The death of Uganda’s
Minister of Internal Affairs General Aronda Nyakairima has been
confirmed and government has embarked on repatriating his body back home.
The cause of General Aronda Nyakairima death is not yet known
The bush war hero met his death while transiting through Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, returning from South Korea where he had gone for
official duties.
Prime Minister
Ruhakana Rugunda in an impromptu statement said that a team of doctors–
pathologists—is being sent to Dubai, to assist with the post-mortem.
Pathologists investigate and interpret a patient’s diagnosis,
treatment and possible cause of death. Questions of what killed one of
the most successful soldiers in the country is mounting.
While the Ministry has urged public to “restrain from unfounded
rumours”, conspiracy theorists including government officials have lined
up a number of speculative but possible causes of his death.
Heart Attack
When news broke that the General had died, the cause of his demise
was said to be a heart attack or what scientists call cardiac arrest.
UGO couldn’t verify if he had that condition before.
The Executive Director, Uganda Media Centre and Spokesperson, Government of Uganda, Ofwono Opondo using his known
Twitter account told the nation that the Chief of Defence Forces had died of a heart attack.
However some sections of the public didn’t buy into this school of
thought considering that as a serving soldier, and a good soldier, the
General was well and fit. He was known not to smoke or drink alcohol.
Poisoning
The other possible cause of the General’s death is food poisoning. He
will not be the first General in Uganda to be poisoned.
The reasons for his possible and speculated poisoning and who did it
are however not mentioned by the speculators as news remain scanty.
Brigadier Noble Mayombo, who in October 2005 was appointed Permanent
Secretary to the Ministry of Defense, reportedly died of food poisoning
in April 2007.
Brigadier Noble Mayombo was reportedly poisoned
Mayombo is famously quoted having said wajinga wameniwuwa mimi (these
stupid people have killed me) probably indicating that he knew the
perpetrators and the methods used.
The Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga was also reported to have
said that elements in government, parliament and other political mafias
tried to kill her by poisoning her.
The Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga
These previous events hold some water into this allegation. The
source of this allegation also alleges that the General’s two body
guards also died in a similar manner.
This allegation cannot be ignored but swept under the bed as
investigations into this matters takes, who knows, it could be true.
It has also been reported that Gen Aronda complained of stomach pain
akin to what Mayombo complained about before succumbing to death.
Muhozi Project
The most audacious allegation came from a twitter account believed to
be belonging to former Forum for Democratic Change president, Kizza
Besigye.
In the tweet Besigye states “Very curious! Gen Sejusa, Hon Amama
Mbabazi & Gen Aronda were all named for being against the Muhozi
project! Mafia?”
It should be remembered that Gen Sejusa fell out with President
Museveni for reportedly being against the Muhozi Project which is
reported to be planning to install the president’s son as the next
leader of Uganda.
Besigye wonders if the mafias could have been bumped off the decorated war General.
This will for sure not go down well with the president and government if it really came from the opposition leader.
Death not known, Rugunda
In an official statement on the sudden death of Gen. Aronda, Prime
Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda said the death of the bush war hero is not
yet known.
“We have today learnt, with great sadness, of the sudden death of Hon
Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, the Minister of Internal Affairs…………
A team of doctors–pathologists—is also being sent to Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, to assist with the post-mortem and the repatriation of
the body.” Rugunda said.
Until the pathologists come out with a conclusive report we can only speculate
Wednesday, 11th November 2009
By Timothy Kalyegira
Readers who might have
followed my writings in the Daily Monitor's Saturday column in 2006 and
2007 and listeners to the KFM radio talk show on Friday, might have heard me
mention on air or put in writing my meeting in July 2006 with a clairvoyant, a
person with an uncanny gift for predicting future events, the person I called
the Seer.
In one of those columns or several of those KFM broadcasts, I did mention, in
2006 and 2007, what the Seer told me would happen to Uganda in the years just ahead.
One of the things I told listeners clearly several times, for the record, was
that the Seer had told me that generals from ethnic tribes in western Uganda
would die one by one as the clock ticked on to the assassination of President
Yoweri Museveni, as foretold by the Seer.
It started with the Secretary for Defence, Brig. Noble Mayombo in May 2007 and
has continued with the former army commander Maj. gen. James Kazini now in Nov.
2009.
It has been reported by the mainstream media in Kampala that Kazini was murdered by his
mistress, Lydia Draru.
The facts of Kazini's death, in fact, point to what the Uganda Record knew
to be the truth yesterday, Nov. 10, 2009: that Kazini was killed for the same
reason that Mayombo was killed.
