Political scholars are still grappling with the fact that military coups are still fashionable on a continent where stringent measures have been undertaken by both the continental bodies like the African Union and the International community to make it impossible for violent change of government. 

Last week, shocking news filtered through that a coup d’état took place in Burkina Faso, removing Interim President Paul-Henri Damiba over his inability to deal with an Islamist insurgency. Damiba himself had come to power in a coup d’état just eight months earlier. As you read this, a little-known Captain Ibrahim Traore has already taken over as interim leader. Burkina Faso is a country with interesting fortunes dictated by the dynamics within the military-political circles. The world came to know about this country when a young-looking 33 years old military officer by the names of Capt. Thomas Sankara staged a military takeover in 1983. He managed to undertake very many revolutionary initiatives including the decisive one where he changed the colonial name of that country from Upper Volta and renamed it as Burkina Faso, which literary means the land of upright men and many other useful initiatives.

He was however assassinated in 1987 by forces believed to be aligned to Capt. Blaise Campaore who is known to have been his very close colleague and he (Campaore) managed to sustain a long spell of stability from 1987 up to 2016 when he was pushed out of power by demonstrators who were fed up of enduring rigged elections. Since that time, Burkina Faso has been limping through a civil war with the Islamic militants and power thirsty military officers taking turns to rule the country.

As we speak now, the country is facing a very uncertain political future. The soldiers who staged the coup on Saturday claim that the army had failed to defeat the Islamic fundamentalist militant group and also failed to hand over power to civilian rule-which is an obvious lie used as a pretext to sample power. The military coup in Burkina Faso reminds us of the spectacular 1980 coup which was staged by Sgt Samuel Kenyon Doe who overthrew and eventually managed to execute President Tolbert together with all his cabinet ministers due to corruption. 

But his government turned out the most corrupt than the previous one. Prior to that, great post-independence leaders who had resorted to single party democracy like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Milton Obote, Cabral were all overthrown by the military. Soon after the cold war in 1990, military coups became archaic, unacceptable and replaced by progressive democracy. The international community, the African Union and regional bodies like ECOWAS became very effective in thwarting military coups and defending democratically elected governments.

It became extremely difficult to stage a coup and survive the backlash and wrath of those bodies in form of punitive sanctions. The rule was that leaders had to emerge through elections. One of the spectacular episodes of this phenomenon was where self-styled despot Yaya Jameh was forced to hand over power to President Barrow. President Jameh was a very interesting comical character in the league of clowns that can only be compared to Ugandan dictator President Idi Amin.

In Gabon, some disorganized military offices rushed to radio and announced that they had overthrown the government of President Ali Bongo, son to long serving late President Omar Bongo, but were easily neutralized. In Burundi, the late President Pierre Nkurunziza was almost overthrown by a clique of Burundian soldiers who failed to sustain the takeover. 

Then there was the slow-time consuming takeover in Zimbabwe where, the late Robert Mugabe was pushed out of power by his colleagues. President Mugabe had made the mistake of entrusting most powers with his wife Grace Mugabe, which annoyed his ZANU-PF colleagues led by now President Munangagwa who managed to connive and push him out. In Africa, we have seen civil wars like that of Gen Museveni in 1986, invasions like the Tanzanian that pushed Gen Idi Amin out of power in 1979, military takeovers like that of Gen Sani Abacha in Nigeria, the one of Capt. Jerry Rawlings in Ghana or even the useless one of Gen Tito Okello that saw the overthrow of President Obote in 1985 and many others.

Incidentally, President Jerry Rawlings also did exactly what Sgt Samuel Doe did by executing former ministers whom he accused of being corrupt but his government turned out to be more corrupt than the one he overthrew! Unfortunately, when the continent adjusted to elections, most leaders learnt the art of rigging elections. Many of them have since managed to stage sham elections by suppressing the opposition and controlling the electoral process. This is the method that has been used by leaders like President Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon since 1983, President Theodore Nguema who has been in charge of Equatorial Guinea since 1979 to the extent of appointing his son as the Vice President and minister of defense!

And it’s depressing to note that throughout that time, the African Union has somehow managed to keep the army and their military coups out of the political processes with some respectable success. But in the process of doing so, the African Union has been faced with the realities of defending illegitimate governments that have lost elections. This is the dilemma that is now making military coups inevitable because it has come to be known that elections are no longer viable options for effecting regime change in Africa.  

This has led the people to devise their own methods of bringing down dictatorships through mass protests. For instance, the advent of Arab spring that saw people demonstrate and eventually defeat powerful dictatorships like that of Col Muamar Ghadafi from Libya, Hosni Mubaraka in Egypt, and Ben Ali from Tunisia etc. There is the recent one which was occasioned by rising prices of bread that prompted protestors to get rid of President Omar Bashir from Sudan. Sudan is now under a military that is in a tricky alliance with some civilian leadership.

