Battle of the Wanyotos now sucks in the police

The chairperson of the Women’s League of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, Ms Lydia Nambozo Wanyoto Mutende, has been reported to the police’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for allegedly issuing death threats to her younger brother as the two battle for control of their family land on the outskirts of Mbale City.

In his July 11 complaint to the CID, Mr Paul Mugoya Wanyoto claims that for the past three years—since he expressed his political interests in running on the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party ticket—his elder sister has continued to threaten him with death threats.
“...I have lived in fear since then and documented it by way of e-mail correspondences to her and copy to others, to which I received no response,” a complaint by Mr Wanyoto reads in part.

Land wrangle
On Monday this past week, the friction between the two siblings escalated when Ms Mutende reportedly accompanied by her bodyguards raided their ancestral home in Lumumba Cell, Nabweya Ward in Mbale City at 4am. Ms Mutende then forcefully began setting up a camp in the guise of building a home opposite her brother’s residence.
“I called the clan leaders and Northern Division security who she disregarded and continued with her work, only stopping two days later when she realised her shenanigans had been captured by the press and it was all over national media,” Mr Wanyoto contends in his complaint to police.

Mr Wanyoto, a Kampala-based High Court advocate who also doubles as the chairperson of Mbale City Land Board, now wants the police “to cause an investigation into this and many other threats as your team may establish on ground seeing as Ms Mutende intimidates and disrespects the local police leadership in Mbale.”
The complaint has since been copied to NRM party chairperson who is President Museveni, NRM secretary general and the Internal Affairs minister.

Mr Wanyoto in an e-mail attachment to the police complaint dated May 23, 2020, wrote to Ms Mutende, informing her that he intends to run for a political office and that he was uncomfortable for her to have heavily deployed security at their family residence in Mbale.
This, he claimed, was because some of his political activities were to take place at their family home and that Ms Mutende’s heavy security deployment would jeopardise his political activities.
“I appreciate your right to access your parents’ home as much as I expect you to respect my access to my parents’ home. I, therefore, propose that you have this in mind and also be prepared to send away your personal security when I get down to home for my political business,” Mr Wanyoto stated in his 2020 email to his elder sister.

He added: “Your security at home is insecurity to me. We can work out and retain security deployed by the district heads to keep all of us secure without one’s security being insecurity to another.”
Mr Wanyoto unsuccessfully contested for the Northern City Division MP seat in Mbale City on an FDC ticket. Ms Mutende was also unsuccessful in her attempt to beat long-time nemesis—and fellow NRM member— Ms Connie Nakayenze Galiwango to the Mbale City Woman MP seat; both at the ballot and in court.

When contacted about the alleged death threats issued against her brother, Ms Mutende said she had not received a copy of the complaint.
“I haven’t received that police complaint you are talking about. It’s funny that the media has got this complaint—if indeed it’s there—before the family,” Ms Mutende said yesterday.
She added: “I don’t handle family matters in the media, which we have built on respect for over a long time.”

Narrative disputed
But in an earlier comment to this publication on Monday, Ms Mutende claimed she was fighting for her fellow sisters in their home before accusing her younger brother of fighting her because she is a ‘girl-child.’
“We have suffered in this house. I am fighting for the rights of girls in this house. He won’t get it (land) from me,” Ms Mutende said earlier this past week.
But one of Ms Mutende’s sisters, Ms Barbra Wanyoto, refuted her assertion.

“It’s not true that Lydia is fighting for us as girl children in the family. The fight is about security rather than land issue. Lydia just likes competition. This came about after Paul expressed interest in politics, which she claims to be her area, making her insecure,” Ms Barbra Wanyoto, who lives in the UK, said by telephone yesterday, adding, “Whom is she fighting for because she never consulted any of us the sisters. So she is fighting our younger brother for her own interests.” 

The family is made up of 11 siblings; four boys and seven girls. Mr Wanyoto is the youngest while Ms Mutende is one of the middle children.
Following a clan meeting earlier this week, the police and the clan elders, advised the bickering siblings to try and amicably settle their differences.

Efforts to reach out to the police spokesperson, Mr Fred Enanga were futile as he never picked or returned our calls by press time. But Mr John Byamugisha, the DPC of Northern City Division, on Monday halted any construction on the family land by Ms Mutende.
“We have agreed with Ms Mutende that no further construction will go on until the family sits and tries to resolve the issue,” he said.