Appetite for nice wheels rides NRM boss to self-destruction

Wednesday, December 27, 2017, posted nothing ominous for Muhammad Gusaga. It was two days after Christmas and roughly mid-way to the exhilarating New Year observance awaited with pregnant anticipation.
Gusaga’s family brimmed with fulfillment in the festive season, ate to fill and laughed. Their three children played in Bugema “B” Village with comfort only afforded by parents with means to provide.

After all, their father is a powerful vice chairman of the ruling NRM party for Mbale District. His mobilisation work for the party has over the years brought him honour and placed him within listening orbit of President Museveni and Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura, according to Mbale District NRM chairman Masaba Muhamood Mutenyo. For the selfless service and towering feat, the party rewarded him with a gigantic house valued at Shs700m.
The structure comprising a bungalow, servant’s quarter and rental units symbolised a distinction for which friends, relatives and party loyalists loved and loathed the Gusaga family.

The luxurious house
The house immortalised success for the local smooth political operator reverently referred as the “yellow man” --- euphemism for a ruling party insider.
As fate would have it, fortune has a uniqueness in neighbouring temptation. Like the biblical enticement of Adam and Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the popular Gusaga slithered into a trap that to his family betrayed logic.

Mr Asuman Masudi, a South Africa-based Ugandan businessman, was home for Christmas festivities. He raced in a convertible Mercedes Benz and luxury BMW wheels.

The attraction was irresistible. Residents joked that the vehicles were the type one must drive before dying. Unknown to others, similar thoughts coursed through NRM vice chairman Gusaga’s mind. He did not have the money. He had a name and a posh residential he staked to take the two vehicles.
In exchange, Mr Masudi promised to take the mansion and provide an alternative house for the family in Iganga for the next two years, the politician’s wife Rehema Muzaki told this newspaper. He didn’t.

Mr Gusaga took possession of the expensive cars and after having his wife sign house ownership transfer documents at the ungodly midnight hour, Mr Masudi possessed the house. The early signs of a family wreck piled on foot of the barter trade. Mr Gusaga had told the wife the car owner was to occupy the rental units only. It turned out otherwise. Not only had businessman Masudi not provided alternative house, but he also ejected the family from the home.
The politician’s family quickly suffered the ignominy of shifting to Eldima Guest House in the town centre to the inconvenience of lack of privacy. After a month, the family has run out of cash.
“We are suffering because we have nowhere to stay; we can’t go back to our home and the children can’t go back to school because we are up and down,” the wife told this newspaper.

As a stay-home mum, the mother of three suddenly finds herself hamstrung to put food on the table for their three children. Ms Muzaki claims she lost personal property during their dramatic eviction.
Feeling tricked and betrayed because she was told a different storyline and made to sign on a document she could not read because she never went to school, Ms Muzaki took her burdens to police.
“The wife reported the case to police that the husband had sold a family house without her knowledge and since then, they have been left homeless,” said Elgon police spokesperson Suwed Manshur.

Party intervenes
It was an anti-climax for the famed NRM mobiliser who surmounted childhood millstones in the native Butaleja District to rise over undulating terrains to head the ruling party’s political ground work in Bukedi and Mt Elgon regions.
Mbale NRM chairman Masaba, in a February 12 letter, noted that the purported barter trade was invalid because the house, he noted, was a donation by the ruling party to the family and cannot be sold or exchanged without the party’s authorisation.
After dithering for weeks, police picked up both Mr Gusaga and Masudi. The charges to be pressed against either party could not be immediately established.

“We got advice from the Resident State Attorney to cause the arrest of the suspect (house buyer) as investigation continues,” Mr Manshur said, adding that upon arrest, they discovered that Masudi had more than four passports under different names.
But the deal, and the fall-out from it, have fed rumour mills and a public discourse where the NRM mobiliser has been mocked on social for his adolescent tastes and decision.

Police report

Preliminary investigations indicate that cars exchanged had in the first place likely been acquired fraudulently. This proclamation signalled that the barter trade has opened a Pandora box in more ways than one.

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