In a brief interview and later in a more elaborate statement sent to The Observer yesterday, state minister for ICT, Idah Erios Nantaba seems to challenge parts of the official police narrative of events before and after the killing of her would-be assassin.
In the same statement, the minister demands to know the commanding police officer who ordered the killing of Ronald Ssebulime, her would-be assassin. She, however, also suggested in an interview that Ssebulime could have been shot and killed probably to prevent him from talking.
Ronald Ssebulime was captured alive, the Kayunga woman MP said in an interview, before she sent The Observer a longer statement yesterday afternoon.
Nantaba also maintained that contrary to speculation in several media, Ssebulime cannot be said to have been entirely blameless.
“Under whose orders was this man shot dead…Why did he run away from police patrol vehicles as they pursued him...Why didn’t he stop and declare his harmlessness or innocence?” Nantaba wondered in her statement.
She pointed out that if Ssebulime was innocent, then why was he trailing her with others?
By last evening, the Sunday shooting along Kayunga-Mukono road near Ggavu was raising more questions. Nantaba played back a recording of a telephone conversation she had with David Ssali, the police officer who commanded the 999 police patrol involved in the chase which ended in the killing of Ssebulime.
Ssali can be heard insisting that Ssebulime and his accomplice were armed when they were engaged. Ssali, however, does not explain how the suspected assassin was shot dead, and who gave the order to kill him.
PISTOL
“When we fired at them, the guy who was sitting at the back of the bike also shot at us with a pistol. It was me commanding the 999; I saw what happened; whoever is denying this I’m ready to give evidence,” Ssali says in the recorded telephone conversation.
“How many people have been killed in this government and the assassins have never been got? People should appreciate us because this time we were lucky we were able to kill one person; surely he was going to kill you,” Ssali told Nantaba in the recorded conversation.
Some media reported on Tuesday that Ssebulime was an innocent man, shot at close range moments after he had been arrested and bundled onto a police patrol truck. Quoting family members, it was also reported that Ssebulime was going to visit his children at St Andrew’s Kabimbiri SS before he was pursued, first by the minister and later by police, and later killed.
The suspected attempt on Nantaba’s life would seem to confirm her fears of a plan by unnamed people to eliminate her over her efforts to rid Kayunga of land grabbers.
Below is Nantaba’s statement, slightly abridged for clarity:
Account of my recent assassination attempt
“On March 12, I suspended my son and driver, Isaac who had been reported by residents of Kayunga that he was in company of people I had suspended from my political camp. I then requested the permanent secretary in the ministry of ICT [Vincent Bagiire] to allow Yasin, one of the drivers at the ministry, to drive me to Kyankwanzi [National Leadership Institute for the NRM caucus weeklong retreat].
But before the retreat ended, I had to leave for Kayunga to mobilise the residents to attend the Isimba hydropower dam commissioning.
By last Friday, Yasin was evidently tired. He then requested to go home which I allowed because Saturday is a Sabbath day [Nantaba is a Seventh Day Adventist.] On Sunday morning at around 10 a.m., I asked my bodyguard to drive me back to Kampala.
The fact is they attempted to finish us from a roadside grocery where I usually stop to buy my groceries and if God had not helped me to see the assassin fast enough before he got close to us, we would have been murdered.
Good enough, I quickly shouted on seeing a sports bike riding from Kabimbiri towards us and my bodyguard quickly cocked the gun and jumped out of the car. The assassin pretended as if he was heading to Kayunga/Sezibwa Bridge but then made a U-turn in a few metres, this time riding on the left side towards my vehicle I think to try his luck again.
At this time, Tugume (bodyguard) was on standby with his gun ready to shoot. The assassin got close to my car, passes by and parks right in front. Tugume moved very fast and stood just behind his bike. I quickly asked the woman at the grocery to go and ask this suspect what he wanted. She then reached out to this man and asked him, “oyagala ki?” [what do you want?], he replied, “where is Kabimbiri town?”, the woman responded, “yeyo town mwoyise Ssebo, [That is the town you have just passed.”
He then looked back only to see that my bodyguard was right behind him with a gun in his hands. He started the bike and rode off heading to Kampala. Tugume then asked me to drive and follow the bike, which I did. I drove off also and shortly reached him.
Here, Tugume waved his left hand prompting him to stop; he slowed down pretending as though he was parking by the roadside, again he took off at a very high speed. I then asked my bodyguard to shoot him or at least in the air or his tyres, but he replied that, “let’s wait to see whether he stops at Kabimbiri.”
To our surprise, the man just continued past Kabimbiri; that’s when Tugume advised that we follow him to Naggalama as he started calling his SFC [Special Forces Command] counterparts to contact Naggalama Police Station to cut off or mount a roadblock as we continued following him from a distance because he had to keep his eyes in all directions without losing track of this man.
After Nakifuma, he slowed down and branched off to the left just before Naggalama Police Station. I had taken a decision to follow him all through but Tugume shouted, stopping me, saying we may end up in their ambush. I stopped immediately and reversed to the main road and drove to Naggalama Police Station where the DPC [District Police Commander] responded very fast sending out police patrols to cut off all the routes. I was then advised to go back to the police station.
After two hours, the O.C station got information that they had arrested them. I then informed him that it was only one man who was riding the sports bike, the O.C replied... “Honourable, it’s true but he was later on joined by another person. It seems his accomplices were waiting for him from that same route; they are two but one has escaped and they are coming back with the other,” he said.
I then asked my bodyguard to rush to the scene to verify and confirm the O.C station’s report. Unfortunately, they found the suspect shot dead and they communicated accordingly.
But before all this, we had stopped right before the Sezibwa Bridge to greet Hon. Mutebi who was also heading to Kampala... as I was talking to him, a boda boda carrying two men riding towards Sezibwa bridge first passed by us and the two men waved at me.
Three minutes later, the same boda came back and stopped right next to us and they jumped off and greeted me and one of them asked me to visit Buyobe Village. They again took the direction of Kayunga; we did not mind about them.
As Tugume was standing behind this suspected assassin at Sinda market, the boda boda resurfaced again with the very two men and stopped a few metres ahead. As we were about to approach Kabimbiri town riding after the sports bike, we saw them again; one on the boda boda, the other standing on the roadside but did not get to see them again.
Questions:
1. If he (Ssebulime) was an innocent man, why didn’t he stop the bike when we first stopped him?
2. If he was going to visit his children at a school located in Kabimbiri, then how come he passed Kabimbiri and proceeded to Sinda where I had parked to buy my groceries?
3. Why did he again make a U-turn after passing by my vehicle at a very low speed; did he want to make another attempt?
4. Why run all the way to Naggalama from Sinda and then to Naggojje if he had reached his first destination?
5. “Why did he run away from police patrol vehicles as they pursued him; why didn’t he stop and declare his harmlessness or innocence?
6. When their bike hit a hump and [they] fell off, why again did they run to the bush as the patrol approached them; why not stop and declare your innocence?
7. Under whose orders was this man shot dead as eyewitnesses who told NTV yesterday narrated?
bakerbatte@observer.ug