One thing that must be stressed here is that Africans now know that elections can push out dictators from power but they (elections) are not necessarily a reliable option they can trust to effect regime change. Since elections are losing the necessary legitimacy, this has opened an avenue for the army to come back to influence political events on the continent. You find that the situation is so fragile that most African governments are just one stupid mistake away from enduring a military coup. This is because most of them are staging fake elections which they are rigging without shame and using them as an excuse to perpetuate themselves in power. 

They rig because they know that the African Union and the international community can only recognize an elected government irrespective of the circumstances under which it was elected – or rigged its way to power. But it’s important to note that once a military coup is supported by the people, it becomes inevitably successful regardless of the interventions by the regional bodies like ECOWAS, the helter-skelter moves by the African Union or even the well-intentioned international community. Therefore, African governments need to avoid making those silly mistakes that can expose them to military coups. Why? Because although these military coups are the most effective/quickest way to effect regime change, they always tend to send the country in a terrible backward spiral.

The gangsters had got wind of the US dollars that were being transported from UK to Uganda. So, they were laying in waiting at Katabi, in order to help themselves on the said White man`s money. The Dimes were being dispatched from Barclays Bank in UK to its main branch in Kampala.

Upon the flight carrying the dollars touching down at Entebbe airport, the cash was offloaded and packed into the waiting bullion van. Meanwhile, the robbery’s architect was comfortably sitting in his home somewhere in Kampala leafy environs. Yet, he was getting loud and clear, whatever was going on away in Entebbe, and whatever had taken place in the UK, before even the aircraft could kiss the skies fordestination Uganda!

After the dollars had been loaded on the bullion van, the driver ignited the engine, to start on the journey to Kampala. The police patrol carrying the cops, followed in tow.But upon the van making its way through Katabi, on its way to Kampala, the hoodlums now jumped out of their hideout with guns blazing. They cornered the bullion van and opened a hail of gunfire, to scare the driver of the truck and that of the patrol vehicle. 

The cops escorting the bullion van countered in the same currency. By the end of the gunfire, two cops lay motionless. The rest scampered off for prized life.Meanwhile, the robbers scammed off tens of millions of cash in United States of America denominations. They hurriedly loaded the now bloody dollars in a saloon car and drove off to Kampala, to deliver to their master, the proceeds of the gruesome robbery!

The country was startled. Ugandans and the banking industry demanded for quick answers from the police force. Top detectives were assigned to unravel the criminal mystery. They got down to work swiftly. The subsequent investigation rendered very, very valuable leads. The clues were pointing at businessman Johnson Kamya Wavamunno as being architect of the whole thing.

Looking to save his skin, Wavamunno ducked off and outside the Ugandan jurisdiction!  His intention? To alter the story to read like he was abroad when the heist happened. So, he thought, prosecution was going to find it a lot more cumbersome to pin him down to the robbery.

Having knitted up a tight case against Wavamunno, the Ugandan police worked on the process of repatriating him back to Kampala. He was picked from abroad and positively put on trial, following which, he was sent to the gallows. But what exactly was the piece of evidence that broke Wavamunno’s defense of alibi! Just watch this space…….

Captured Wednesday last week by Ndawula`s private investigators around Kawempe, Ussa Ssegawa is the latest and hitherto most needed suspect. Most needed because he represented the prime suspect, Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia in entirerty. Whereas it was highly expected he would do whatever in his reach to protect his master, time wasn`t on his side.

This stance, because he was denied the much-wanted chance to talk to his master when the detective announced to him, it was time for recording his statement. As the head of the hacking racket, it was prudent for him to talk to the main man and agree on what to tell or not to tell police.

Left with no alternative, Ussa gave in and wrote an unaltered statement, telling it the way it was, more especially after being informed that actually, all his accomplices had long recorded theirs. We chanced a lengthy glance at his statement currently lying at the Resident State Attorney`s desk at Buganda Road Court, pending sanctioning.

The Statement*

With slightly edited patches, we hereby reproduce the statement via which, Ussa Ssegawa spilled the beans to the dismay of his master Sudhir Ruparelia, also the Federa Republic of Nepal Consul to Uganda.                

“I Ussa Ssegawa, a male adult aged 32 years, Muganda by tribe, working with Sanyu fm as a journalist, a resident of Kawempe, Ssebaggala zone, Kawempe Division in Kampala District STATES that the above particulars and address are mine, true and correct.

…and wish to say that I have been an employee at Sanyu FM for now a period of three years and it’s owned by a one Rajiv Ruparelia. I know of a person known as Ashburg Kato also known as Katto Ashraf and have known him for a period of two years and we communicate both on mobile network and other social media platforms like WhatsApp. 

