In a unanimous ruling yesterday, three Court of Appeal justices nullified the election of Kamuli municipality MP, Rehema Tiwuwe Watongola (NRM), for lack of requisite minimum academic qualifications to be in parliament.
Watongola has lost an appeal nine months after she challenged last June’s nullification of her election on the same ground by Justice Geoffrey Namundi of the High court at Jinja.
Justice Namundi ruled that Watongola failed to defend the authenticity of her papers after Busoga University, which allegedly awarded the disputed academic qualifications, disowned her.
Dissatisfied, she ran to the Court of Appeal claiming the trial judge did not properly evaluate the evidence on record and, therefore, made the wrong ruling.
Three Court of Appeal justices; Richard Buteera, Cheborion Barishaki and Paul Mugamba then heard the submissions of Watongola and Salaamu Musumba, the petitioner, who challenged the MP’s qualifications with an affidavit of Busoga University vice chancellor David Kibikyo.
In the affidavit, the vice chancellor said that in June 2005, the year in which Watongola claims to have been awarded a certificate in Public Administration and Management, Busoga University had not started offering the course.
The vice chancellor said the university later revoked Watongola’s diploma and degree she attained in the same discipline, using a forged certificate.
Watongola presented a Uganda Certificate of Education, diploma and degree in Public Administration and Management from Busoga University for her parliamentary nomination.
In their judgment, the three justices held that when Watongola’s academic papers were questioned, she never proved that the papers were authentic.
“After reappraising the evidence of the trial court record, we fully concur with the trial court’s findings. The learned trial judge rightly found that the petitioner [Musumba] proved to the satisfaction of the court that the appellant [Watongola] herein did not possess the minimum requirement of Advanced Level or its equivalent,” reads the ruling delivered by Rosemary Mareebe, the Court of Appeal assistant registrar.
“The appeal is dismissed with costs to the respondent [Musumba] and the orders of the High court are upheld too,” adds the ruling.
The judges also ordered the Electoral Commission to organize fresh elections for Kamuli municipality. Musumba told The Observer after the ruling that Watongola lost twice because she took the courts for granted.
“She thought it was just a matter of making an appeal. Court is court and one can’t win a court case when even a common person can see that he/she lacks evidence. My sister [Watongola] Rehema knows inside her heart that actually she did not go beyond Primary Six. We who grew up with her all know these facts,” Musumba said.
Interviewed shortly after the Court of Appeal ruling, a teary Watongola blamed her loss on ‘a prominent female politician from Kamuli district’ who she accused of misguiding her.
“Some prominent female politician told me to go ahead and appeal. I thought she would stand with me but she left everything to me,” said Watongola, declining to name the politician.
She insisted she has a degree and would still contest in the by-election.
“I have a degree. Salaamu should expect seeing me on the ballot papers,” she said.
Kamuli municipality parliamentary race attracted four candidates. NRM’s Watongola won with 8,175 votes followed by Musumba (FDC) 6,702, David Kammali Sibira (Independent) 1,704 and Prossy Naikoba Kanakutanda (Independent) 495.