Ugandan Human Rights lawyer Isaac Ssemakadde of Legal Brains Trust (LBT) has trashed Chief Justice Alphonse Chigamoy Owiny Dollo’s apology to Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, describing it as a “Non-Apology” Apology.
According to Ssemakadde, the Chief Justice’s apology cannot be accepted because although he apologized to Kabaka Mutebi, he did not apologise to his subjects, the Baganda, who he ridiculed in his utterances.
Owiny Dollo last week made tribalistic utterances against the Kabaka and the Baganda while at fallen Speaker Jacob Oulanyah’s vigil in Muyenga, faulting them for allegedly protesting against government flying Oulanyah to Seattle, USA for medical attention, yet they didn’t protest against the Kabaka being flown in a presidential jet to Germany for medical attention.
However, Owiny Dollo’s utterances sparked off a backlash from Mengo and the Baganda, especially because the Kabaka didn’t fly to Germany in the presidential jet as the Chief Justice had alleged but rather via KLM airlines.
It is Owiny Dollo’s tribalistic talk and lies about he Kabaka that forced him to drive to Mengo on Thursday with an entourage of clerics and leaders from Acholi sub-region to deliver his apology, which Ssemakade has however rubbished.
Whereas the CJ turned up at the Buganda Kingdom headquarters in Bulange, Mengo, on Thursday to apologize to the Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga for having stated that the Kabaka of Buganda was last year flown out for treatment abroad using taxpayers’ money, Ssemakade terms this gesture as a “non-apology apology.”
Ahead of the much-anticipated rendezvous, Ssemakadde tweeted that Dollo’s wickedness will be exposed, “unless of course he goes to Bulange and withdraws his non-apology apology,” referring to the CJ’s statement of apology that appeared in Daily Monitor of Tuesday, 29 March 2022.
In a second update for his 57,000 followers on Twitter, the expert constitutional and human rights lawyer whose bio identifies him as ‘Legal Rebel,’ wondered why the CJ asked the Katikkiro to send away journalists, before he could deliver his ‘apology’, if indeed his apology was genuine.
“What’s he hiding? His remorse?” the Legal Rebel asked.
Ssemakadde then noted that the CJ looked keen to ‘apologize’ to the Kabaka but not to his subjects, including members of the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP), who he had equally attacked.
“Will CJ Owiny Dollo also go to Kamwokya and extend an olive branch to NUP which he attacked unreasonably?” Ssemakade tweeted.
The seasoned lawyer did not spare the Katikkiro either, asking why Mayiga, a learned lawyer, was eager to accept Dollo’s causal apology and just “move on.”
“It’s curious that the Katikkiro of Buganda, also a seasoned lawyer, asks us to “leave what was said behind us and focus on a dignified burial for @JacobOulanyah — well knowing that the question as to CJ Dollo’s FIDELITY TO THE CONSTITUTION OF UGANDA hasn’t been resolved at Bulange,” he stated in another tweet.
The influential advocate said that the meeting between Dollo and the Katikkiro did little to address the issues of freedom and injustice faced by ordinary Ugandans.
“There’s only one conclusion to draw from what was left unsaid,” Ssemakadde notes; “All these oligarchic elites are uninterested in, and actually opposed to, the PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLE & PROTEST. They want closed door business!”
Semakadde reminded Dollo that “An apology is yet to be delivered to political prisoners and victims of torture, and misrule.”
He laughed off Mayiga’s assertion that Dollo had been “courageous” to apologize, noting that; “True courage is to stand against Evil, even when we stand alone,” Ssemakadde tweeted