Iganga’s Panadol returns to Parliament

By our reporter

The court of appeal in Kampala today morning ruled NRM’s Peter Mugema Panadol as the rightful elected Iganga municipality Member of Parliament.

In the 2016 general elections, Panadol was declared winner but was later dragged to court by the FDC candidate Abed Nasser Mudyobole citing bribery of voters.

The Jinja High Court overturned Panadol’s election thus declaring Mudyobole as duly elected MP for the area.

But on Thursday, former Deputy Chief Justice Steven Kavuma, Justice Catherine Bamugemereire and Justice Cheborion Barishaki on overruled Jinja High court Judge Magret Mutonyi’s ruling that had nullified Mugema’s victory.

The three judges said Mudyobole failed to bring sufficient evidence to prove that a one Ngobi Yasin bribed voters on behalf of Panadol.

“There was no evidence of relationship between Yasin Ngobi and the appellant(Mugema) who was found bribing voters,”the panel of judges ruled.

“We have not found evidence to prove that despite being a party chairman, he was bound to be working for the appellant.”

Mudyobole had also petitioned saying Panadol’s donation of  Shs300,000 at the Cross Over prayer on December 31, 2016  in Iganga was a bribe. However the judges ruled that this was baseless since both candidates were present at the said prayer meeting and gave offertories.

“We find no evidence that Waibi was an agent and acted on instructions of the appellant and received shs300,00 to be offered in church.”

It should be noted that before being kicked out of parliament, Panadol has started to sideline with NRM’s rebel MPs and in May, 2016 he nominated Kampala Central MP Muhammad Nsereko to compete with Rebecca Kadaga in the  Speaker-ship race, a move which was not perceived well by his fellow party members.

Following the incident, the NRM Parliamentary caucus tasked the party’s disciplinary committee to summon and take action against Panadol for alleged insubordination.