I also know one Alfred, who I got to know through Katto Ashraf aka Ashburg and its recent and do not know him much, however we do communicate. I also know Stanley Ndawula and have known him as a journalist for so long but we do not have much in common but he is well known to me. It was in early September 2021 when I was contacted by Katto Ashraf aka Ashburg Katto.

This was in regard to the Facebook posts that were on Stanley Ndawula’s Facebook page and these were stating that “In Sudhir’s Death Closet: The tale of how Nepal consul has evolved from table salt smuggler to a super crime guru.” Katto was informing me of how he can be able to remove the post off Ndawula Stanley’s Facebook page and others on the Investigator page, an online news site that is also owned by Ndawula Stanley. 

I then asked him how possible he was able to hack this account of Stanley and remove this content and he confirmed to me thrice that he could do it and I gave him a go ahead. We then made an arrangement to meet and find a solution to remove these contents.

The reason I was doing this was that I wanted to protected the image of Ruparelia group and my bosses who included Rajiv Ruparelia and Sudhir Ruparelia as these contents were not appeasing to us and the whole company management, so this was a way we found out that could counter plan it. 

We on the first time met at Masharique restaurant in Bunga and in this meeting it was me, Katto Ashraf and Alfred. In this meeting we agreed that they should hack and put down the Facebook, Twitter and the Investigator site accounts and ensure that all the content is erased or deleted.

In all this, I was representing the Ruparelia group but in particular, it was Sudhir Ruparelia who had given me instructions to meet these people and chat a way out to hack Stanley Ndawula’s accounts as indicated. And in the same meeting, we agreed on how we were to facilitate them to do this and we agreed a fee of UGX10,000,000 but with initial payment of UGX.5,000,000 which he received the next day at Bukoto. 

I originally knew Katto Ashraf but I got to know Alfred when we met in the meeting at Masharique restaurant in Bunga. There after the first meeting, indeed as agreed, the Facebook page of Ndawula Stanley was hacked and removed but however I do not know how the nudes of a lady got to his pages but all I know is that the page was hacked and removed by the team I had agreed with as instructed by Sudhir Ruparelia. 

And equally, the Investigator site was hacked by the same team of Katto and Alfred and this particular meeting was in my vehicle and here we agreed on what they expected from me and what I expected from them, which is deleting the content in Ndawula Stanley’s Facebook account, Twitter and the Investigator site (website).

While in this meeting, I called Dr Sudhir using my personal phone to inform him that I had met these guys and we had agreed on deleting this content as he had instructed me to do. We then left and then met the third time it was me and Katto Ashraf and at that time Alfred was at Yaya restaurant, the business of Ndawula Stanley and at this time, Alfred was intending to obtain information from Ndawula’s phones that was going to aid them in the hacking of Ndawula’s accounts and Investigator website. 

I and Katto drove and got closer to Yaya restaurant in Kisasi and waited for Alfred and I later parted with them and left. Some of the communication between me and Katto was on WhatsApp and basically was about hacking and deleting the Facebook accounts, Twitter account and website of the investigator and Stanley Ndawula, but whenever Katto would be off WhatsApp, I would engage Alfred on WhatsApp to have the matter progress as I was accountable to Sudhir Ruparelia to have the job done. 

I was communicating with Katto on 078…07 both mobile network and WhatsApp as well as Alfred on 0759…11, +44 75…77, and 0784…99 and I would also contact my boss Sudhir Ruparelia on 0752…66 and 0772…66 and I was using my personal number stated above which is fully registered in my names “Ussa Segawa.” That’s all I can state for now. Statement read through by myself, found it true and correct and here I sign it……. xxx

The move, according to insiders, is aimed at countering a similar campaign by the Uganda Musicians Association (UMA), with whom they have been battling over recognition as the chief overseer of the artistes industry in Uganda.

It should be noted that Chameleone and his team, a few months ago clashed with UMA headed by Cinderella Sanyu aka Cindy, over the rightful leader of the fraternity. This was when they met in Gulu at the Operation Wealth Creation chief overseer Gen. Salim Saleh’s.

An agitated Gen. Saleh at the time advised the rivaling camps to come to a consensus if they wanted to access any Covid 19 Relief funds. The two parties failed to reach an agreement which forced the General to hand their issues over to the Prime Minister’s Office.

It is here that they were told to go back to the grassroots, register members, set up liaison offices and thus, the rush for them to rapidly get on the road. Chameleon’s move is said to have put UMA under a lot of pressure that they have been engaged in crisis meetings since the beginning of this week.

