City scribe and owner of online news site Theinvestigatornews, Stanley Ndawula has written to President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni reporting about consistent life threats he receives from Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura.
Ndawula, a renowned crime and investigative journalist has recently published a series of articles exposing rot in the police force which has dented the image of the once respected institution.
These series of stories deemed to be negative by the police core administration were prompted by the murder of AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi who was shot on March 17 while he left his home in Kulambiro, a Kampala suburb.
Ndawula using his website began publishing stories about the assassination with connecting dots suggesting that Kaweesi death could be an inside job.
With police and its sister security agents yet to conclude the investigations but rather silent on the progress of the probe, police chief Kayihura through government rushed to court to seek an injunction barring media houses from writing any content related to Kaweesi’s death.
And The Investigator is among those affected.
Letter
TrumpetNews understands that Ndawula wrote the President about his plight on March 26 and the letter was received a day after.
Titled “Re: consistent threats to my life, family and persistent intimidation by the igp gen. kale Kayihura” he tells Museveni that, “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.”
Below we produce the letter unedited;
Your 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.
I am now a fugitive in my own home and country at the behest of the IGP, supposedly, a public protector. Adding, I may know of his personal deeds but the newspaper is not concerned and or interested in sharing those in the court of public opinion. Furthermore, it is a duty or a calling to help and support the fountain of honour on this matter of cleaning the rot within the police, as a public protector. Moreover, the newspaper has illuminated scenarios where, the police failed in the investigations. Col Ndahura and Nkeiza, concurred, arguably, that I had no problem but the General. They promised to plead and ‘calm’ him down.
On Tuesday 25th April 2017, Wilson Nkeiza called me and asked me to call Col. Ndahura. The Colonel told me that he was happy for me – Reason? “I have been withdrawn. I’m no longer on your back. I have orders from my boss to let you be… (Further confirming the General’s hand in all this)” He however said, this will only come to pass if I stopped writing and pulled down all the stories from the website. In brief, I am under command to buy back my freedom with a staggering cheque worth my two-decade long professional work, the main source of income for my family and fifteen members of staff as well as my legacy!
Your Excellency, for the last decade and half, I have been practicing and horning this skill as a Crime Investigative Journalist and can proudly add, I have never attracted a court case, simply because I only report about facts. It is surprising that other media houses and writers have made similar reports but are free of any intimidation. As I write this, several people who are suspected to be my ‘informers’ from security circles are facing the same threats yet the IGP Gen. Kayihura has not stated for any of our stories to be false. He simply wants us stop writing about the rot in the police, a matter of public interest, a public service. I will not flee my country, for I have no crime committed. I can’t leave my country because I dared to expose the truth.
The purpose of this letter to the Fountain of Honour, and Court of Last Resort is a humble request to protect my practice and my profession within the laws of the country. I yearn to enjoy my gainful and meaningful living, more so in conjunction with Team of Investigators in our profession; and to this end to retain a modicum of credibility in the court of public opinion. If I may end here, I said earlier Your Excellency; I will not flee my country. That means without your positive response, the unintended consequences of the IGP course is being left to the mercy of my oppressor(s), my children and wider family will be the worse without me.