A team of security operatives led by Uganda Police and other sister agencies have arrested Jonathan Mwesigwa, the Private Personal Assistant to Apollo Makubuya, the former Deputy Katikkiro of Buganda Kingdom to help in investigations that the Kabaka of Buganda received a bribe from President Yoweri Museveni.
Mwesigwa, a lawyer, made the allegations in an article published on his Facebook page and circulated widely on Whatsapp and other platforms that when President Museveni visited the Kabaka at the Bbanda Palace, he took a bribe to the Kabaka that led Mengo to forego federo and settle for vehicles and wages for ministers.
Reliable sources say that Mwesigwa is being kept at Kireka where investigators are questioning him to provide evidence of the bribe. Bribery is a serious crime and the allegations, sources say, have the potential to cause anarchy within the Kingdom of Buganda and Uganda at large as they portray the government as one that gives bribes and the Kabaka as one who accepts bribes.
Mwesigwa must have had evidence before he published these allegations given that he is the Private Personal Assistant to Apollo Makubuya, who is a Senior Palace Advisor to the Kabaka of Buganda.
“We want him to help us in our investigations that the Kabaka of Buganda received a bribe from the fountain of honor, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Uganda. We believe that given his closeness to Owek Makubuya, he must be having concrete evidence,” a senior member of the JATT team that carried out the arrest said.
The offending article titled “Mmengo Chose Cars Over Federo to Fight Covid-19” was published on Sunday April 18, 2020 on Facebook and Whatsapp.
In the article Mwesigwa alleges that “you may recall that on February 5, 2019 Kabaka Mutebi II hosted President Museveni at his Bbanda Palace over secret talks—the official version of which was reported by the press. One wonders, though, why the eleven car consignment of i.e., eight Toyota Land Cruisers and three Toyota TX Prados was not declared as part of the deal! The answer, one believes, lies not solely in some fundamental moral failings of the current (mis)leadership at Mmengo, but rather in understanding why it chose to “hire” corruption and yield to Museveni’s apparent politics of patronage—fully knowing (B)Uganda’s objectives of severing his cords of manipulation, exploitation, encirclement and strongman-ness inter alia.”
Mwesigwa further alleges that the Kabaka reshuffled his cabinet that led to dropping Apollo Makubuya from his position of Deputy Katikkiro as a direct result of Museveni’s visit to Bbanda Palace.
“Two other immediate outcomes of that ‘visit’ comprised: the ejection from Mmengo’s Cabinet of those officials opposed to her current policy course—several of them senior in rank; and also, the creation of clogged Ministries to be run by yes men—all under the guise of meriting a small but ‘efficient’ admin,” Mwesigwa alleged.
The senior rank officer that left Mengo in the said reshuffle was Owek Makubuya. Mwesigwa was until then an employee of Buganda Kingdom who Makubuya directly recruited dispensing with normal recruitment processes at Bulange. With Makubuya’s sacking, Mwesigwa resigned and went on to continue working with Makubuya as his Private Personal Assistant, a position he still occupies today.
Mwesigwa further alleged that “Mmengo ought to know that the salary and car deal is disastrous to Buganda’s reputation, the well-being, will, wishes and aspirations of her people; and to the trifling harmony and unity with fellow Ugandans.”