This follows an inquest into the abuse of Covid 19 regulations in the district by the ‘visitors,’ which development the security gurus have also termed as a security threat! Other complaints are said to have been made by motel and lodge proprietors, who claim that the visitors had accumulated huge unpaid bills at their rendezvous, under the guise of being official guests of the Operation Wealth Creation, on pending appointment.

Under a telepathic quest for the much coveted Covid 19 relief, from the Operation Wealth Creation overseer, Gen. Salim Saleh, many had actually made Gulu their second home in an effort to find a way out of the poverty jam made worse by the lockdown which, has set their activities under the cliff, for one and half years now.

Rumor in Gulu town has it that several women, including under cover moonlighters, have been put out of job, after being impregnated by some of these visitors who, thereafter disappear into thin air. It will now require one to have prior clearance from the OWC and RDC, to access any happening or hotel facilities, for any person claiming to be a guest of Gen Saleh.

Musicians including Jose Chameleone, Weasel, Pallaso, Feffe Bussi, Cindy, Phina Mugerwa, Kabako, Ronald Mayinja, Catherine Kusasira, Ziza Bafana, as well as comedians and promoters, have been flocking Gulu City at will.

We have also established that most of the activities that have been associated with artistes under the OWC, are in the process of being moved to the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja’s office, which will in turn wind up the now infamous Gulu treks.

From the Archives: During the years President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was fighting in Luweero and following the overthrow of the regimes of the day, there was a general scarcity of goods commonly used in the day today life.

The resumption of the war immediately after Dr. Apollo Milton Obote had taken over the reigns of power only aided to compound matters. Obote had just inherited a really stressed economy from the junta of Idi Amin Dada who had in 1976 debatably goofed by ejecting Asians who are said to have been the oil that ran the economy.

That Obote ended up replaced by military fellows who happened to know next to nothing in as far as handling the economy is concerned, let alone running the government itself, saw things surely turning from worse to the worst.

Such vital goods that were in short supply during the days of Obote and later Tito Lutwa, included sugar, table salt, soap, kerosene, cooking oil, human and veterinary drugs and so on. Given the fact that these are things which people cannot do without ordinarily, smuggling them became the order of the day.

They were being sneaked in principally from Nairobi through mostly the eastern boarder of Busia. Such was the gravity of the matter at the time that Nairobi came to be referred to as the official market for Uganda.

Because of the raging guerrilla war, there was scarcely little to talk about in terms of export of commodities. That being the case, there was a general scarcity of the much needed foreign currency particularly of the United States dollars.

Simply put, Uganda was selling almost nothing on the world market, meaning it was not earning the much needed foreign currency, yet the matooke republic was buying practically everything from the global market, hence wiping out its pitiable foreign reserves. That is how bad the situation was economy-wise during the days of Obote and Gen Tito Lutwa.

Given the fact that the dollars were in negligible supply, the regime of the day resorted to rationing them to ensure that they could at least go round those who were involved in foreign trade. Some of you who valued readers who happened to live through these miserable days, would quickly recall these were the days of window 1 and window 2 in reference to how the dollars were being rationed among those who desired to trade with that dominant tender.

For the interest of this article, this is also the time the present-day tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia is said to have joined the forbidden business of smuggling. He jumped on the illegitimate bandwagon to not only ease the availability of the much needed goods that were missing on the Ugandan market, but also make a quick but illegal buck for himself.

We know these were also the days Sudhir possibly entered the prohibited business of making what is in the crime world referred to as the black dollars. “That man had a shop near Spear Motors where he was dealing in smuggled things. He made a kill really particularly from selling table salt. Before joining smuggling, he first visited Kenya to comprehend firsthand, how it is done,” our informers inside the business community have it.

Our informers tell us, after making rounds to Nairobi, Sudhir decided to sit back in Kampala because he had secured agents good at the game of smuggling, who would replenish his stocks whenever they could run short. “He did not want to risk his life crossing the boarders with smuggled goods. He let the audacious smugglers do their thing and bring the goods directly to him” our sources enlighten.

The fact that the new government of Museveni had inherited a badly tattered economy, they let the smugglers be, since they were helping to bring into the country essential goods that were virtually absent.

Those of you who were present at the time would recall how the former rebels used to procure and then ration sugar for Ugandans through the village Resistance Councils (RCs). This can ably explain the general lack of such essential goods dominant before and after the advent of the new rulers.

Just like the new leaders were somehow lenient with the smugglers, they also looked the other way as far as the illegal business of black dollars was concerned. They did not raise a finger because the dominant tender was hard to come by since the new government was selling nothing at the world market in the first years of capturing power, but merely depended on handouts from people of goodwill in the developed world.