Two days before his death, according to well-informed sources, Kazini received
a phone call from the Chief of Military Intelligence, Brig. James Mugira who
asked Kazini: "Are you safe?"
Mugira then offered Kazini some escorts, to which Kazini angrily replied that
he did not need any security and he switched Mugira off the line. It is not
clear whether Mugira genuinely wanted to offer protection to Kazini or he was,
in fact, monitoring Kazini's movements on behalf of the hands that run the
Ugandan state.
This week, Kazini was scheduled to travel to southern Sudan. The white luxury Toyota
Landcruiser he owned was given to him as a personal donation and an act of
sympathy by the government of southern Sudan after he was court martialed
for the alleged creation of a false army payroll.
Southern Sudan, it should be remembered, still has a smoldering resentment
toward Uganda
because many, if not most, of them believe that the death of their leader Lt.
Gen. John Garang in July 2005 was orchestrated by Museveni.
It is not clear at this point whether the Ugandan state believed or suspected
that Kazini was being prepared by southern Sudan
or even Libya
to lead a possible military coup against the Museveni government.
But as the background given by the Uganda Record yesterday revealed, quoting
news reports and analysis from two Kampala
papers, the Independent and the Observer, it was publicly known
that the state believed Kazini had a plan or role to play in a plot to
overthrow Museveni.
A source in Kampala has told the Uganda
Record this: "About Kazini's death, I one time overheard my uncle in
the army say Kazini may join Col.
[Samson] Mande and [Col. Kiiza] Besigye against M7 [President Museveni]. He
then said they [the state, presumably] were going to eliminate the 'rebels' one
by one. This is not the last death of this year."
The true facts of Kazini's death, then are as follows: Kazini had a night out
on Monday, as has been reported by Kampala
newspapers.
What they do not reveal or know is that Kazini had parted company with his mistress
Draru. Later, he got a call from her.He had been in his military vehicle but on
receiving her call, his instinct was to get into his personal vehicle, the
Landcruiser, and head to Namuwongo, the suburb in Kampala near the Industrial
Area.
Waiting for Kazini at Draru's home were three burly men, commonly referred to
in Uganda
as "Kanyamas".
It is these three men, not Draru, who bludgeoned Kazini to death. An eight
year-old boy at Draru's home provided that evidence to the police when it
arrived at the scene but somehow this version of events was slowly withdrawn
from the public.
The first person to arrive at the scene of the crime was a woman called Mabel,
sister to Jovia Saleh, the wife of Gen. Salim Saleh. After Kazini's murder,
sources say, Draru phoned up Mabel and said "Come and pick your
body."
The reference by Draru to "your body" in making that call to Jovia
Saleh's sister, starts to shed light on to true facts of Kazini's murder.
At the mortuary at Mulago Hospital in Kampala,
Gen. Saleh's aide, Capt. Juma Seiko and a Colonel in Military Police took
charge of the body. Mourners and family members who arrived to view and treat
the body were screened by the Military Police and as one by one the relatives
and other mourners arrived, the Military Police officer made a phone call to an
unidentified person to get permission to allow each person to come in.
Capt. Seiko, with a long revolver strapped at his waist, kept a tight grip over
the proceedings.
All of this raised the question of why suddenly tight security and controls
should be imposed both at Namuwongo and at the Mulago mortuary, if Kazini's
death was the result of what is being reported, a drunken brawl between two
lovers.
At the wake at Kazini's home at Munyonyo, most of the army generals and other
high-ranking officers who had worked with Kazini over the years appeared to
commiserate with the family --- except Gen. Salim Saleh.
Sources who claim to know what is going on say that it was Salim Saleh who made
the phone call to Draru asking her to invite Kazini to her home on Monday night
and early into Tuesday morning.
The haste with which Lydia Draru was arrested, taken to the Central Police
Station for interrogation, arraigned before a magistrate at the Buganda Road
Court, and sent to Luzira Upper Prison where she spent Tuesday night, Nov. 10,
raises the level of suspicion even more.
She seemed eager to confess to having killed Kazini. She did not explain what
the iron bar that she reportedly used to hit Kazini, was doing in her house.
As the media did what it did with Maymbo's death, publishing and broadcasting
the usual redundancies about Kazini the "fearless commander" and
"national hero" that Ugandan society and the media typically heap on
deceased public officials, the truth behind Kazini's death remains out of
public view.
But, as the Seer said, this is the trend that events will be taking prior to
that cataclysmic event soon to befall Museveni.
