Among provoked me first,Namuganza

As the year comes to a close, Uganda’s parliament is moving to censure another minister, Percis Namuganza, who is in charge of the lands docket ( State). This time, over the marriage between the Speaker, Anita Among Annet, and Moses Magogo, the Budiope East MP and FUFA  president.

Last week, Namuganza took to the floor of parliament and promised to move a motion in the future against the speaker and Magogo, whom she accused of procuring a fraudulent marriage.

What shocked the nation was how marriage issues that happen to be personal, involving the third highest civil servant, had come to the floor of the house and later into the Hansard.

In her submission before the plenary session, which debated and finally adopted the report recommending her censure last week, Namuganza hinted at the real reason she is facing a censure motion with signatures currently more than 170.

Although parliament did not allow her to elaborate on the matter, in an interview with Capital FM’s parliamentary Journalist, Edwin Muhumuza, she let the cat out of the box.

Firstly, was her reaction to her party NRM picking an interest to settle their feud?

I am happy that the party is concerned about the utterances that are going on between me and the parliamentary leadership and amongst members of the ruling party.

Another thing I appreciate is that the public and other members have come to appreciate that what is being discussed about me, the censure motion in regard to the Naguru land or misbehavior as they are alleging is not just that case but because of another bigger issue of Anita Among’s marriage where they involved my marriage and that’s a serious issue, its criminal, so I cannot in any way pretend about it. Whether they want it to be discussed in media, in parliament, or not, it’s a criminal issue. Such a person who is number three in the country cannot involve herself in such actions which put the house in disrepute.

So I think as they come to mediate I would say it is fine but then there are criminal issues that you cannot just cover and you say we move on. My side has been accused of forging a presidential directive which is also fraud and criminal in nature.

So I think the issue of mediation would be okay but if the party is going to look at these criminal issues which are involved where do we take these issues because for me I am in court to clear my name.

If I forged a presidential directive then the court must be able to discover and find out which directives I forged as they have been alleging and using several members of parliament to make a lot of utterances in several media houses and that to me as a leader is not proper and it must come to a conclusion in a proper way.

Do you  think that the issue of using goons to intimidate your family has not been handled fairly by both sides....? ( In reference to how parliament and concerned stakeholders have reacted to her concerns, regarding the alleged subjection of her husband to duress to sign marriage papers)

Yes, and it’s a very serious matter and since it is with security heads, in this case, the head of CID, Kibuli, the Police, and the Ministry of security, they should not just cover it under the basket and they say we move on, because it has happened to me as Namuganza who is a minister, how about an ordinary Ugandan, will they just be killed, because if they say we did this last time and we moved on? So I think this issue of saying that Namuganza is bad, all the time, no, I think the team and the public must be upright to take the matter in a neutral way. Where is it coming from?

It is allowed under confession, although they ask me why I did it on the floor of parliament so I had to inform MPs that all this is happening because of a fraudulent marriage which took place and that has been going on silently just between us and the head of state but I had to bring it out.

...Interview to be continued