Kyabazinga Nadiope jailed for fraud

In 1970, Sir William Wilberforce Kadhumbula Nadiope, the former vice president of Uganda and Kyabazinga of Busoga, was sent to Kirinya Government Prison to serve an 18-month jail term.
For many a Ugandan, this was the highest form of betrayal on the part of then president Milton Obote and his ruling Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party where Nadiope was the vice president and had helped the party win the April 25, 1962, general election.
In Busoga, the sense of betrayal ran perhaps deeper. Nadiope had in the run up to the 1962 polls taken Obote around Busoga where he introduced him as his adopted son. This was partially responsible for the sweeping victory that the party registered in the sub-region, taking the Busoga North and Busoga South parliamentary seats.

In his book, Uganda: The Crisis of Confidence, Second Deputy Prime Minister and minister for East African Affairs, Mr Kirunda Kivejinja, tells how sections of the Basoga expressed their anger towards Obote.
“When Obote parted with Nadiope and locked him up, the folk singers Kubula and Mata composed a song stating, ‘Nadiope you deserve it, because you are the one who brought Obote around and exhibited him as your only adopted son,” Kirunda Kivejinja writes.

This partially explains why UPC found the going tough in Busoga during the 1980 general election. The Democratic Party (DP) swept most of the seats and all, but two of UPC’s top guns, Patrick Mwondha (RIP) and Romano Masiga (RIP) won seats in the area.
The party’s secretary general then, Dr John Luwuriza Kirunda, declared himself winner, but he had been trounced by Prof Paul Wangoola of DP.
It was only after DP MPs John Magezi, John Mpaulo, Dr Eriab Muzira and Alex Waibale were arm-twisted into “crossing to the common ruling party” that the party got a majority in Busoga.

It would, however, appear that Kirunda Kivejinja erred in attributing Nadiope’s incarceration to Obote’s shenanigans.
Mr Henry Kyemba, who was Obote’s principle private secretary in the period between 1962 and 1971, says while Nadiope had been closely associated with some of the five ministers who Obote had locked up in February 1966 amid talk of alleged coup plot, Obote never took punitive action.

Nadiope had briefly fled into self-imposed exile in Kenya, but returned and continued serving as both the vice president and Kyabazinga until the Constitution was amended to abolish kingdoms and turn Uganda into a republic.
“He was arrested once in 1970 and taken to Kirinya (Government Prison), but the only thing that I remember was that it was more nongovernmental,” Mr Kyemba told Sunday Monitor.

Why Nadiope was jailed
“The only troubles that he had were various allegations of insurance fraud for which he was taken to court and convicted. But it was not government sponsored stuff,” he added.
Mr Kyemba did not give details, but while writing for the Daily Monitor on Friday August 10, 2012, in an article titled “Busoga’s political opportunities and misfortunes - 1962 to 2012”, Dr Frank Nabwiso indicated that the former Kyabazinga had been jailed for fraud.
“Nadiope, who was one of the founders of UPC and its first vice president from March 9, 1960, was eventually sent to prison for 18 months in 1970 for allegedly obtaining money from the American British Insurance Company by false pretence,” he wrote.

Again, like most other scholars who had earlier written about the subject, Dr Nabwiso avoided going into details of what led to the jailing of the former Kyabazinga.
However, according to Mr Patrick Miyingo, a former UPC youth winger, news anchor on Radio Uganda who was also to grow close to Nadiope in the period between 1964 and 1965, the late former Kyabazinga was an astute businessman who knew the smell of money.

He is said to have been levying and collecting an annual ground rent tax (busuulu) from occupants of some of the vast chunks of land that he owned in Bugula.
Unlike others who had occupied the Kyabazinga’s seat, he ran a string of businesses. At a time when most Basoga could not tap into the vast wealth that had been presented to them in the form of the many Mvule trees, Nadiope cashed in, opening up a wood workshop and timber business along the Kamuli-Namasagali road.

He also had dealings with a host of White and Asian business people in several towns, which explained the numerous properties that he owned.
Given such a background, he found it easy to bury himself in the business activity when he was kicked out of public office.
Late in 1968, the former Kyabazinga bumped into one Patrick, a former driver of the then jailed minister Mathias Ngobi, who had since moved on to become an insurance broker with the British American Insurance Company, as he was making his way into the premises of Bank of Baroda on Iganga Road in Jinja Town.

The broker had apparently gotten a huge sum in commissions from the insurance company, but the manager was uncomfortable releasing all the money to him. The manager told the broker that the money could only be released to him if a high profile person from the area could come in and vouch for him. In Nadiope Patrick had found such a person.
The driver was personally known to him. He, therefore, did not have any qualms recommending him to the bank manager for payment.
The duo walked back to the manager’s officer and within no time, Patrick was leaving the bank with the money.

Despite having lost his power as a political and cultural leader, Nadiope still commanded quite a following, especially in Kamuli, an area that insurance was experiencing difficulties penetrating into. In Nadiope Patrick saw an opportunity of making inroads.

A few weeks later, he turned up in Naidope’s home in Budhumbula where he interested him in taking up a policy.
“But I am old and I am told that old people do not get insurance policies,” he said.

“We shall backdate it,” Patrick assured him before enlisting him.
Patrick was to a few weeks later return to tell the former Kyabazinga how they could make a lot of money from the insurance company through fictitious claims. The merchant in Nadiope got excited.
He had previously looked after an old woman, one Kendawula, at his farm in Namasagali. The woman had been beaten up by robbers, but never recovered from her injuries. Nadiope felt that her death would have presented him with the first opportunity to make some money. Would it be possible?

Patrick answered in the affirmative. Forms were filled in with Nadiope as a beneficiary. A few months later she was reported dead. A snake bite was presented as the cause of death. A claim was filed and payment was made. Nadiope happily took the money.
The matter would have perhaps not been discovered, but for the transfer of one insurance officer from Jinja to Kampala before some of the fictitious claims he had filed had been paid. When they were finally paid, his colleagues in the Jinja office refused to remit “his money.”

The insurance officer then below the whistle on his colleagues, sparking off an investigation that drew in the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) director, Mohamed Hassan. Among the many cases that were investigated were that of the cheque that had been paid out to the former Kyabazinga.
A CID Officer, one Stevenson, was dispatched to Kamuli to investigate the case. As Nadiope had in his claim indicated that Kendawula had died following a snake bite, the parish chief of Namasagali and members of her family insisted that she had only succumbed to injuries she suffered during an attack by robbers.

Two medical officers, a Ugandan of Asian origin who claimed to have referred the case to a Kamuli dispensary, and a Ugandan who was in charge of the dispensary at the time and had signed the death certificate, were arrested along with Nadiope and dragged to the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Jinja to answer for fraud and obtaining money by false pretence.
The charges led into his conviction and the 18 months jail term, the most humiliating point of which came late in 1970 when he was ill and transferred to Jinja hospital for medication.

“When the matron went around on her rounds, she found Nadiope handcuffed to the bed. She insisted that the handcuffs be removed as they were not part of the medical treatment,” Mr Kyemba recounts.
The humiliation came to an end on January 28, 1971, when Gen Idi Amin ousted Milton Obote and released those who had been detained by Obote. Among them was Sir William Wilberforce Kadhumbula Nadiope.

[email protected]