Ugandan foreign affairs minister Haruna Kasolo wanted the president Yoweri Museveni to attend his victory and thanksgiving party in Kyotera. The event is slated for this coming Sunday 20th September in Kyotera which he represents as the area MP.
Kasolo defeated the opposition national unity platform candidate Paul Mpalanyi during the last January elections. It was a hard win, not an easy one. That is why he is celebrating the hard win he got.
He had invited the Ugandan president as his guest of honor but state house sources say that the veteran Pan-African leader, who doesn’t like attending public functions these days and prefers delegating deputy speaker Tayebwa or vice president Jessica Alupo, has refused to confirm his personal attendance.
Presidency sources add that Museveni is unlikely to attend because he isn’t comfortable associating himself with Haruna Kasolo very closely because of his wanting social decorum and scandalous life style of siring children with low-profile Kampala women such as hair stylists, grocery shop attendants, mobile money vendors, fuel pump attendants and super market minders.
Specifically, on the Kyotera thanksgiving event, the knowledgeable Kampala sources say that Museveni is uncomfortable travelling to Kyotera, a community of poor people who dislike his NRM government because of mistreatment by Kasolo.
At the beginning of the month, state house handlers say that Museveni received a preliminary intelligence report from investigators close to the Ugandan army commander general Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s office.
The preliminary intelligence report spoke about an old man whose mailo land, located in Kalisizo rural Kyemaransi village, Kasolo recently encroached upon. The Mbuya office-authored intelligence brief to the president indicated that the land is part of Buddu block 761 and that Kasolo forcefully took 8 acres from the old man’s larger estate found at a location near a water pathway called river Narudugavu. He is planning to use the land to expand his coffee and pine growing business.
The original mailo owner for Buddu block 761 was Alimansi Busenze whose estate administrator George William Luboyera, an old man now in his late 90s, recently hired surveyors to reopen boundaries to confirm the extent of encroachment by Haruna Kasolo, the greedy MP who forcefully takes his own voters’ land. The intelligence report to the president shows that Kasolo’s such controversial land transactions are always handled by his assistant by the names of Hajji Baker Kikuku.
State house is concerned that the old man George William politely wrote to Kasolo requesting him to acknowledge his mistake and get out of his 8 acres of land but the minister simply ignored him. His assistants and supporters tried to intimidate the sickly old man who lives in Rwankoni, making it clear there was nothing the family can ever do to a powerful man like Haruna Kasolo. It’s not clear if the intelligence handlers from the Mbuya office interviewed the near-senile old man for his version of the story. Sources insist that the investigations are still at preliminary stages.
It was also alleged to the violated old man, the Alimansi Busenze estate administrator, that there are some big people in government for whom Kasolo had been tasked to encroach and take control of his land. This claim by Kasolo’s henchmen in Kyotera has made Museveni’s intelligence handlers at state house to become very concerned.
The intelligence brief to the president shows that after all his letters to Kasolo’s known offices were ignored, the old man tried to go through a senior police man in Kyotera who he was told is very close to Kasolo. Instead of being helped, people close to the powerful policeman, tried to extort money from the old man who was asked to pay Ugx20m to facilitate those who can help take him to Kasolo for face to face negotiations before he can get back his land.
The president’s preliminary intelligence gathering shows that when the old man said he has nowhere to get that money from, people claiming to be Kasolo’s political associates in Kyotera demanded to be paid in form of several acres of land for him to be helped get an appointment to meet and sit with the minister to talk about his 8 acres! All this suffering by the very old man, who happens to be a diehard Museveni supporter, is well captured in the intelligence reports before the Ugandan president.
And this is why Museveni isn’t comfortable personally going to Kyotera to attend the Sunday thanksgiving event because state house handlers have profiled minister Kasolo to be a politician who is too scandalous to have the person of the president at his event.
Sources add that the Ugandan president intends to meet the violated old man personally as part of the broader investigations before he can finally sanction criminal action and a more comprehensive inquiry by general Kainerugaba’s office so that the aggrieved family can get justice by way of getting back their land and damages for the inconveniences the minister’s alleged land grabbing antics has caused them over the years.
