Former State House Spokesperson Joseph Tamale Mirundi broke down in tears while narrating how President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni saved him from the First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni over fabricated recorded tapes.

Mirundi, the Senior presidential advisor on media revealed that in 2015, when he developed a misunderstanding with State House staff who included; Lt. Col. Edith Nakalema, Lt. Gen. Proscovia Nalweyiso and some members of the first family, he decided to stop reporting to Okello House where his office was.

Mirundi narrated that while at his home, he received a phone call from State House informing him that the President wanted to see him immediately.

While he was still preparing himself, military vehicles sealed off his gate under the command of Maj. Gen. Stephen Sabiiti Muzeeyi, the former Deputy Inspector General of Police who told him that the President directed him to take him to State House.

Sabiiti gave Mirundi time to take a bath and dress up in his good suits and after drove him straight to Entebbe State House.

He was ordered to enter the room where he found veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda, Lt. Col. Nakalema, Lt. Gen. Nalweyiso and other people.

Hours passed without each talking to the other until the president entered the room.

“Mirundi, are you in your normal understanding, I am told you have run mad, and you are always drunk,” Mirundi quoted a furious Museveni.

While he was still denying the allegations, Mwenda started pinning him.

Mwenda told the meeting that Mirundi is an abusive person and is placing State House and the President in bad light.

Mwenda asked the president to grant them permission to play recorded tapes when Mirundi is abusing him, his wife, first family members and other government officials.

While listening to the recorded tapes, Mirundi narrated that Museveni closed his eyes while listening to Mirundi’s voice abusing him, his wife with strong words including using words like ‘stupid’.

“When I looked at Museveni and saw him closing his eyes, I saw his face change. I realised that I’m going to be killed or imprisoned for all my entire life,” Mirundi stated.

He added that when the tapes were done, Museveni asked Mirundi whether the voices on the tape are his, which he accepted but pleaded to the President explaining that the voices on the tapes were fabricated.

The president again ordered the tapes to be played again and at the end asked Mwenda why the voices of the moderator of the talk shows which Mirundi used to abuse him and wife were not on the tape.

“The President told me that he used to listen to my programs and moderators guided me. That is why he was asking, why I was alone in the tapes this time.”

As Mirundi was defending himself, Lt. Gen. Nalweyiso raised his hand and told the president that Mirundi not only abused him but he also abuses religious leaders and cultural leaders like Ronald Muwenda Mutebi the Kabaka of Buganda.

“I was humiliated to the bone marrow. Museveni told me that; ‘Mirundi you are gone, and squirrels have eaten you, even though you thought that you are a huge snake’,” Mirundi narrated.

Mirundi recounted that Museveni asked him who he is in State House. Before he answered, he asked him whether he knows how to write and Mirundi responded to him that he knows that’s why he appointed him his press secretary.

He then told him that he has been fired from his job as senior press secretary but he gave him the opportunity to recommend the person to replace him. That is how he recommended his deputy Linda Nabusaayi.

Museveni then ordered Mwenda and his group to move out of the room. Museveni then told Mirundi that the First Lady was very bitter with him.

He immediately got a plain paper and asked him to draw close. He then asked him to write an apology letter to the First Lady in his hand writing.

“We drafted the apology letter together while he was guiding me on which words to use,” Mirundi said.

Mirundi added that after agreeing on the final letter, Museveni told him to wait for him so that he takes the apology letter to the First Lady.

Mirundi related that Museveni spent an hour before coming back with the good news that the First Lady had forgiven him.

However, the President told him that he had to plead with the First Lady to accept his apology and the condition was that he had to take it for publication in the next day’s New Vision which Mirundi accepted.

Unfortunately, Robert Kabushenga, the then Chief Executive Officer at the New Vision refused to publish the apology letter.

He added that the next day, he received a phone call from the president asking him why the apology was not in the papers. Mirundi told the President that Kabushenga had refused to publish it.

The President comforted him and told him that it was ok he was going to talk to the First Lady.

However, Mirundi confirmed that he has forgiven Mwenda because he was used to fight wars he did not understanding.

He however swore never to forgive Lt. Col. Nakalema and Lt. Gen. Nalweyiso insisting that they frustrated his career as a person and his family suffered when he was fired.

By Grapevine Reporter

Last week, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leadership sitting at the party headquarters Najjanakumbi rushed to Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama’s Uganda Independent Electoral Commission Offices at Bugolobi a Kampala suburb to stop a clandestine process aimed at deregistering their party.

Highly placed sources at Electoral Commission revealed to theGrapevine that among the FDC leaders who stormed the Electoral Commission Offices include; Nathan Nandala Mafabi, the party Secretary General and Yusuf Nsibambi, one of the founders of the FDC and a seasoned lawyer.

At the Electoral Commission offices, Mafabi and team establish that the tip they had received about some strangers who were conniving with some Electoral Commission staff to temper with their file was very true.

Sources claim that a number of essential documents including the file containing the list of newly elected leaders from the grass root was pulled out and was missing from the file.

Sources said that Mafabi had to rush back to their Najjanankumbi office to get the new list of the leaders and put it back into the file.

Last week, after being nominated to contest for the position of the party national vice president in charge of Buganda, Nsibambi told party members at Najjanankumbi that all efforts by Dr. Kizza Besigye’s Katonga faction to register their passed resolution at their illegal extra-delegates conference failed because they are not recognised by the Electoral Commission which is the supreme supervisor of all political parties in the country.

He explained that it is only the Najjanankumbi faction that is recognised by the Electoral Commission because it has the party stamp.

He guided that all people who wish to stand on FDC ticket in the coming 2026 general elections have to get recommendation from Najjanakumbi not Katonga.

FDC insiders told theGrapevine that the reason why Dr. Besigye’s Katonga team were fighting hard to make sure that Birigwa’s extraordinary delegates conference is held was they wanted to get resolutions to deregister FDC in order to frustrate Mafabi’s faction.

The move was kept secret and not publicly announced like other resolutions that were passed and announced by Kira Municipality legislator Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the party spokesperson.

Besigye faction held their delegates conference in the presence of the Court Order issued by the Civil Division of the High Court stopping it.

Sources claim that the list of names pulled out of the FDC file at the Electoral Commission was set to be replaced with the names of people who attended Birigwa’s extra-ordinary delegates’ conference.

The FDC Constitution allows that the party can be deregistered if a resolution is passed by the party’s top organ.

This is what Besigye’s group wanted to successfully execute so that they make Mafabi’s coming delegates conference illegal.

Nsibambi confirmed that the only delegates conference that is going to elect the new party leadership will be held on 6^th October, 2023.

However, Mubarak Munyagwa, the former Kawempe South legislator who is also Dr. Kizza Besigye’s diehard denied the allegations that the Electoral Commission declined to receive the resolutions made at Birigwa’s delegates conference insisting that there is no way their resolutions can be denied.

He explained that their acting Secretary General, appointed at Birigwa’s meeting Harold Kaija will file their resolutions with the Electoral Commission before the end of this week.

When contacted, Paul Bukenya the spokesperson of the Electoral Commission declined to comment on the matter. He advised FDC members to clean their house internally instead of using the Electoral Commission to fight their battles.

Last week, Justice Byabakama pleaded with both parties fighting over FDC leadership to follow the country’s laws and laws that govern political parties.

He explained that the Electoral Commission has not yet been officially informed about the ongoing wars apart from seeing correspondence from both parties on social media.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

Justice Musa Ssekaana the head of the Civil Division of the High Court has dismissed with costs a suit filed by a female student against St Peter’s Naalya Senior Secondary School for suspending her on allegations of distributing marijuana and other deadly drugs at the school premises.

Tracy Natukunda Bamanya, a senior six candidate through her lawyers of M/s TM Kayemba Advocates filed a suit seeking for Court’s declarations that she was illegally suspended from the said school.

She further wanted a permanent injunction stopping the school and its servants, agents from enforcing the decision to prevent her from conducting any further hearing arising out of the impugned indefinite suspension and preventing her from reporting back to the school for third term, attending classes, siting for mocks, tests, and other examinations.

She was also seeking for a mandamus order directing the school to immediately reinstate her admission status till conclusion of her Uganda Advanced Certificate Examination Level.

She was supported by the affidavit of her father Edward Mwesigwa Bamanya who denied all the allegations placed on her daughter that she is very indiscipline and always breaches the school rules and regulations.

However, the school opposed the suit through the affidavit sworn by John Katongole the Headmaster of the school.

Katongole pined Natukunda that during all her time at the school, she has always been indiscipline and disobedient to the rules set by the school.

He gave an example that in the first term of the 2022 academic year, she was found in possession of marijuana and a matchbox which is an offence under Rule 14 of the school.

Guided by the school’s lawyers of MMAKS Advocates, Katongole told Court that the offence Natukunda committed according to the school’s Rules is punishable by an indefinite suspension.

When she was questioned by the school’s teachers concerning these illicit items and asked to record a statement, she admitted in her own statement of committing the offences in the presences of her parents.

He explained to the Court that she continued with the habit and an investigation was carried out involving questioning of other students who revealed that Natukunda had been distributing marijuana cookies and marijuana for smoking to fellow students.

The school management concluded the investigations and then summoned her and her parents to the school to present the findings to them.

Due to the gravity of the offences committed, the parents were summoned to the school disciplinary committee and the disciplinary committee informed them with their daughter that she had grossly violated the school rules and the punishment under the rules was indefinite suspension.

The disciplinary committee decided to not immediately enforce the indefinite suspension. They allowed her a leave of absence of five days after her parents pleaded with the school for time to ensure their daughter is able to change.

Katongole told Court that Natukunda chose to abuse the discretion that had been exercised by the disciplinary committee by attacking the students who implicated her during the disciplinary committee hearing and continued to harass other students at the school.

This time, the school had no option but to enforce the decision of the disciplinary committee and to indefinitely suspend her because she posed a danger to the lives and health of other students.

Katongole insisted that she was accorded a fair hearing at all material times and was given the opportunity to make her representation on multiple occasions both in writing and later on before the disciplinary committee.

The decision- making process was fairly conducted and the management of the school gave her numerous opportunities to reform.

In his judgment, Justice Ssekaana agreed with the school.

Ssekaana explained that Court should look beyond the narrow question of whether the decision was taken in a procedurally improper manner, to a question of whether a decision properly taken would have been any different or would have benefited Natukunda.

He added that Natukunda thought that she should have been given a separate hearing setting out the offence for which she was being indefinitely suspended after she had been allowed back in school in March 2022.

“The applicant was justifiably suspended indefinitely without a hearing due to the nature of the alleged offence of breaching the school rules and regulations. The applicant was found to be involved in using drugs- cannabis, weed cookies and specifically being a supplier in the school.  The actions of the applicant did not only constitute a breach of school rules and regulations but it is also a criminal offence under the Penal Code,” Justice Ssekaana stated.

He added that the school management made the decision of suspending Natukunda to protect the rest of the students from her in the interest of broader public interest to the school community promptly.

By Sengooba Alirabaki