By Martin Ssempa aka (Gabriel Baaba Gwanga’Mujje)
There is no doubt that court will dismiss the vexatious fraudulent suit of one Damiano Akuze who is suing the Honorable speaker Rebecca Kadaga for Shs 200 million claims of having cast spells of magic to cause the 400 members of parliament to elect the Speaker. His suit demanding compensation for house, tipper truck, plot of land and four cows, which all total to Shs 204.5 millions, will soon be dismissed. Yet, that doesn’t matter, as the enemies of Honorable Kadaga use this ‘vampire by night’ fraudster as a weapon to inflict potential damage on the honorable Speaker.
To be true, Kadaga’s job sometimes causes her to challenge many strongholds. Just last week she told Pastors and bishops during the ecumenical prayers of the open Parliament; “unfortunately there are people in this country who think that if you are a leader in this country you should not speak about corruption… that you are spoiling the name of the NRM party… you are spoiling the name of the country. We have no common agenda to commit atrocities. We have never made a commitment to be corrupt. Those who are corrupt are so in their individual capacity and we shall expose them until they go where they are supposed to go.”
She revealed how some Ministers have threatened her in her office for speaking out against the abuse of soldiers who use brutal methods in dealing with the illegal fishing on Lake Victoria. “I told him get out of my office”.
Kadaga’s fight for independence of Parliament and campaign against corruption has irritated some people who would not mind to either hire or support the efforts of Mr. Damiano so that they can discredit the honorable Speaker.
The speed at which the story has been published is suspicious. The suit was lodged on January 28th and it was running as major headline the day after! The opinion of the honorable Speaker was not secured because she was reportedly busy in Parliament all day. It was therefore published without the honorable Speaker’s side of the story, which has made it a one-sided ‘vampire tale’ of this fraudster. An alleged ‘vampire contract’ was referred to but was nowhere and the proof of consideration was not provided.
How is Mr. Damiano going to prove to a judge that he supposedly used his “vampire powers” to bewitch the entire 400 members of the Parliament in the NRM party, CEC, and the President to all endorse Honorable Rebecca Kadaga, as Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament? This is not only fictitious and fraudulent, it is just the claims of a mentally compromised mind.
To be honest, I didn’t expect a serious media house or newspaper like Monitor to carry such a story with wild vampire type claims. This is the nonsensical stuff for tabloid publications who are known and expected to publish such tales. This ‘tale’ is not only a dishonor to the Speaker, but to the respectable newspaper which ran the story, as well as the entire country.
This week, the Honorable Rebecca Kadaga has again put the pressure on the government concerning the horrible practice of female genital mutilation FGM. Female genital mutilation is a practice shrouded in superstition and backward culture beliefs, which perpetuate the genital mutilation of women in the eastern Uganda. Last week, nineteen (19) people were arrested in the Sebei sub-region districts for aiding women and girls to undergo illegal female genital mutilation procedure. The suspects were arrested during a Monday night operation and the mutilators are on the run.
Yesterday, Honorable Rebecca Kadaga held a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Gender, Office of the Prime Minister and the representatives for the female genital mutilation affected districts and donors. She demanded government to provide accountability for the Shs 200 million that was allocated to the Sebei region to fight female genital mutilation.
Without a doubt there are people who are unhappy with the Speaker because she is not only championing the fight against female genital mutilation, but she is also demanding accountability for monies that were either used or misused as in corruption. This is everyone’s battle!
Fearless leaders like Honorable Kadaga find the ‘vampire’ has a way of resisting and striking back in a variety of ways. So, as we can see, baseless lawsuits by the likes of Muzeeyi Damiano are just the propaganda weapons intended to annoy, bully and discredit those who crusade against moral and economic corruption.
We all sympathize with Muzeeyi Damiano being so old and not having a plot of land, a truck or even four cows! Yet, the obvious question is; “If he is a powerful magician as he claims, why doesn’t he use those same alleged supernatural powers to compel his neighbors to donate their land to him, or a truck and also make four cows choose to come to his home? Or even more, why doesn’t he use his supernatural powers to become anything he wants. To heal the sick in the hospitals or maybe help Uganda get rid of all the moral and economic corruption and unemployment. Can Muzeeyi Damiano assure the court and the public that he is not knowingly or unknowingly being used to resist a Champion against corruption and female genital mutilation? I stand confident that court will soon throw out his fictitious lawsuit with all the contempt it deserves.
Meanwhile we continue to pray that Honorable Rebecca Kadaga will continue to her work as the first woman speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda and a fearless crusader against corruption and female genital mutilation.
The writer is a Ugandan pastor, activist, and the founder of the Makerere Community Church.