Too Much Power: Investigator’s Reprieve as DPP Is Finally Sued Over Dubious Pardons Yet Some Big Fish Remain Untouched

Every worthwhile revolution gets kickstarted by a handful of people. Such people would normally have nothing much beyond the strong desire to put things right. As the fainthearted would be standing there while coiling tails under their legs, the stronghearted would be on the other side burning up with the strong spirit, impatiently pushing them to get the particular job at hand done, no matter the risks involved.

Here, we have in mind Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Despite being in possession of a few guns, he dared to think big by starting the revolution against his hitherto Boss, Dr Milton Obote’s regime. And as the saying goes, the rest now belongs in history. You can add, if you so wish, the biblical David onto President Museveni.

Despite being armed just only with a stone, the young boy would go on to daringly fight the much tested, proven as well as feared Goliath. Before the cowards could know it, David had knocked down the warrior with merely the stone, to the astonishment of everyone around.

Here at The Investigator media website, we take great humility for having led and for also continuing to lead some of the most useful revolutions that have seen some of Uganda’s mighty people tumbling down like houses of cards. Who doesn’t remember how we singlehandedly led the revolution against Gen Kale Kayihura`s brutal police!

As everyone else was sitting there in fear and awe, we ourselves went ahead and got hold of the mighty pen and off we went for the battle. Against all sorts of odds that had been staked against us, we would continue and fight on until the President joined us and helped finally to clean out the mess. Along the way, our CEO, Stanley Ndawula had been arrested and kept incommunicado.

But Stanley would not end up in any way feeling intimidated or even obliged to bend to the will of the bean weevils. We would thereafter take on another weighty guy in Col. Kaka Bagyenda. We would go ahead and daringly write with mere keyboards to question Kaka’s modalities of handling the suspected criminals. Yet Kaka had been exactly the same man who had previously arrested and held incommunicado our very own CEO!

We would still end up nevertheless, victorious as his Master the President finally acted by dropping Kaka. Now coming fast to the present, some among you have witnessed and read about what we have been writing to question the sweeping powers being dubiously used by the Director for Public Prosecution (DPP), to cause all sorts of mockeries of justice to the people, out to seek justice.

So reckless the Office of the DPP has proved, that its head, Madam Jane Frances Abodo even went out of her way to mess up with people as bold as us. She did so by secretly and dubiously closing the water-tight and evidence-packed criminal case we had filed against city businessman Sudhir Ruparelia. This stance, for hacking into our website and personal social media accounts.

Not only had the paid hackers fingered out Sudhir for being the one directly culpable for the mess they had occasioned to us, but had also done the same in case of his sidekick, Ussa Ssegawa by incriminating him as exactly the one he had used to negotiate the dirty job and even to pay them. And to this end, Ussa Ssegawa also owned up not only verbally, but in a written statement he recorded with police. It is such kind of evidence the DPP would trash and go ahead to pardon Sudhir and this, without any kind of recourse whatsoever, to us.

Fortunately, as we were still licking our wounds, madam Abodo would again, recklessly dare and defy the President, plus the mighty Courts of law by pardoning businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba and his sibling, Muzamir Basajjabalaba. Both the courts of law plus the President had categorically directed the DPP to prosecute the two brothers for forging a court document.

The fake Judicial Order was falsely stopping the two from payment of the due taxes out of the UGX142Bn which had been controversially paid to them, purportedly as compensation for the loss of Owino and Nakasero markets, plus the City Abattoir. The President had written to deny waiving taxes on the sums, let alone authorizing such payments.

The two brothers had in an attempt to try to foil their prosecution, dashed to the Constitutional Court to have the trial declared invalid. But the same court would turn a negative verdict and direct the DPP to go ahead and proceed with the trial. After sitting on the Court Order for long spells, Abodo would in October last year, finally go ahead and pardon the suspects against a clear court order and in light of categorical executive order to prosecute them.

It took the vigilance of legal activist, Isaac Semakadde who had to sternly take on Abodo to explain why she had pardoned the two brothers, otherwise, that is how the trial was going to end up not seeing the light of the day just as scores have previously suffered the same fate. After Semakadde had raised a lot of dust, Abodo would panickily step out and own up. That would seem to imply that she hadn’t had any justification for pardoning the two brothers in the first place apart from may be the fact that she had most likely been compromised to act as she had done.

But even as she had owned up and undertaken to prosecute the matter to its logical conclusion just as the President and the Courts of law had directed her, she would step back and leave the matter at that. This is what would end up prompting Semakadde to take the drastic decision to sue Abodo, this time round in order to have her respect the order of court as well as the wish of her appointing authority.

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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]