Ugandans
1/5 It seems some UPC supporters think that the DP had legal channels of redressing their grievances because there was a Mr Ssekono in the EC to manage their compalints, and that Mr Ssekono was the Chariman of the EC and therefore a powerful individual capable of neutralising the manoeuvres of P Muwanga and AM Obote. When UPC supporters assert that Mr Ssekono was the Chairman of the EC, they are lying…as usual.
2/5 UPC supporters then makes reference to: “…we get entangled with piles of misinformation and disinformation about the election…”..I wonder which piles he is talking about. Contrary to the piles he feeding us on, Mr Ssekono was the Administrative Secretary – the big clerk of the commission. The chairman of the EC was a card-bearing UPC diehard Mr KMS Kikira who was strategiically appointed into that position as part of the implimentation of AM Obote’s plan titled “Proposals For trategy Before, During and After Elections”. AM Obote scripted this plan on 12 th August 1980. I have attached it for those that did not see it when we circulated it last year.
3/5 Recall that, on December 12 1980, handed back authority to the EC to manage the election process…this meant only announcing the results. By that time, 3 out of 7 electoral commissioners had been hounded out of their offices and they had disappeared, leaving behind 4. Mr Ssekono disappeared during the polling process. He disappeared in fear for his life after receiving threats when he refused to succumb to Mr Muwanga’s pressures to be party to rigging.
4/5 According to Mr Ssekono himself, earlier on during the polls, he had been hurriedly summoned to Obote’s home at Kololo to meet AM Obote. AM Obote told him that if he, Ssekono, interfered with the UPC’s victory he would pay with his life. AM Obote told Mr Sekono that he and the UPC had fought against Amin and they therefore had to come to power at any cost. Mr Ssekono had to abandon the exercise and flee the country. Mr Muwanga took over the powers of the commission onn Mr Kikira’s advice when it was realised that it would not be possible for the EC team to be unanimous on rigging.
5/5 Note that, the UPC were already weary of Mr Ssekono, and they had him in ther sights. In fact, on 9 December 1980, Mr Ssekono’s personal assistant was shot dead at his home in Makindye when he was invaded by 10 UNLA soldiers. So, when Mr Mulindwa keeps talking about MR Ssekono, does he really know what he is talking aabout?
Regarding the UPC candidates that stood unopposed, UPC supporters want us to forget one additional point. By virtue of Section 20 of the National Assembly (Elections) Act 1957 according to which the 1980 elections were conducted, every nomination required to be proposed, seconded and supported by at least 12 voters registered in the constituency. A voter is registered when his name is present on a register. There was no ammendment of the law by which that legal requirement was waived. Therefore, the declaration of the 8 West Nile constituencies as won by UPC “unopposed” was a case of a lame duck laying a putrid egg.
Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick
