By Mulengera Reporters
For years, 27-year-old Kiweewa Ronald aka Wagon Selector ignored repeated warnings by UCC (the regulator) and continued to defiantly operate a radio station (92.0 Crest FM) which was based in Kyotera Town Council, without broadcasting license or authorization from the Bugolobi-based Commission.
He was warned several times, including through newspaper notices, but he remained defiant. As of last October, the regulator’s patience ran out. Enforcement teams were sent to Kyotera to enforce the law under the provisions of sections 27(1)(3) and 28(1)(2) of the UCC Act.
The enforcement officers switched off the radio and forcefully halted all broadcasting operations and even confiscated all the equipment (including a transmitter, mixers, CPUs, microphones, headsets and microphone stands) as exhibits.
That day, Ronald Kiweewa was with his receptionist Sharifah Nakafeero at his radio premises in Kyotera town. He signed off the seizure note acknowledging what had been confiscated by UCC enforcement officers.
Instead of owning up to his offences and humbling himself while seeking to be pardoned, Mr. Kiweewa took to social media and used his TikTok and X accounts to character-assassinate, incite violence and tell lies against UCC and other GoU officials he considered to be hostile to him.
He went as far as threatening violence and harm against the enforcement officers and UCC officials who supervise such operations. He also made deliberately false claims against government officials falsely accusing them of demanding money from him to allow his radio back on air.
He propagated all this deliberate character-assassination using TikTok in the hope that the regulator would get blackmailed into allowing his illegal radio broadcasting operations back on air.
At some point, he was arrested and later on released on Police bond but thereafter went missing and never honored bond conditions including those requiring him to remain available and keep reporting to the Police.
It was then that technological capabilities were unleashed resulting into his apprehension by members of the security agencies closely working with UCC. On Tuesday, he was arraigned before the Makindye-based Standards, Wildlife & Utilities Court Chief Magistrate Her Worship Gladys Kamasanyu.
A shivering and clearly broken and subdued Kiweewa owned up to everything in the charge sheet including admitting to installing radio broadcasting equipment and going ahead to operate it for broadcasting purposes in Kyotera from where he spent years broadcasting to the public without the mandatory authorization from UCC.
He said he was doing all this because he was broke being a father of three children who had to survive, and provide for his family yet he didn’t have any other job. At the Makindye-based court, the case against Kiweewa was made out and submitted upon by Dr. Abdul Salaam Waiswa who heads Legal Affairs & Advisory at UCC.
Kiweewa told the Magistrate, infront of the fully parked court session, that he resorted to using TikTok to character-assassinate UCC officials involved in the enforcement operation because he was so angry with the destitution and hard life the closing down of his business had condemned him to. He tearfully begged for forgiveness saying he was honestly sorry having reflected on his mistakes.
He said he was fearful his children (aged 5 years and four months) plus their mother would starve to death once the Magistrate sentences him to a long jail sentence.
Even when the UCC prosecutors, acting on behalf of the Ugandan state, spared him on the defamation part of using TikTok to character-assassinate and intimidate government officials, the offences (relating to broadcasting illegally without UCC authorization) either attract a maximum of five years in prison or a fine of Shs2.4m, if not both.
Illegally installing radio equipment for broadcasting purposes is a separate charge or offence which attracts a sentence of 1 year in prison on top of a fine of Shs0.9m! A tearful and clearly remorseful Kiweewa begged the Magistrate to compel UCC to pardon him for the sake of his children. He asserted that he was currently surviving on making bricks in rural Kyotera district in order to make ends meet.
He said he had demonstrated his remorsefulness by publicly reaching out and apologizing to UCC using the very same X and TikTok accounts he had previously been using to character-assassinate and incite violence against UCC officials.
He also referred to the fact that he was ready to keep turning up whenever and wherever required, saying he had made the same undertaking to the OC CID Jinja Road Police station where he was at some point detained for six days.
He said he was just a phone call away, something which the UCC lawyers contradicted by saying he had fled and gone into hiding in total breach of his Police bond conditions. He also said that his elderly dad is very sick back home in Kyotera.
Despite all the remorsefulness Kiweewa demonstrated, Her Worship Kamasanyu remanded him to Luzira prison from where he will return to Court on Monday 23rd June for further processing of his plea-bargain.
On that day, the UCC lawyers will also bring and exhibit to court the broadcasting equipment that was seized on 15th October last year when Kiweewa’s business premises in Kyotera were raided and his illegal broadcasting business shut down.
Subsequently, the sentencing process will get underway. And it’s the intention of UCC lawyers to insist on custodial sentencing so that Kiweewa serves some period in Luzira.
Abdul Salaam Waiswa explained to journalists after the court session that as UCC, they don’t derive pleasure from seeing young men like Kiweewa languish in Luzira or any other prison but the law has to strictly be enforced to achieve deterrence objectives because offences relating to illegal broadcasting activities have lately become very rampant across the country.
He called on Ugandans to be keen and positively respond to their duty to report illegal broadcasting activities in their respective areas because the same is injurious to both the government and the general public.
Waiswa also called on the public to be on the lookout for conmen who move around the different parts of the country claiming to be brokers who can help someone secure UCC’s broadcasting license.
He said many had been duped and conned of their hard-earned money by such fraudsters. He advised those intending to go into broadcasting of whatever form to use the official channels of communicating with the Commission because these are well known.
That when one directly contacts the Commission to inquire about the relevant procedures, they are able to access the appropriate advice and guidance which UCC is always more than prepared to render to any citizen, free of charge-regarding how one can engage in lawful broadcasting. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