And given that Museveni ignored the people who thrived on making the black dollars, Sudhir and his ilk are believed to have made quite some good money from the otherwise prohibited business. It is paramount to note that what mattered most for the new leaders fresh from the jungles was to put in place new structures of government as well as engage in diplomatic talks with foreign governments looking for the much needed recognition in order to to ease the cumbersome job of running a country.

Remember also that some pockets of rebellion fighting to recapture power were also ongoing, to see how impossible it was for government to fight crime such as smuggling and making black dollars which were, besides, a blessing in disguise.

After the new leaders had consolidated power, the Sudhirs reformed by going into formal businesses with the money they had ostensibly earned from smuggling. No wonder, Sudhir who had gained a sizeable clientele selling foreign currency which was illegal, converted to the legal forex trade and hence the opening up of several forex points including Crane Forex Bureau.

But since old habits die hard, we understand how the legal forex business was also being used from now and then to do some disguised trade that was fishy. Please refer to our story last night… (In Sudhir’s Dark Closet: The Day when today’s Nepal Consul was arrested and his trading license cancelled for fraudhttps://theinvestigatornews.com/2021/09/in-sudhirs-dark-closet-the-day-when-todays-nepal-consul-was-arrested-and-his-trading-license-cancelled-for-fraud/) Watch this space…

Since he started the cold war against the mighty Investigator supposedly for publishing the story of how he fraudulently bought Simbamannyo House from Equity Bank, several people have urged us to dig deep into Sudhir’s arrest at the airport 30 years ago. Though some people in their forties have an illusionary memory of the arrest, none knows of the particulars.

Trust money, not even in renowned archives centers in Kampala we could find this record. Even search engines know about only what Sudhir himself want them to know of him. Well, we are here to resurrect the three decade old story which, was first published in the New Vision of Saturday November 9^th 1991 under the headline; “Customs impound forex in Entebbe.”

Reported by Ndyakira Amooti, the story is hereby reproduced with, but light edits: “Forex worth 194 million shillings was intercepted by customs officials at Entebbe Airport last weekend. According to reliable sources in the Ministry of Finance, the forex in personal checks and Bank drafts was contained in a DHL parcel that had been declared as documents.

The parcel was about to be delivered to a waiting Kenya Airways plane. The impounded forex checks and bank drafts amounting to USD81201.50, British Pounds 57101 and Germany DM47500, an equivalent of UGX194M. The Director General of Customers Prof. Samuel Karugire confirmed the seizure of the checks in question and said they were still investigating the matter.

The sources said last Saturday, when the airport customs made an impromptu check of the DHL parcel about to go in the Kenya Airways plane, they discovered the parcel contained various personal checks and bank drafts without authorization documents. The declaration form on the envelope stated that there were documents inside. On the parcel, it was indicated that the sender was Patrick B. of P.O Box 55047, Kampala.  

The DHL parcel in question was being sent to a company in the United Kingdom by the names of Stop-n-Go on the address 199, Arundel Street, Portsmouth. The sources which preferred anonymity, said the impounded DHL parcel contained personal checks sold to Crane Forex Bureau amounting to USD12001, British Pounds 7091 and Germany DM3,000.

Also found were Bank Drafts issued by Barclays Bank in Kampala to various persons and companies. The drafts amounted to USD54500, another amount of British Pound 50000 in bank drafts had been issued by the Standard Chartered Bank in Kampala.

The parcel further contained USD11, 100 in the Bank Drafts issued by Kampala based Nile Bank. There was another DM34500 and USD3500 in checks belonging to a Company that was unidentified. By Thursday evening, no one had turned up at Entebbe Customs to claim the impounded checks.

However, yesterday afternoon, sources from the customs said Patrick Baguma of Club Tropicana 1-Ten had written to the department claiming the intercepted forex. The Reporter went to DHL offices in Kampala twice yesterday for a comment on the matter but was told that a one Apollo Spencer who would make a comment was not in office. This is the second incident in which forex have been intercepted at Entebbe Airport in less than 20 days.

On October 13^th, an Indian, one Rajendra Kumar Raichura, who was an employee of Kobil Limited at the time of the closed Orient Forex Bureau, was intercepted trying to smuggle out of the country, more than USD1M. Raichura and the Directors, Karia Morjaria and Ketan Morjaria have since been deported. The summary order to deport them was castigated by President Museveni”… End

Documents before our crime desk indicate how Sudhir was eventually identified as the prime suspect. Upon this revelation, the now tycoon and honorary Doctor spent some leisure moments in months, at the Luzira based University of Understanding. But trust his courage, he even unsuccessfully tried to bribe his way out of the saga, through then ISO Boss Brig. Jim Muhwezi. But that was a time when bribes were a no-mention… Watch this space…        

Later in the evening, Ndawula released a video, distancing self from the trending sickening news. He explained how his introductory investigations had gathered that his Twitter Account had been hacked into, had all particulars and settings changed before the hackers used it to circulate the young lady’s pictures attached to tens of different offensive stories.

