STANDARD SIGNS BOSS CHOKING ON DEBTS

Geoffrey Omara Adigi, who more famously is the proprietor of a printing company called Standard Signs based in Kireka near Namboole stadium, is nowadays having sleepless nights. His woes are emanating from politics whereby he went wholesomely and unconsciously into NRM politics in Erute County constituency where he lost badly. Desperate to get rid of old man Charles Angiro Gutmoi, who President Museveni hated for being among the first Langis to embrace Kizza Besigye, State House operatives around 2010 approached Omara and begged him to stand against Gutmoi in 2011. The NRM had failed to find somebody high profile enough to match Gutmoi’s popularity in Erute and they zeroed in on Omara who was then a well accomplished businessman.

He reluctantly agreed and the money he was given turned out not to be even a quarter of his campaign budget. He had to invest his own money, a thing that greatly hurt his business. Gratefully he won the seat after some rigging that left Gutmoi limping and wailing. The 5 years (2011-2016) were very expensive for Omara who was unable to speak in Parliament to match Gutmoi’s charisma and this resulted into pressure from the disappointed voters whom he compensated by sinking money into the constituency trying to solve all people’s problems. Naturally he couldn’t go far. He became unpopular as voters who borrowed from his village bank defaulted and failed to repay. Gutmoi took advantage and bounced back in 2016.

After losing, Omara who had by this time become addicted to being called honorable didn’t take it lightly. He rushed to court where High Court’s Justice Musalu Musene ruled against him. Musene found that Omara wasn’t coming with clean hands because he was a victim of failed rigging attempts against Gutmoi. Dissatisfied, Omara appealed to Court of Appeal and recently lost the case as the Justices, led by Remmy Kasule, upheld Justice Musalu Musene’s decision.

As we talk now Omara is sad and blue because the lawyers are on his case demanding for their fees. One of the lawyers recently told him “Mzee you will have to pay the money whether you like it or not because we as lawyers are hired to do our best, which we did, and not to win cases.” That is one aspect of the problem. The other is that Omara has to pay Gutmoi’s lawyers whose fees stretch to over Shs700m. Having been recently approached by elders from Erute not to finish off his opponent, Gutmoi relaxed things for Omara saying let him pay only lawyers and for him as the person he sued won’t be asking to be indemnified in any way. As if that is not bad enough, there are pending accountability queries hovering over the same Omara’s head in Lango Parliamentary Group (LPG) where he served as Treasurer in the 9th Parliament (2011-2016). In fact members like Cecilia Ogwal have vowed not to contribute the monthly Shs300,000 anymore until the current LPG leadership successfully compels Omara to tender in proper accountability for whatever was collected from members during the life of the 9th Parliament.