By Mulengera Reporters
For President Museveni, the Tuesday remanding of founding Mubs Principal Prof Wasswa Balunywa couldn’t have come at a worse time. Save for a few fortune hunters who are prepared to shamelessly jump at whoever Gen Museveni chooses to make powerful for that season, majority ordinary Basoga remain aggrieved that their Rebecca Kadaga lost the CEC vote last week at Kololo.
They see her defeat by Speaker Anita Among as targeted witch hunt and that perception won’t be ceasing soon. They believe that Kadaga should have successfully been shielded and saved from that humiliating defeat as it has always been done for Moses Kigongo, if Gen Museveni wished so. On social media, they have continued arguing and asking the hard questions.
Yet before those wounds could dry up and heal, this Tuesday the long arm of the law came for Balunywa, another well loved child of Busoga.
Many on social media are wondering why Balunywa, who they say for decades loyally served Gen Museveni who was great friends with his uncle Kirunda Kivejinja and from scratch built Mubs and used it to nurture and mentor a lot of human resource personnel for the country, couldn’t be forgiven for what they call a small offence-namely that he influenced the recruitment of three administrative assistants at the Nakawa-based Business School.
Their view is that the President has ever forgiven public officers who committed more glaring offences than merely influencing the recruitment of three administrative officers. They are arguing that Prof Balunywa might have done some wrong but their view is that an exception should have been created to avoid disrupting the senior citizen’s transition from public to private life as a retiree.
Balunywa has quietly been living at his Garuga home where he runs a Charity Foundation whose major work is mentoring and nurturing of young corporate leaders for the country. That given Balunywa’s big contribution to human resource training in Uganda, such a wrong could have been overlooked and such supporters of his are convinced that all it would take would be the mild intervention of the President.
Prof Balunywa’s predicament has also caused some Basoga social media users to make reference to Dr. David Balondemu, the flamboyant lawyer from Luuka who also chairs the Kampala District Land Board. On social media platforms, like WhatsApp groups, the Basogas spent much of Tuesday asserting that Balondemu deserved to be rewarded by the President over his Owino market land-related whistle blowing, advice and guidance which resulted into over $300m being saved.
The rogue-minded officials had laid siege around the President and had duped him into clearing compensation of an elderly woman who had come up with a fictitious claim that Owino market land belonged to her great grandparents.
Acting as KDLB Chairman, Balondemu reviewed the historical records relating to that land and established that the land, on which the President was being cajoled to order $300m compensation, was actually government’s and there was no need to compensate anyone. The fictitious claimant, a proxy of some big people, was defeated just like that though Shs1bn was controversially recommended for her to be given on equitable considerations and on humanitarian grounds.
Balondemu, according to his sympathizers on some of the Basoga WhatsApp forums, was rewarded with witch-hunt and persecution which came by way of SHACU going after him full swing. His properties have since been confiscated including luxury homes, undeveloped pieces of land and posh cars. The state operatives have up to this day refused to allow him recovery of his properties like vehicles even after securing a court order directing them to return them to him.
Recently, he plunged into politics and sought to carry the NRM flag for Luuka North MP Seat only to be neutralized through what his supporters are calling vote rigging inside party primaries. He appealed to the tribunal and adduced what his supporters considered credible and impeccable evidence, all of which was disregarded, leaving Balondemu in the middle of nowhere.
It remains unclear as to what Gen Museveni is going to do and which appointments he will be making to atone the anger and growing resentment sweeping through Busoga sub region, which Salaam Musumba says will be costly to marginalize because its home to 5m people, majority of him are angry and increasingly getting radicalized.
Salaam Musumba eloquently made her case last week as she featured on NBS Frontline program where even Ofwono Opondo couldn’t manage extinguishing and putting out she fires she kept igniting in the studio. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
