By Otim Nape
Sandra Nahamya, a foster child closely brought up by Kizza Besigye and Winnie Byanyima, has recently benefited from a State House scholarship scheme. Lillian Aber, the National Youth Council President who negotiated and got the scholarship from President Museveni, confirms our story. “Its true I led those young people to a meeting with the President and I think that was in 2015. Sandra Nahamya was my Secretary for Students Affairs in UNSA and it was an offer the President made to us collectively as UNSA executive members. I don’t think it would be fair to say she benefited because she is Dr Besigye’s foster child or daughter. It was an offer to all of us and the best she could do was to decline but she didn’t. She took it up for her Bar Course at LDC. I used mine to do a masters in Petroleum & Gas. Others trained in different things but I can confirm that Sandra Nahamya was on the list of those who benefited,” said Aber Lillian herself a former youth leader in FDC along with other Makerere campus peers like Anna Adeke: now youth MP. Aber eventually defected to closely work with President Museveni in a deal that was personally brokered by Gen Kale Kayihura.
BESIGYE CONFIRMATION
Having failed to directly speak to Dr.Besigye, we rang his sister Margaret Kifefe who inter alia acts as the contact person between KB and such foster children he looks after. Margaret corroborated Aber’s narrative but clarified “Sandra isn’t our biological relative. She is just one of the very many children we help push by paying for their education. Some are pushed up to S4, S6 and others up to University,” Margaret explained. “Sandra is an adult and I have actually not been in touch with her lately. We pushed her up the Law School and if she can mobilize and get support from elsewhere, that’s her business. We can’t begrudge her. That shouldn’t be a big issue because she is a Ugandan entitled to be supported through her education. If she went to State House and got that scholarship I’m not aware because for us the idea is to help them get empowered through education and not to imprison them politically. When they grow up they decide which direction they want to take and we don’t use this educational support to politically imprison any of those children. Its a free world and we don’t become disappointed that she has gone to Museveni.” In her usual jocular way, Margaret sarcastically added: “Assuming she was our biological daughter and was indeed our close relative, what would be the problem with her getting that scholarship? We are tax payers; shouldn’t that State House be ours also? Why do you want it to be for Museveni only?” Margaret added: “There are very many of them we look after and they all call me auntie and I don’t mind that because they are young children who are innocent and they deserve to be supported regardless of what they politically support.” She emphasized that KB never financially supports any vulnerable or needy children he looks after in order to reap political capital. “That would be taking advantage of someone’s situation and that’s not who we are,” Margaret explained. “But get it very clearly that that child (Sandra) isn’t a relative (of KB) as such.” But one of the radical KB supporters and assistants, who also happens to be Sandra’s friend, wasn’t as kind as Margaret while commenting about what she called “very disturbing news.”
This is how the KB assistant commented about Sandra: “Its disturbing to hear that but its not something out of character. She has always been very slippery and unclear in the way she takes political decisions. Yet Doctor has always been there for her more than any of those other foster children he looks after. She occasionally stays at Doctor’s home but not always. We can’t tell who she interacts with politically and you know Doctor is care-free. He never indoctrinates people. He believes in free thought and maybe that’s what Sandra is exercising but in a way some of us see as betraying Doctor. This isn’t the first time she is acting funny because in UNSA when she was standing to get that ka-post Aber Lillian has told you about, she put on yellow and actually campaigned as an NRM candidate. Doctor told us to ignore saying it was up to her and he indeed continued paying her tuition at Makerere which shows the largeness of his heart but to me, this latest news of the State House scholarship for LDC, is not just strange but scandalous for Sandra.
What is it that Doctor hasn’t done for her to go undermining our struggle like that?” Indeed KB has unreservedly been very supportive of Sandra who throughout her law school period always aspired for positions including being LC1 chairlady for her Mary Stuart Hall. She is supposed to have completed LDC and should ideally be among the guys graduating later this month. On average, it costs like Shs10m for one to study and complete the 9 months Bar Course training at LDC. This includes tuition, accommodation, feeding and photocopying. We were unable to speak to Sandra as her known phone line was out of reach each time we tried calling. But its a fact she has greatly benefited from her close foster association to KB including having a well paying trainee job at the prestigious Kampala law firm of AF Mpanga Advocates based on DFCU Tower near Fairway Hotel.
As they were winding up their tour of duty as UNSA executive members, Aber led her team to a meeting with Museveni who is also UNSA patron. It was during that meeting that Aber implored Museveni (who was desperate to shield UNSA against JPAM; some had declared him alternative UNSA patron) to do something for the retiring UNSA leaders. It was proposed and agreed that instead of bribing them with cash handouts, the big man gives them scholarships and that’s how (Besigye’s) Sandra, who was also in that meeting, benefited. The implementation was executed by (now PPS) Molly Kamukama, a close friend and ally of Lillian Aber.
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