That his Facebook and Gmail accounts had been hacked into first last Monday, was becoming an old story by Tuesday. Following the same, social media zealots code-named it a ‘SR vs. SN Battle. “This (Tuesday incident) is not the first. A lot have been circulating about me and to those in the know, they can actually guess who is behind it,” Ndawula said, seeming unbothered. However, speaking to this writer yesterday, he said his tormentors had over crossed the boundaries.

“Circumstantial evidence clearly indicate that it’s Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia’s project to character-assassinate me. He’s done it before to my friend Giles Muhame, the Chimp Reports boss, BOU officials and lawyers as well as several individuals he has fallen out with… so I am not exceptional,” Ndawula said, adding that all the allegations piled onto his person since hackers attacked him, was essentially started by Dr. Sudhir via his WhatsApp public Broadcast on August 11^th 2021.

To this effect, the no-nonsense two-decade long crime investigative journalist did not stop at lamentations but registered the same with Uganda Police Force at Kibuli based CID, imploring them to investigate the matter, but giving in Sudhir as his prime suspect. “We received the complaint and the Director is yet to assign it to the respective department,” Charles Twine, the CID Publicist confirmed last night.

“On this forum, he made several other allegations against my person, some of which, as attached hereto…From that day and moment, people from different social media networks and accounts started replicating and circulating the same allegations against me,” wrote Ndawula in his letter to Crime Investigations Director, AIGP Grace Akullo. Below is the letter in full:                         

“Ndawula Stanley

P.O Box 3093, Kampala

September 7^th 2021

0772621522, 0752799909

THE Director CID

Uganda Police Force

Kampala, Uganda

Dear Madam

RE: REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATIONS INTO ILLEGAL ACCESS/HACKING OF MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS AND COMMISSION OF CRIMINAL LIBEL AND OFFENSIVE COMMUNICATION AGAINST MY PERSON, BUSINESSES AND OTHER PEOPLE

My name is Stanley Ndawula, a 50yr Ugandan resident of Kisaasi, Kasaana village, Kyanja Parish, Nakawa Division in Kampala District. I’m the CEO of The Investigator Publications (U) Limited, a Company running a news website via www.theinvestigatornews.com. I am also the Chairman of GIA Investments (U) Limited, a mother company to Yaya Xtra Residence (U) Limited which runs an organic foods restaurant in Kisaasi along Kulambiro ring road.

The Introduction 

On August 11^th 2021, a post titled: ‘Coming up soon: Simbamannyo building has been in sponsored news for some time until it slipped out of the owner’s hands! What do you think happened?” Shortly after, an acquaintance called Ussa called me with a request purportedly from Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia and his son Rajiv, to not only pull down the post on The Investigator Facebook page but also stop the story following it. He suggested to meet me but I told him I had no control over his boss’ request. I offered that the story was sourced from a Court Case whose Plaintiff’s lawyer is also The Investigator Company Secretary who, is well known to Dr. Sudhir himself. Ussa seemed to understand and closed the chapter.

On August 18^th 2021, the story titled ‘An Auction that never was: ‘Details how Dr. Sudhir Bought Simbamannyo Seven days before the due date for Public sale,’ was published and the same posted on the official Investigator Facebook page the following day August 19^th 2021. On that very day, Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia went on social media, specifically via his WhatsApp broadcast handle and posted a photo of me and Mr. Friday Kagoro Roberts of Muwema and Co. Advocates, with a caption thus; “I know one of this Gentlemen in Red Shirt who is an extortion And Blackmailer. Any one knows the second Gentlemen??”. He further posted the same in a WhatsApp group called 400 Cups to which I belong. On this forum, he made several other allegations against my person, some of which, as attached hereto.

From that day and moment, people from different social media networks and accounts started replicating and circulating the same allegations against me. On Sunday 29^th 2021, I received a text message purportedly from my daughter and on clicking it, my phone went out. Shortly, I realized I couldn’t access my Facebook and Gmail accounts. From then, the hackers attacked all my social media accounts and also attempted and still trying to hack into The Investigator Accounts both social and mainstream (website) forums.

Yesterday 7^th September 2021, they hacked into my Twitter and posted nudes of a one Aisha Mutesi which went viral. They also created (cloned) the Investigator Website and posted the nudes before screen-shooting and circulating them as if they are from the main Investigator website. I received insults from all over, including on my phone both via calls and WhatsApp. In Aisha’s incident, they impersonated me and asked for money from her or they release her nudes. I managed to talk to her and she informed me that after 10 minutes, before she could even respond to their financial demands, they released the nudes. This means they were dying to credit their claims and or those of the mastermind that I am actually an extortionist.

