Keep bail on our law books; it once saved a top army officer

In early 1981, the late David Oyite Ojok ordered for the arrest of then Lt Caleb Akandwanaho, aka Salim Saleh, on trumped up charges. So the current debate of no bail for capital offenders is uncalled for. Ugandan experts and advisers, more specifically lawyers, amaze me. It will not be surprising one day when they (experts) lead (or is it mislead?) the President to advertise and sell the country to the highest bidders so that the rest of us are rendered prisoners.

Bail is not about crime alone; it also decongests remand cells (prisons). Experts aren’t always right.

I have a been a witness to many events locally and internationally. In the 1980’s, the late Joseph Etima,  a former Commissioner General of Uganda Prisons Service, was once defending the Prisons budget on the floor of Parliament. He was  arguing that some of the money was for buying sleeping mats for prisoners when then Vice President Paulo Muwanga, who was in attendance, interjected him.

Muwanga wondered whether Etima wanted to turn prisons into guest houses.  Interestingly,  the National Resistance Movement/Army later overthrew Muwanga’s regime,  and Muwanga was arrested, charged in courts of law and sent to Luzira Maximum Prison when Etima was still commissioner general of Prisons.

Muwanga had been escorted by friends, family and in-laws. Given his status, the family members were bringing him things such as mattresses and bedsheets. At the quarter guard, Muwanga’s group was welcomed but for the beddings , consultations had to be made with Etima,  who demanded to speak to Muwanga personally.

The conversation was short;  he only reminded the former Vice President why he had come with beddings yet prisons aren’t meant to be guest houses.

Back to the story of Gen Saleh, on February 8,  2005, I and my team of mess staff accompanied Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan Directing Staff (lecturers) and senior army students to  a bush on the shores of Lake Victoria behind Magamaga township in Mayuge District for a shooting exercise. As a policy, we provided them meals from wherever they went for such excursions.

Gen Saleh is a very curious person and on this particular occasion, he had seen and got interested in some wild plants (herbs), which he picked and handed to me to transport in an army vehicle allocated to me for the day. In the late afternoon, I had to deliver the herbs to his college residence. I found him seated in his lounge in a very jolly mood and  in the ensuing interaction he shared with me his story.

He narrated that in 1981, he was deployed (posted) in Kidepo Valley National Park, Karamoja. The February 6, 1981, attack on the Kabamba Military Academy found him in Karamoja and that he got the news through BBC Focus on Africa news. That while in Moroto before he left for Kidepo, he saw many unexplained movements of military vehicles in the town.

His colleague of the same rank then, Lt Fred Rubereza, was in-charge and all pointers indicated that they were organising (troop mobilisation) .  But that whenever he would inquire from Lt Rubereza what was taking place and even offered to escort anything from Kenya to Uganda,  Rubereza, now deceased, declined and once openly told Gen Saleh that they (army) wouldn’t trust him.

As said above, the late David Oyite Ojok arrested then Lt Saleh on trumped up charges of stealing a sweater for which he was sent to Moroto prison.

Gen Saleh  was later given bail by one Otim, a magistrate at the instigation and facilitation of Ms Dorah, the late Gen Pecos Kuteesa’s wife, the then Lt  Edward Katumba Wamala and then Lt Damba’s civilian little sister.

The bail offered him free passage and he fled to Kampala, stayed at a contact’s house in Bugolobi and was later guided by Gen Katumba to Matuga in Wakiso District  from where an NRA contact linked and delivered him to the NRA struggle camps.

It is, therefore, easy to get so involved in a sweet debate such as this one of removal of bail. But the question would be what would be the consequences of we the known big supporters of President Museveni and the current regime when another group of the Owiny Kibul’s come after here. It is said the biggest weapon to fight a tormentor, is the mind of the tormented one.

Finally Uganda is big, we can either expand the table or increase the number of chairs; we shall all fit there.

Nabendeh Wamoto S.P

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