By Mulengera Reporters
Family Division of the High Court Judge Celia Nagawa has ordered Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze to immediately surrender the body of renowned political activist Maria Angela Namirembe to Mulago City Mortuary for safe custody as processes get underway for the deceased’s actual biological father to be determined through DNA means.
The human rights activist died a few days ago after getting involved in a Boda accident as she travelled between home and the UCU Kampala campus in Mengo where she was a student of law. Namirembe’s death created plenty of social media buzz initially as the NUP party, which Nambooze, who alleges to be her aunt, represents on one hand and Mathias Mpuuga’s DF on the other.
Mpuuga’s group anticipated having an upper hand because one of the key party promoters called Ntale Namuguzi is a close relative of Mr. Robert Mutebi who all along was believed to be Namirembe’s dad. As soon as the accident occurred, Nambooze posted on social media and declared herself a paternal aunt of Namirembe. Many concluded that she was anticipating creating plenty of publicity for top officials from her NUP party.
For more than 25 years, Mutebi lived with Namirembe and took her to be his daughter fathered with her mother who he has been living with in Mutungo Nakawa Division as husband and wife for more than 27 years. The couple has been raising their three children, the oldest of whom was Namirembe.
When she died, Mutebi prepared the vigil and hosted mourners at their Mutungo home in Nakawa Division. Mutebi even released a funeral program disclosing venues for the different send-off activities. Then along the way, information emerged that Lawrence Kiwanuka Nsereko, a diaspora-based opposition Uganda and who is Nambooze’s Kobe clan mate, was claiming to be Namirembe’s dad.
Mutebi got even more concerned when the death announcements he sent and paid for at CBS were vetoed on grounds the booking office had received another set of announcements publicizing the death of the same deceased person. He was advised to contact the Kiwanuka Nsereko group and harmonize with them. His announcements on social media indicated that Namirembe would be buried in Kiboga yet Kiwanuka Nsereko’s group ones indicated Jalamba in Mawokota as the burial ground.
Confused, Mutebi confronted his wife with whom he fathered three children including Namirembe. She stammered and too insisted the fallen activist had to be buried in Jalamba and not Kiboga. She gradually gathered courage to tell Mutebi that Namirembe was all along someone else’s daughter, and not his. Mutebi has been tearful since that time and a lot of the blame has been going to Betty Nambooze who continues to be castigated by especially the DF camp for controversially representing Nsereko who doesn’t live in Uganda.
Some social media users claim that Nambooze sees this as an opportunity to demonstrate some relevancy to Robert Kyagulanyi by way of excluding the Mpuuga group, while getting for the NUP Principal a platform to use to make derogatory speeches aimed at demeaning and diminishing his political opponents mostly those subscribing to the Mathias Mpuuga group.
Robert Mutebi, who has since chased away the deceased’s mum and has understandably not yet recovered from the shock he got upon being told that the 27-year-old he has been raising since when she was a child is actually someone else’s child, applied to the Family Division of the High Court to secure permission to carry out a DNA test to establish the truth about the deceased’s paternity.
His application has since been granted by Justice Celia Nagawa who has ordered for the test to be done within four days counting from Friday 24th October. Nambooze and Kiwanuka Nsereko, who were the respondents, have since been ordered to immediately surrender the body and allow the paternity test or DNA to be conducted using Mutebi and the fallen Namirembe’s samples. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