Distressingly, they tag the President of the Republic of Uganda and other important people including top police officers in all their malicious messages. To my detriment, one such officers, AIGP Assan Kasingye wholeheartedly believed them and even retweeted about the same, hence unknowingly driving it further as a true account of what is being maligned against me!       

Whereas these actions prompted by Dr. Sudhir and or his agents have grossly tortured me psychologically, they have also interfered my privacy and exposed my life to danger. The purpose of this letter is therefore to request you through your Cyber Crime department to instigate a thorough investigation and not only bring the culprits to book but have them answerable for their deeds.”

Three days ago when we revealed how the hitherto well-protected forensic report about the stinking fraud that saw Crane Bank dive into her grave, a handful of Ugandans claimed it was old news! Well, neither they nor any news outlet has ever labored to report about the same. And yet, all the billions stolen or mismanaged belong to none but Ugandans through taxes.

However, better late than never; says the old adage. In these pages on 23^rd August 2021, we ran a story of how the Central Bank tricked Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia into accepting a thorough audit of Crane Bank in return of the same being listed for Stock Exchange. (Read: The Untold CBL Records: Details why Sudhir Ruparelia and his next generation can’t own a Banking Institution ever again).

What followed was the said Forensic Report after which, Crane Bank was declared insolvent upon Sudhir’s demand for his Stock Exchange certificate. This report code-named ‘Project Nyonyi’ reveals how the trickster tycoon used a number of businessmen that conspired, aided and or facilitated him to commit the alleged fraud. One of such businessmen is Rasiklal Kantaria, a Regional celebrated Bank Mogul.

Kantaria the man and his role in CBL

Rasiklal Kantaria, also known as Rasik, is a Kenyan tycoon and founder of Prime Bank, which has branches in Kenya and around African continent. PricewaterhouseCoopers Uganda Limited (PwC), the authors of Project Nyonyi report were attracted to Kantaria via his actions, behaviors and or inactions towards the regular happenings at the Crane Bank.

The Investigators gathered that Kantaria owned 47{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe} of Crane Bank Limited through a company called White Sapphire Limited. This stance would make him the biggest single shareholder in CBL. However, the Central Bank (CB) was concerned that his actions or inactions were not matching the person with such a large shareholding. Henceforth, the auditors settled on a fact-finding mission of whether indeed, Kantaria was the actual owner of the shares, or just a proxy. The findings are quite interesting!

The investigative audit unearthed that actually, Kantaria was a front for Sudhir’s personal interests in Crane Bank. Their findings were backed by the fact that Kantaria reportedly procured the shares in two folds. He got shares worth UGX2.5Bn in 2006 from a Company called Anglo Universal Holdings Ltd and, other shares worth UGX9.0Bn from a one Jagdish Nagrecha, Sudhir himself and the wife Jyostna, in 2010.

Interestingly, the investigators dug into the source of the money Kantaria used to buy shares from Jagdish, Sudhir and Jyostna. And guess what! The dimes were confirmed to have been scooped from a company called Premier Commodities, belonging to Sudhir through his buddy Godfrey Kirumira and an employee named Mohammed Ali. But hold it there… the two (Kirumira and Ali) had again borrowed the same from Crane Bank!

In simple terms, the above scenario suggests that Kirumira and Ali picked the UGX9.0Bn from Crane Bank in form of a loan, passed it to the proxy in tycoon Kantaria who, also tossed it to Sudhir, Jyostna and Jagdish as cash for buying shares from the same Crane Bank, then the three returned it to Premier Commodities from where Ali and Kirumira picked it and returned to Crane Bank as a recovered loan!

Furthermore in a different scenario, the forensic audit investigators gathered how, 78{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe} of the UGX36Bn, meant to be Kantaria’s and or his company, White Sapphire’s dimes in dividends for all but one of those years, was actually found to have been drawn from Ruparelia Group of Companies, his other companies, his associates and or Crane Bank itself. Do you find this interesting? Hold your breath and…Read on…

Sorry, have we consistently addressed White Sapphire Company as Mr. Kantaria’s? Well, we beg for your pardon. We can now, authoritatively withdraw the same… Whereas White Sapphire, a company incorporated in 2012 and domiciled in Mauritius, is reported to be 100{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe} owned by Tycoon Rasiklal Kantaria, all the investigators’ findings point to the contrary.

A deeper zoom into White Sapphire’s draft accounts unearthed how her management and audit fees were, since 2013, settled by either A.R Kalan (the former, ‘missing’ Crane Bank MD), Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia himself or his wife Jyostna Ruparelia. Furthermore, investigations unveiled that all audit queries from White Sapphire’s auditor were addressed to Crane Bank officers and the same would, in turn be forwarded to either Kalan or Sudhir, as opposed to the ‘owner’, Kantaria!

