Cerinah Nebanda before her death.
FIRST READ:
If you are not the killer why Doctor pictures??? Adam Musa Masuba the so Called ex-lover of late Nebanda says that the late started taking drugs this YEAR as a way of reducing her weight: Oh: really
Finally Museveni’s government has been caught pants down: Mps fights at Butaleja Woman MP Cerinah Nebanda funeral as pathologist, Dr Sylvestre Onzivua who was hired by Parliament to do an independent forensic investigation, was arrested en route to South Africa
Have death squads come to Uganda???? MP Kyanjo suspects poisoning for his illness
Poison : Is this Uganda’s new political weapon?
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/ThoughtIdeas/Poison---Is-this-Uganda-s-new-political-weapon-/-/689844/1649840/-/format/xhtml/-/a9acos/-/index.html
By Timothy Kalyegira
Posted Sunday, December 23 2012 at 02:00
Posted Sunday, December 23 2012 at 02:00
In Summary
Last Saturday came the breaking news that outspoken Woman Member of Parliament Cerinah Nebanda had passed away.
Since the Butaleja District Woman MP was an outspoken critic of her own party, the NRM, and no accident was mentioned as the cause of her death, questions started being raised immediately. Whatever weaknesses Ugandan society might have, over the last 20 years, the number of suspicious deaths of high-profile political officials and military officers have sown the seeds of a “suspect-first-and-believe-later” attitude in the country.
From the first high-profile murder under the NRM period of the former Energy minister Andrew Kayiira, to the death of Major-General Fred Rwigyema, Lt. Gen. John Garang, former Attorney General Francis Ayume, Brig. Gad Wilson Toko, Major-General James Kazini, Brig. Noble Mayombo, the July 11, 2010 Kampala bomb blasts, Lt. Col. Jet Mwebaze, Amon Bazira, the Kanungu massacre of March 2000, Prof. Dan Mudoola, Brenda Karamuze, Robinah Kiyingi, one only has to listen in to what people discuss at health clubs, in bars, pork joints and in offices to realise that Uganda is now driven by the presumption of foul play and suspicious murder. Sure enough, the death of Nebanda joined the list of these deaths that the Ugandan public simply refuses to believe are what the official account said they were.
Excessive drinking?
When Mayombo died, the first claims were that he had died of excessive drinking. When Nebanda died, the Inspector-General of Police, Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura, alluded to her possibly having been using illegal narcotic drugs.
Adam Kalungi, said to have been her boyfriend, was the first suspect and the story line at first held well. However, as soon as word went out that a pathologist, Dr Sylvestre Onzivua, who had been contracted by Parliament and Nebanda’s family to carry out an investigation separately from the government - itself a sign of suspicion by the family and Parliament - was stopped at Entebbe International Airport from boarding a flight to South Africa, even the most gullible and politically indifferent Ugandans became alert, alarmed and suspicious.
All these conflicting statements and surely the illegal and unfair arrest of Dr Onzivua were taking place in full view of the public, the media, foreign diplomats and the professional civil service. A statement by the police on Tuesday gave the impression that Dr Onzivua had tried to suggle the samples to South Africa, and yet NRM MP and medical doctor Chris Baryomunsi said he had been given full clearance.
The government claims that Dr Onzivua broke the law and two days later another part of the same government asserts that the pathologist had been granted full, official permission by Parliament, the police and the Nebanda family to take the samples to South Africa.
Dr Onzivua is the same experienced pathologist that the Democratic Party recently contracted to find the remains of the DP leader, Benedicto Kiwanuka, who died mysteriously in 1972. In the meantime, the family of the late Rev. James Rwabwoni expressed astonishment upon hearing President Yoweri Museveni claim on Monday, December 16, at Nebanda’s family home that the report on the death of Brig. Mayombo had been given to the Rwabwoni family.
Mr Charles Mwanguhya-Mpagi, host of the KFM Hot Seat show, said on air on Wednesday that he had spoken to all of the 11 of Brig. Mayombo siblings, who said they have never seen that report.
On Monday, President Museveni warned that anyone spreading rumours that the government had killed Nebanda would be arrested. (But then, that’s the same warning he issued in May 2007 after the death of Brig. Mayombo, when a nationwide rumour spread that he had been poisoned by the government.)
Whom do you arrest when a rumour like this spreads down to, and are believed, even in remote villages? The more people you arrest over the rumour that Nebanda was poisoned by the government, the more the public will believe the rumour.
Bukenya drops bomb
The statement to the Monitor Publication Managing Director Conrad Nkutu in May 2006 by the then Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya that Uganda today is being run by a “mafia” government has become one of the most frequently quoted of any in the last 20 years and every such incident like the suspicious death of Nebanda reinforces Mr Bukenya’s claim even more in the eyes of the general public.
