By Mulengera Reporters
In his column this week, chief government spokesman Ofwono Opondo commented on the most recent anti-general court martial decision by the Supreme Court.
Firstly, Opondo says the clarity and boldness and assertiveness with which the justices articulated and delivered their ruling proved that the team CJ Alfonse Owinyi-Dollo leads isn’t comprised of Museveni cadre judges as some Ugandans had always depicted them.
Opondo also defends his boss Gen Museveni for criticizing judges for their decision; making it clear that it was his right to give his feedback as he had always done on other landmark decisions by that same Court.
Opondo also says that the way he knows him, having closely served him for the last 39 years, Gen Museveni will respect and honor the Court decision even when he doesn’t like what the Honorable Justices said.
Opondo also makes reference to the fact that Dr. Kizza Besigye’s televised trial at the Makindye-based military court brought out the worst in the UPDF-administered military justice. That the way the bulky-sized Afandes constituting the Gen Freeman Mugabe-led bench have been speaking, making submissions and generally conducting themselves, has brought so much shame onto the good name of Uganda People’s Defense Forces.
The Uganda Media Center boss adds that he personally knows of many fellow big men both in government and security who greatly felt humiliated and embarrassed each time senior officers, comprising the defense team, rose up to speak or counter Martha Karua or even Besigye’s notorious defense lawyer Eron Kiiza.
In his free-style, Opondo implies that those televised Besigye trial sessions depicted some of the UPDF prosecutors as adult men who can’t even freely express themselves in public.
Remedially and going forward, Opondo recommends that each one of them undertakes a basic course in public speaking to improve on their capability to make intelligible submissions. He also agrees with CJ Dollo’s point that the army court martial should largely be comprised of men and women who (at least) have basic legal training, on top of whatever military knowledge they might be having.
He regrets that their poor showing caused great shame and embarrassment globally to UPDF, Gen Museveni’s government and to Uganda as a country. Opondo also asserts that the GoU and UPDF leadership ought to have learnt bitter lessons many years ago because even the very pioneering trials of the same Kizza Besigye in the mid-2000s were equally embarrassing to Uganda as a country.
That in those intervening years (2005 to date), lessons ought to have been learned and the country’s administration of military justice comprehensively reformed. The views proclaimed in his column this week depict the real Ofwono Opondo who Ugandans have come to predict and be used to-assertive, articulate, speaking with clarity and ever prepared to give his objective view regardless of what the establishment’s official position might be.
Opondo, who seems to have personally liked and felt refreshed by much of what the Supreme Court propounded that day, also overtly appreciates the quality, the clarity and the reasoning that were reflected in especially the detailed decisions of CJ Dollo and Justice Catherine Bamugemereire. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
