of our boarding schools. At school, we were faced with a cacophony of cultures… and there was always a backlash between “innocence” and what was perceived as “civilised.” Our “innocence” in an assumed “civilised” society often striked off as “ignorance”, “primitivity” and, or, “barbaric.” We always struggled to “fit in” society, in order to keep up with the appearances….we tended to dip ourselves in an ocean of mimicry….we copied the way people talked, dressed and ate without asking why, when, where and how….We were somewhat compelled to appreciate modernity without us becoming modern. How? We picked up the phrases like, “you bitch!” and ranaway with it, without carrying it’s full weight. We publicly kissed and snogged disguising our lust as boyfriend-girlfriend. In school, we were accorded the leverage of naming things without conforming to their true essence. For instance, we always had dinning halls/rooms, however, there was no known culture of serving, neither of sitting nor of eating….we were never told of how to hold a fork or a spoon. Special people were served differently. You had a DH prefect who would storm the kitchen directly with a “bucket” which was once filled with a detergent that would fill up…four plates of mature hungry men just for his rapacious appetite and he would enjoy it from the recluse of his cubicle…. He will do this, day-in day-out, without the contrite that he’s leaving 4 of his fellow students on an empty stomach….. and just like in prison, in boarding schools interests and luxuries were being curbed… there was always a sense of deprivation… and, so, for one to prove how important they were, they ought to have forced the issue… and tramped over the set limits. This was a situation where one’s deontic logic was lost. There’s always a change in priorities…a student’s sole priority was academic excellence…but under such circumstances, for once a student would interchange his academic priorities for a DH prefect post… or any post that would leverage their wellbeing….if he can’t seize the opportunity, he’ll postpone it for a later day when he returns home and redirects his aggression towards the young ones…. He won’t be entertaining anymore of the olujjuliro but rather sit in the comforts of his bedroom to be served or, wait until when he finishes school and joins a big office… they’ll try to adopt a DH prefect mentality of serving self first at the detriment of the rest. This is what Tal Ben Shankar at Harvard University calls “the arrival fallacy.” Tal states that for someone to attain long-term contentment, one has to develop more internally than external. This is because if one were to develop more externally, the goal setting process will keep on being “adjusted.” It will be based on, “I’ll be happy if/when I attain this..” People place their “happiness” on achieving certain articles or titles. But even when they seem to attain such feats, still, happiness eludes them. The more reason, you’ll find someone first stole a car, then, two, then a fleet..but still not contented, they turn on houses, then mansions but still not contented… they will turn to land, then islands and nations still not contented…. Happiness is more of a spiritual-self-fulfillment than attainments. The urge of attaining more is based on the presumption that “there isn’t enough for us”… the scarcity mentality…..which assumes that for one to achieve something, someone else must have lost it…. that for one to achieve happiness, one must snatch it first from someone else. This lends us to be selfish and cruel in our endeavours…. the foulness of this mentality is that we limit life to the sorry scope of “man eats man.” “You eat or you’re eaten.” So, we grow up and what we see before us, is a batch of enemies… scavengers and vultures, this creates a mental state of mistrust …a woman is married to a rich husband but she can’t tell the source of his income…a priest receives big offertory from the congregation but can’t point to their particular jobs. We seem to have dropped the olujjuliro and moved on to the high table without necessarily carrying with us the required enablers. We seem to have been excited with the pose of sitting at the high table without constantly reiterating to ourselves that the rules were in working order. And this brings me to the current state of Uganda’s political nudity…..I specifically use the word “nudity” as an exaptation to bring out the true levels of rot within our political class.
I take it that the politician who steals GAVI funds that are meant to treat HIV patients is as shameless as the person who posts nude pics on the internet ….I take it that the person who steals money for road maintenance and schools’ construction is as shameless as a lascivious addict. I also take it that a person who steals white iron sheets meant for the Karamojongs who have been struck by famine, drought, nodding disease, is as shameless as a libidinous indecorous person.
In trying to express myself and identify with the Ganda culture, I am simply trying to dramatize the ideals and aesthetic styles of the different cultures. Civilized and considerate people the world over demand a certain level of discipline and respect not only for the food and effort applied but also the people in whose company it’s eaten…..I know it’s the same with the Marakwanga/Eboo for the Iteso…. I know it’s the same with Eshabwe for the Ankole…. Mayai meno for the Langi…. Firinda for both Batooro and Banyoro and Fufu for the Ghanaians and Nigerians. Mealtime rules at the lujjuliro didn’t only provide safety but also predictability that allowed eaters to relax. When we debunked this arrangement and ascended to the high table draped in our well printed suits….we did not know with what hand to hold the fork…we did not know with what hand to hold the knife…. We did not know whether we had to keep both of our hands on the table…we have since faced a directional dyslexia where men simply dip their greasily hands in every saucepan at a buffet table causing consternation to fellow dinners…it is only them that will end up eating…we have witnessed this from the previous regimes of Amin…. where only Aminists ate….under Obote… where only Obotists ate…. we’re currently witnessing it, where only Musevenists are eating….in a way, it becomes a vicious cycle…. where we’re always in “RESET” mode….we can never progress as a country under such conditions. The act of sharing a meal, symbolises a higher level of acceptance than just sharing nutrients. We are at crossroads of either reverting to our traditional “lujjuliro”, or, ascending to the high table…. Choosing the latter, will mean acceptance to a new set of rules from the colonisers… while the former will send us back to our ancestral dominions….. There’s always a better choice, although, it is not always the easiest. I speak for FEDERAL…. What about you?
Until when we shall meet…
Happy Bank Holiday
Rajab Kakyama