Police had to deploy heavily in Nebanda’s rural Butaleja constituency on Wednesday, December 19, to protect the homes of NRM politicians and officials. When matters get to this, it is evident that a sitting government is in deep crisis.
If this young MP and member of the NRM party can meet her death this way and the political party she served treats her death this way, then the NRM MPs have a lot to think about.
If you are an MP, do you eat any more at hotels? If you decide to, do you eat a meal placed before you or do you rather eat from the safer and general buffet?
Do you use the utensils provided?
On May 20, 2007, Daily Monitor Investigations Editor Chris Obore wrote in a news story reporting that poison had been imported to poison Members of Parliament. There is already a widespread rumour in Kampala that the ailing Makindye West MP, the outspoken Hussein Kyanjo, was poisoned and earlier rumours that an ailment that afflicted Mukono MP Betty Nambooze, when she was flown to South Africa, was poison.
In December 2005, officials of the newly formed party, the FDC, claimed they had received reports that president Kizza Besigye, who at the time was in Luzira Upper Prison, was the target of a plot to kill him by a spray poison administered in his cell.
Days of mysterious deaths
Uganda has reached the climax of intrigue and dark cloak-and-dagger mystery deaths or what Mr Obore on KFM’s D’Mighty Breakfast Show last week described as the “murder phase” of Uganda’s political history under the NRM.
Government activity has ground to a halt. There is paralysis in nearly all the ministries.
Civil servants either have seen their work halted as a result of the recent wave of Western donor aid cuts to government projects, or many senior civil servants, having watched the unfolding drama surrounding the embezzlement of money in the Prime Minister’s Office and how bureaucrats who were following orders have ended up in jail, are now afraid to take decisions or sign on any documents lest it is they, not the “people from above” who end up being sent to Luzira.
No wonder a US intelligence estimate published last week forecast that by 2030, Uganda will most likely be a failed state. To many who know Uganda’s history, whenever intrigue within the government reaches a point of no return --- tensions in the army following the assassination of Brig. Pierino Okoya in January 1970, the death of Major-General David Oyite-Ojok in December 1983 --- a familiar event usually follows.
This, then, is the Uganda we shall live in under the NRM term, 2011-2016: a political atmosphere that has (no pun intended) been poisoned.
timothy_kalyegira@yahoo.com
Dr Baryomunsi speaks to Sunday Monitor in Kampala last week. PHOTO BY GEOFFREY SSERUYANGE
‘Nebanda did not take a corrosive substance’
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/ThoughtIdeas/-Nebanda-did-not-take-a-corrosive-substance-/-/689844/1653690/-/10fu7gx/-/index.html
By Risdel Kasasira
Posted Sunday, December 30 2012 at 02:00
Posted Sunday, December 30 2012 at 02:00
Well, as Parliament, we got involved; just to be part of the process, with police in the leadership, in order to get the truth. The person who died was a Member of Parliament and she died under unclear circumstances. Our interest was to seek the truth. The law does not disallow that. What is surprising is that the police and the government are extremely opposed to the idea of getting an independent analysis. I don’t know why.
2. Could it be a failure in managing coordinated communication and information outflow from the government that is creating suspicion or there is something government is trying to hide?
We all met at Mukwaya General Hospital where the lifeless body of Nebanda was lying. We discussed how to move forward with the body because as a parliamentary commissioner, I have a responsibility of protecting the welfare of MPs, both when they are alive or dead. A section of Members of Parliament and other officials; namely, the director CIID, Ms Grace Akullo, her deputy Mr Musana and the police surgeon, Dr Byaruhanga, and members of the family were around.
We requested whether we would work with the police because it’s mandated to do investigations. Police agreed that we work in partnership.
We agreed that Parliament nominates a pathologist and that the family also nominates another to join the team of government pathologists to carry out the postmortem. That was agreed at the hospital where the body was lying. We agreed that the body be transported to the anatomy department at the Medical School. We also agreed that the body should only be accessed on the following day to do a postmortem examination in the presence of the three parties - namely; police, Parliament and the family.
We held a meeting and agreed on who enters the postmortem room. It was agreed that the police surgeon, the government surgeon, a surgeon nominated by Parliament, Dr Sylvester Onzivua, the family-nominated Prof. Waminga and the three of us, the doctors nominated by Parliament, a representative of the family, a cousin brother of the late Nebanda, Hon. Emmanuel Dombo, as a Member of Parliament from Butaleja District, to join the team.
But we were requested by the police surgeon that “if you enter the postmortem room, you must sign a form to show that you are part of the process” and all of us agreed to sign the form. That’s how the postmortem exercise was done. But after analysing the body parts, the pathologists were of the view that the cause of death couldn’t be established at that point because the natural causes of death were ruled out.
