I Didn’t Fight to Lose: Mzee Nadduli’s Hard Words Should Bother President Museveni to Act Firmly and Decisively

Suleiman Jakana Nadduli, a young man with a big future ahead of him, yesterday mysteriously clocked out of his earthly station for the next world. Jakana joins a long list of Ugandan youths who have been losing livesover several years, under painfully dubious circumstances. Our heartfelt condolences go out to our elder and opinion leader, Mzee Abdul Nadduli, during this moment of his greatest loss.

Being parents ourselves, we would be the very last people to wish someone loss of a son and under such questionable and mysterious circumstances, as Jakana has lost his dear life. But, being believers, we are absolutely alive to the gospel which comforts us never to console for long. Since, God is our unfailing avenger.

Lay in absolute peace brother Jakana and may Allah grant your parents, family and friends the strength to overcome the grief of your loss at such sunset of your life. Jakana’s demise must respectfully bother our President, Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The young man’s demise followed his kidnap which was carried out by the government’s security operatives. By the time of the kidnap, Jakana was still recuperating, following his discharge from the hospital.

He would spend weeks incommunicado till after the matter had come up on the floor of Parliament. Jakana is understood to have narrated to his parents and his inner circles how his kidnappers had subjected him to untold torture during arrest, plus in detention. The kidnappers, as per Jakana, during the torture session, would heavily kick him in the sensitive parts of the lower abdomen. He would later on die after complaining of untold pain from those parts of the body.

Whether Jakana had committed any offense, that shouldn’t haven given the security operatives any justification to kidnap, torture, and keep him incommunicado for weeks other than arraigning him before the court`s mandated 48 hours. The President is the Commander-in-Chief (CiC) of the country’s armed forces.

The CiC therefore is the one vested with the biggest responsibility to deal with the kidnappers within the security circles. Given that Gen Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the Head of State, he is thus commanded by the national Constitution to protect the lives of the wanainchi, plus their properties. It isn’t a luxury which the President is required to render the wanainchi, but a constitutional command to do so.

Jakana’s kidnappers were travelling in vehicles popularly referred to as the Drones. The drones are akin to the Peogeot saloon cars which Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin’s dreaded operatives were too, using to kidnap innocent Ugandans in the 1970’s. Come Dr Apollo Milton Obote’s second year. Amin’s dreaded Peogeot saloon cars would now be replaced by yet the much-dreaded Mpaawo Atalikaaba buses.The English version for these trucks’ title was ‘no one won’t shed a tear’.

The same was an apt description of the said torture trucks, since Obote’s undisciplined operatives were using them to kidnap and carry away innocent Ugandans to the torture chambers and to their death. The fact that the President fought Amin and Obote and credibly overthrew them, it would be certainly a big shame and a huge scandal for his government to be pinpointed as also torturing the wanainchi. The president used Luweero as his base to fight Obote.

While in Luweero, he persuaded Hajj Abdul Nadduli, the father of Jakana, to join him and assist him to fight Obote. Nadduli positively responded. He left everything he was doing and put his life on the line in order to kick repression out of the country. After taking power, the President told a group of leaders how he was never ever going to preside over a government when the wanainchi’s lives were in grave danger. During the war, Nadduli lost four children.

Following the kidnap of Jakana, the furious Senior Citizen, alluded to the demised children. He reminded the President plus Gen Severino Kahinda Otafiire, the internal affairs minister, that he hadn’t risked his life during the bush war for the regime to endanger his children later. Every parent, let alone Nadduli, shouldn’t lose their life, nor should their children, under conditions that are illegal.

The supreme Court would allow such, if death punishment has been meted out by a competent court, following a careful examination of all the evidence for and against the death sentence. By and large, Jakana’s must be used by the President to stop the kidnap and torture of Ugandans whether they had been arrested for anti-crime. The executive arm of the government should stop to allocate itself the duty of meting out punishments to the people accused of crime.

The executive should stop at causing the arrests of suspected law breakers and leave the trial and sentencing of the suspects to the competent authorities. Short of that, the current leaders, who were previously saluted as the new breed of enlighted leaders, would end up walking the same lane of checkered history which was walked by their lawless predecessors. Yes, we might not agree with each other all the time, but we should learn to choose to agree to disagree, as opposed to torturing each other.

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Stephen Kasozi Muwambi: Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]