“Being a seasonal Banker, we would have expected to see Mr. Kantaria’s involvement in the leadership and management of the Bank but this was absent. For instance he could and should have been involved in; nominating Directors to the Board to give him a say which is commensurate with his majority shareholding, seconding senior management staff from other banks in the region where he has significant interests (Kenya, Malawi and Botswana), or as a minimum, being represented in recruitments of senior officers, representation in crucial Board Committees, and robust contribution in Board Meetings among others,” but, reads the report, he features nowhere.

Additionally, in March 2015, reveals the report, Crane Bank Board resolved that all non-executive Directors who were not shareholders were to retire at the end of each year prior to the General Meeting of shareholders. And guess what? Kantaria was the first to retire, a stance that clearly suggested that the Board did not consider him as a shareholder and neither did he consider himself as one!

Lastly for now, the Investigator gathered that when contacted via email, Kantaria confided that he actually wasn’t an active Director but a mere silent investor who, had nothing whatsoever, like any interest in the running of Crane Bank, its decision making and or operations, save for his occasional attendance of Board meetings. He further confessed that essentially, Sudhir is the sole beneficial owner of White Sapphire shares!

Going forward, given the fact that Sudhir, according to documents in our possession, confirmed the findings in the Project Nyonyi report and, went further to pen an agreement to return the swindled funds (story for another day), we can authoritatively, comfortably and with utmost ease, refer to him as Uganda’s Top trickster of our time. Watch this space…

KAMPALA, Uganda: Greetings Mr. President, you have been busy visiting scenes of eviction lately. I have also seen your photos in the newspapers standing side by side with victims of land grabbing.

While I appreciate that such gestures by you Mr. President are admirable, I wish to dutifully advise that it alone cannot halt land grabbing. And I don’t want to believe that you don’t know it Mr. President.

I liked it when you visited Lusanja and empathized with locals whose village has since been turned desolate.  I also loved it when you offered tents for those people to sleep under. I can’t also forget to mention your fatherly gesture of providing flour and beans to the victims.

Much as you sympathized with the victims, there is no assurance that the so-called ‘mugagga’ behind their eviction won’t return one of these days to grab even the tents themselves. In any case, just a day after you had left Lusanja, the ‘mugagga’ showed up at the Justice Bamugemereire land probe and vowed to reclaim his land at Lusanja from the squatters that you had visited only a day earlier.

Armed with what he termed as an unquestionable land title to the land at Lusanja, the ‘mugagga’ is vowed that he will never compensate any one of the squatters because in his own words: He “duly compensated them”. I wish you were there Mr. President to witness him swearing in the face of your revered Bamugemereire.

In case you don’t know yet Mr. President, members of the police and of the military were deeply involved in the process of evicting the people at Lusanja. Strangely enough, I have not heard you condemning them for going against the government policy of safeguarding land occupants.

True, Mr. President, you provided the victims with tents, but neither did you tell them to rebuild their houses nor have ever given an unequivocal order to the ‘mugagga’ to abandon further plans of using the land.

Justice Bamugemereire is on record telling you how the ‘mugagga’ had, by razing Lusanja, disobeyed an earlier order by the land inquiry not to go ahead with the eviction. Nonetheless, I did not hear Your Excellence asserting the land inquiry authority by calling him to order.

On the contrary, like I have told you, he has since appeared at the inquiry vowing how he is going  on with his project of reclaiming the land in question without a care about the injunction Bamugemereire is talking about.

But how can a certain Kiconco dare you Mr. President in the manner he is doing it? Lest Am wrong, I know you as the Ssabalwanyi who overthrew a regime armed with all sorts of arsenal in a record five years. You have since gone on to dispatch a number of warlords to the dustbin of history.

How come then that a certain Kiconco can stand up to you and go back to his bed to sleep soundly? Have you grown so desperate Mr. President, as to be undermined by the Kiconcos of this world? When a decorated war general in Sejusa attempted to grab a government house Sir, you told him to leave and he left. Remember that Sejusa is one of the original 27 NRA rebels but he could not stand up to you when you told him to pack up and leave the government house.

Unless there are invisible hands behind Kiconco, which buzz I don’t want to believe much as the people of Lusanja cited the name of one powerful person, I have no reason to believe that a mere Kiconco who turned up at the land inquiry, in an Ipsum car even, can be that powerful as to stand up to You Sir.

But telling from the fact that Bamugemereire and his interrogators at the inquiry were careful not to bother Kiconco with ‘inconveniencing’ questions that are normally put to other witnesses, I have a feeling that the ‘mugagga’ of Lusanja isn’t alone in this project. Just thinking outside the box!