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Written by Hussein Bogere
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Monday, 27 April 2009 06:40 |
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The mother has searched all mortuaries for the body of her son. His father has, but virtually lost hope. But one family source claims Andrew Ndawula is being held by state agents because he listened to sensitive security information on John Garang death
Andrew Ndawula, the MTN engineer, who has been missing for about four years, is reportedly being held “for his own safety,” a family member has told The Observer.
“I was told that he is often moved between countries for his own safety after he overheard security information that is very sensitive to the region. The last we heard was that he had been to Nairobi, then Kigali. He is moved around,” the relative who claimed to have been given the information by a security agent said.
Ndawula’s father, Kigongo-Musiige, however told The Observer that he felt the information was “not concrete.” “The information we got from MTN is that he could have listened to some sensitive information. That information may have to do with the incidents that came before the Garang crash,” said the septuagenarian.
Our source said that Ndawula was kidnapped by security officials because he eavesdropped on a conversation between the crew of the presidential chopper that killed the former Vice President of Sudan, John Garang, and some security officials in Kampala. The MI-172 chopper disappeared on July 30, 2005 after takeoff from Entebbe Military Airbase. The wreckage of the aircraft was eventually found in the Imatongo Mountains on the Uganda-Sudan border. All its occupants died.
Five days later, on August 4, 2005, Ndawula disappeared from his workplace in Bugolobi, a Kampala suburb. A fresh graduate from Makerere University, Ndawula was MTN’s Switch Planning Engineer.
It was reported then that the last person he spoke to on phone during the night he was kidnapped, was his girlfriend.
Police say they have no clue as to what happened. “We have the file, finally… All along it was at Interpol for some clues. But for now we don’t have any sufficient information to follow,” said Fred Enanga, the CID spokesman. He added that the Police would soon publish Ndawula’s photograph in newspapers asking whoever has information about him to link up with Police.
The absence of any clue for the Police to investigate or follow up only confirms that either the people who abducted Ndawula were too smart not to leave behind any trail, or Ndawula is alive and thus no murderous tracks to follow. Musiige however, appears resigned and is slowly coming to terms with the disappearance of his son. “Hope is fading with the passage of time,” said Musiige, a mathematics lecturer at Nkumba University.
“Every now and then there is talk of Andrew and whether he will ever appear. We wish, if he is dead and someone knows, we should be told and we forget about him. We hope he is still alive, but that hope is fading,” said Musiige, a resident of Nansana. Narrating the ordeal the family has gone through since his son disappeared, Musiige said: “People used to call us all the time. We went to various places to identify bodies in the first three weeks. My wife went with Cathy (daughter) to Lubigi, Namanve, Mityana, Bulenga Road and Masaka Road. In all those places, they found bodies of young men, but none was Ndawula’s.” Mortuaries in and around Kampala were also constantly visited. “We checked for any unclaimed bodies, none was Andrew’s. With the passage of time, we stopped,” he said.
Musiige then sought the hand of President Museveni, but in vain. The Observer has seen copies of letters he wrote to the President, the Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, whom he taught at St. Mary’s College Kisubi, and to the Prime Minister, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, a friend.
“I have never received even acknowledgement of receipt of my letters from those people,” Musiige said. In the letter to President Museveni that followed another one to the Principal Private Secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, Musiige implores for his indulgence “in this very serious matter so that our dear missing son maybe found, ALIVE OR DEAD (God forbid)!”
He said despite the family’s collaboration with the security operatives (Police, VCCU, CMI, JATT), there was no success, therefore calling on the President to order an operation to find Ndawula.
For now, Ndawula can only be declared missing because, according to the law, it is not until after seven years, of which four have elapsed, that he can be declared dead.
Ndawula’s disappearance came shortly after the family had lost another son, a university student, in a car accident.
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