3. What did you see that made you conclude that it was not a natural cause?
At that point, there are things you can see with a naked eye and you conclude, especially cases of sudden death like this one. Things like a clot in a blood vessel, a ruptured blood vessel or cardiovascular accidents or cases where high blood pressure causes brain damage. In the postmortem room, you remove every organ, examine them and cut them to make sure that they are normal. Once those were ruled out, the pathologists took a decision that the body tissues and samples should be taken from the body and be subjected to further analysis. This analysis is always done at two levels.
We have histological analysis which basically looks at the structure of the tissues to see whether they are in normal structure and also to undertake the toxicological analysis to see whether there is any possible presence of poisons and toxic materials in the body because we had found significant findings in the pancreas, the lungs and in the stomach. That made it necessary that we do further tests. At that point, a decision was also taken that Dr Onzivua, the pathologist nominated by Parliament, takes samples to South Africa and that another set of samples be taken to the government analytical laboratory. After that specimen bottles were brought in the postmortem room and two sets were assembled and the lead pathologist, Prof. Waminga and Dr Onzivua went with the samples for independent analysis. Another official from Mulago went with two MPs; Hon. Bitekyerezo and Hon. Lyomoki, to the government lab in Wandegeya to deposit another set of the samples.
4. In your presentation to Parliament, you said that when you reached Mukwaya General Clinic you found a clinical officer and a nurse who knew how the late Hon. Nebanda was brought and by who. What exactly did they tell you?
I was among the first MPs to arrive at Mukwaya General Hospital. When I reached there, I asked who had information about the cause of death. I was told there were a clinical officer and a nurse who had come from a clinic in the area where the so-called boyfriend was living. I talked to the clinical officer and I asked him whether Hon. Nebanda came to the hospital alive. He told me that she came gasping and for him he thought she was still alive by the time she reached the hospital.
But the hospital director had told me that when he saw her, she was already dead. At that point, Gen. Kale Kayihura [the IGP] entered the room with a phone, saying the President wanted to speak to someone who had information and I asked the clinical officer to speak to him and they moved out. I talked with the nurse who had also come from that clinic. The nurse told me that in the evening of that day, they were approached by two gentlemen. One of Somali origin and another dark-skinned.
They asked these two health workers to go and assist them in their house; that there was a medical emergency. These two health workers insisted that the person be brought to the clinic. But the gentlemen insisted the person was in a very critical condition and was also a high-ranking government official and therefore suggested that they preferred a health worker goes to the house. The health workers prepared emergency drugs as well as intravenous fluids and went with them to the home of these two gentlemen.
5. Did they tell you what happened at the home of these two gentlemen?
They said that while there, another dark-skinned gentleman went back to the clinic and told the health workers that they wanted more fluids which the nurse gave them. But this gentleman told the health workers that he was proceeding to town and was not going back to the house. The fluids were given to his colleague. The nurse told me at some point that the clinical officer gave advice that they should immediately rush to a bigger hospital because he could no longer manage the case as it was getting worse.
That they got into a vehicle of Hon. Nebanda and that the Somali-looking gentleman drove it to Mukwaya General Hospital. When the two gentlemen had come to the clinic, they were driving a blue RAV4 vehicle. But when they went to Mukwaya General Clinic, the two gentlemen handed over the body to the health workers, two phones belonging to Hon. Nebanda and also left the key of the vehicle.
In that confusion, the two gentlemen entered the RAV4 which came following them and drove off. I understand the police found the RAV4 because it had been driven back and parked there. Those are the circumstances I was told by these two health workers how the late honourable was brought to the clinic. But I was also told Police recovered three bottles of Nemoceline, an intravenous fluid.
6. Have you heard anything about where she spent the afternoon of the day she died?
I was told she was with her mother at 2pm in Munyonyo. That she made a phone call to her at 4pm and is said to have been okay, with no problem. But at around 7pm, she was declared dead. Like I said, the police say they recovered three bottles of Nomoceline. These are intravenous fluids used to hydrate patients. To infuse three bottles of nomoceline must have taken more than an hour in my view. That means the clinical officer took some time to manage her at that home.
Secondly, it shows that whatever killed her was administered after 4pm and by one hour to 7pm; she must have been in critical condition. This must have been a substance which is rapidly absorbed in the body and its effects, are systemic, and do not have a corroding effect on the gut and the stomach because we didn’t find evidence of corrosion. It didn’t damage the oesophagus and the stomach. If the toxicology is done, it shows what kind of substance.
7. Is there a possibility that she could have inhaled and not swallowed the substance that killed her and do you think the government could have killed Nebanda?
That’s a possibility because some poisons can enter your body through inhalation. They can be eaten, drunk or swallowed or through injection. All those are possible ways through which poison can enter someone’s body. This we suspect should have swallowed it. Up to now I don’t think the NRM government can kill people like that. But the manner in which it has behaved towards these investigations, it requires them to do a lot of explanation.
