The east african week that was

A gentleman chooses to turn his home into a bank account with a direct deposit of 900 million shillings. His wife decides to withdraw and totally dry the account devoid of his notification. Gentleman loses his cool and sues wife for robbery. Wife denies the accusation and blames husband for being disrespectful to marriage secrets. That is the drama that has been caressing Uganda’s fight against corruption and theft. Mrs. Juliet Akankwasa’s case which was scheduled for last Tuesday was postponed to December 3rd on the pretext that her lawyers do not yet know the case against her since the prosecution hasn’t yet presented witnesses’ statements. On the other hand, anti-corruption teams are secretly thankful to her because hadn’t the money disappeared, perhaps nobody could have known that Mr. Damian Akankwasa had kept a vast amount of money in his house which was plainly unaccounted for. Now that the National Forestry Authority, which he bosses, says that they have no documentation of such money in their books of accounts, Mr. Akankwasa should better be prepared to illuminate where he got this money from and why he decided to evade a real bank. This investigation might well kick off when his wife is already serving a prison sentence and if he is not very persuasive, he might as well find himself sharing a cell with her. Still in Uganda, good news grasped the ears of every peace-lover when 22 children were freed by Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army last Sunday. The little children aged about 10 years are reported to be traumatized and very unhealthy. They are now taken care of by MISNA, a Comboni missionary near the Ugandan border in Watsa. Fr. Romano Segalini a missionary with MISNA reported that though people are overjoyed, he was taken aback by the violence that the children had been subjected to. Most of them have bad wounds and scars and all the girls had been viciously raped by the rebels. The missionaries are trying to bring healing to both the physical and psychological effects these children suffered while also trying to trace their families. Well, Kony’s desire to dethrone Museveni might have diminished, but it seems he is still causing pain wherever he runs to. A former MP in Kenya has threatened to sue the state for malicious prosecution. As it materialized on Thursday, Mr. G. G. Kariuki issued a notice to the attorney general’s office and the Provincial Criminal Investigation Officer who had ordered for his arrest in June for purportedly inciting violence. He says that his arrest was not supported by any evidence save for plain allegations that could not be established as right. It was sketched that on April 19, 2009 at Woget, Mr. Kariuki had uttered the words, “I will mobilize and bring together Mungiki youths, Kaya Bombo, Bagdad Group, Kalenjin Warriors, Sabaot Land Defence Force, Chinkororo and Jeshi la Mzee who have the power to overturn the Government.” Such an utterance was assumed to cause unrest and violence in the country. However, in a twist of events, the case against the MP was terminated in September when the prosecutor withdrew the criminal charges after they had failed to produce a witness’ statement despite court’s orders requiring them to supply the document. Mr. Kariuki however doesn’t believe that the case should discontinue at just him being declared innocent, therefore he is going to pursue the people who wanted his head. He is apparently going to sue the state of Kenya for the humiliation they caused him, the mental anguish he suffered, his valuable time he wasted by attending endless court sessions and all the damages he suffered. All these converted into legal tender, Mr. Kariuki will become a big time millionaire, that’s if he wins the case. Politics in Rwanda is quite very unique and interestingly unpredictable. Some politicians forget minutes later what they just said and their actions prove otherwise. Partie Sociale joined the Forum for Political parties, days after their leader Bernard Ntaganda vowed in an interview with BBC never to join the Forum. When questioned by Protais Mitali the Liberal Party president why he’d made such a dramatic u-turn, Ntaganda in his defence replied that he wasn’t an enemy of the government but rather a party advertising its own programmes. He also apologized to all those he had wronged and said that he believed in having a peaceful country and peaceful elections. In a very unrelated case in nearby Tanzania, it was reported that 142 new cases of swine flu patients were confirmed in a primary school in the province of Mwanza, a revelation which caused panic and anxiety all over the village. Pupils and teachers alike tested positive in the case which has been called the largest sample to be infected at ago. To calm the people down, Dr. Meshack Massi said that the area had been successfully quarantined and that a medical team had already been deployed to the village to gather more medical records and test samples in order for the government to take appropriate measures. The primary school was turned into a health facility because the Kwimba district hospital is far from the village while the village dispensary could not accommodate all the patients. Whenever I hear of swine flu cases in Africa, it scares me to bits because, Mexico, the mother of H1N1, a supposedly more developed country than most of Africa also failed to combat this rampant epidemic. Now how about poor Tanzania, Uganda or Rwanda? The highly debated land bill in Uganda was finally passed on Thursday amidst very heated debates against the ruling in parliament. The land bill which in layman’s terms will seek to give more power to the tenants over the landlords has its fiercest opposition as the kingdom of Buganda who is the largest single “landlord” in Uganda. The Buganda MPs were crestfallen when the number of hands raised for the passing of the bill far outnumbered those raised in opposition. They have however vowed not to respect the bill and have declared to put resources together to further de-campaign it. Once in force, the act will hand down a seven year jail term or a fine of 1.9 million shillings or both penalties to any individual who evicts or attempts to evict tenants without a court order. On top of that, the tenant will be offered a grace period of six months before an eviction order can be effected. Ends