By Watchdog reporter
The proprietor of The Investigator news, an online news platform, Stanley Ndawula has ran to President Yoweri Museveni asking to be protected from the Inspector General of Police who has made it a daily habit to threaten him and his family.
According to the letter dated 26 April, Ndawula said over the last two decades , he has practiced journalism without any glitches but after his recent episodes on the Late Wilberforce Wamala and AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi ,for unclear and unknown reasons he started encountering serious life threats from police operatives and Gen.Kayihura.
“Over the last two decades, I have practiced journalism without any glitches. Hence my concern about recent episodes on the Late Wilberforce Wamala and AIGP A.F Kaweesi, for unclear and unknown reasons I started encountering serious life threats from police operatives and the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Edward Kale Kayihura,”Ndawula stated.
For a while Ndawula a renown Crime and investigative reporter through his online news platform has been producing articles exposing a rot in the police force which has dented its image in the public eye.
Last week, Kayihura through Courts of law passed a directive barring some online news platforms from covering Kaweesi murder before police concludes with its investigations and The investigator news was among the affected platforms.
Ndawula’s full letter to the president;
our Excellency, please accept my apology in advance to reach you through this means of communication. As the fountain of honor, I am well aware of competing national demands, its’ not possible to gain private access to you, hence the reference as above.
I’m a writer; reporter aged 45 years, to this end, the CEO at the Investigator Publications (U) Limited running an online newspaper – www.theinvestigatornews.com, my meaningful and gainful living. Over the last two decades, I have practiced journalism without any glitches. Hence my concern about recent episodes on the Late Wilberforce Wamala and AIGP A.F Kaweesi, for unclear and unknown reasons I started encountering serious life threats from police operatives and the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Edward Kale Kayihura.
The Genesis
Your Excellency, specifically, from March 20th 2017, I started receiving terrifying telephone calls and subtle messages through parties unknown to me concerned security and police sources. The aggregate were warnings to me to watch my back because of the salient information I share in the court of public opinion had clues on who committed the brutal offence. More ominous is that an action of last resort to stop me may be at best a kidnap, and worse to torture me into a vegetated state. As a loyal citizen, I am simply following Your Excellency’s open outcry of criminal infiltration in police. To this end our editorial team resolved to run supportive investigative stories, pointing out the rot and where possible, name and shame the culprits, which would be helpful to IGP to ‘clean his house.’
Those I have privately shared with the above predicaments advised that I appeal to the court of public opinion. I followed this hunch and made the alarm on social media platforms. I admit here that the investigator runs the series code-named ‘CIP Records’ (Crime Infiltrated Police Records). Along the way, the newspaper published a laundry-list of Gen. Kayihura’s most trusted operatives, namely SSP Nickson Karuhanga Agasirwe and SPC Hajji Abdu Ssemuju aka Minaana’s criminal records. Both of them have murder files written to their names and they were the very people at the center of Kaweesi’s murder investigations. Further to this was a report that the duo had arrested and presented ‘fake suspects,’ who, suggestively, had no idea of the location of the scene of crime in Kulambiro. The Advisory Columns too pointed at how best police can clean their image.
On the evening of April 8th 2017, I had received a telephone call from one Charles Etukuri, a journalist with New Vision and, ostensibly, Gen. Kale Kayihura’s social media Platforms’ Manager. This caller wanted to meet me. At my prompting he gave me a hint on the meeting agenda as sent by the IGP Gen. Kayihura. The following day, I requested two personal confidants one from Okello House and another from OPM to join me for the evening mchomo to witness a journalist being used to frustrate fellow journalists’ professional works. Indeed, Etukuri came and told me the IGP wanted to talk to me over the ‘negative’ stories about police. I told Etukuri that the IGP should summon me to his office but through his assistants or PRO’s office, but not through journalists. He further informed me that even the First Son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba was bitter with me. He warned that I stop the series or I will be stopped.
The following day, the same caller, insisting that we travel to Jinja where, the IGP was to see me. I reiterated that I had no intention of meeting the IGP but in case he wanted to see me, there are channels through which he could use to see me, like officially summon me to his office. The threatening retort was I quote ‘If you can’t look for the IGP, he will look for you and you wouldn’t like the idea’. Noticeably, I started seeing trailers on my foot prints including friendly insider telephone calls from police and security operatives as well as crime journalists, advising me to switch places. The civil but yet more overt action is the recently secured interim court order from Court by the IGP stopping me from publishing stories about Kaweesi murder investigations.
On Saturday 22nd 2017, I received two calls. One was advising me to stay indoors and another warned me to momentarily leave the city. Both callers told me that Col. Atwoki Ndahura of Crime Intelligence had succumbed to the IGP’s pressure to have me kidnapped. Tired and angry, I called Col. Ndahura who only picked on the third attempt. I asked him where they wanted me to report instead of tracking me with the use of arguably crime-laced operatives. He first denied knowledge of the development but I insisted with facts. He opened up and said I had become a stress to the IGP and the police work in general. I told him that the methods they were using only fitted the times of the fallen regime of Idi Amin. He promised to talk to the General whom he described as ‘very bitter and stressed.’
That same day, I had an appointment with a musician, Joseph Mayanja aka Jose Chameleon at Lubowa-based Quality Supermarket. While there, a detective attached to Crime Intelligence came first and took position at a nearby restaurant. Shortly afterwards, Chameleon came with his kids and a young man whom I know very well, is a police informer. Joseph explained how he wanted the Investigator to help him ran campaigns of his forthcoming concert. To say the least, I was shocked that he had called me over such a minor issue. He knows who handles that docket and they are friends. Even more shocking, was the telephone call I received from a friend from security circles, he advised me to escape, “you are just 10 minutes away from being kidnapped.” I confronted Jose Chameleon but he denied having any knowledge of the same. On my insistence, a fidgety and nervous Joseph evacuated me in his car. When we reached Entebbe Road, there was heavy traffic. At the end of my tethers, I jumped ship onto a boda-boda which helped me to flee towards the direction of Entebbe.
At Kajjansi, I called my friend who drove me up to Busega through the under-construction Entebbe Express Highway. My security situation was deteriorating under my very eyes. I had earlier talked to CMI Boss Col. Abel Kanduho who openly told me he couldn’t help. I had also reached out unsuccessfully to Security Minister Gen. Henry Tumukunde’s assistants, and Your Excellency’s personnel. Efforts to reach Gen. Salim Saleh were also futile. I was advised that either I seek your attention and or think of leaving the country. I know of many Journalists who have left Uganda because of similar life threats but I am not about to jump ship.
Why Gen. Kayihura?
After the above Lubowa incident, I was embittered and, around midnight in frustration, I called Col. Ndahura again. He listened to me for about 40 minutes as I lamented my ordeal. He sounded touched. “Ndugu Stanley, hariwo ekintu kigumire munonga. I’m also concerned.” Col Ndahura promised to call me the following day. On Monday, a one Wilson Nkeiza (whom my sources tell me is Moses Tandeka) called me. He asked to meet me on Col. Ndahura’s advice. That afternoon, we met at a restaurant near Bank of Africa in Ntinda. He asked what I wanted from Gen. Kayihura and I told him, my freedom is what I wanted.
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