Court nullifies NUP’s Ndiwalana election as Bukomansimbi North MP

MASAKA, UGANDA: The High Court in Masaka has nullified the election of Ms. Christine Nandagire Ndiwalana as the Member of Parliament for Bukomansimbi North Constituency and order fresh elections in due course.

The election petition against Ndiwalana of the National Unity Platform (NUP) was filed by her rival, Ms. Ruth Katushabe of the National Resistance Movement-NRM on grounds that the former lacked the required academic qualifications to stand as an aspirant in the constituency polls.

In her application, Katushabe argued that the Electoral Commission nominated her rival based on the non-existent Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education-UACE certificate, which she purportedly obtained in 1997 yet she never enrolled for A level.

She argued that while Ndiwalana attended a Nursing and Midwifery course, she duped the Electoral Commission with an uncertified Advanced level certificate she claimed to have obtained from Uganda National Examinations Board-UNEB.

Katushabe also argued that although Ndiwalana attended ordinary secondary education level, her admission to senior one was invalid because she had failed Primary Leaving Examinations-PLE, and did not qualify for admission to secondary.

She also told the court that besides having questionable academic papers, Ndiwalana has variations in the names on her academic papers, which cast doubt on her true identity and authenticity of the qualification papers.

Through her lawyer, Godfrey Kandeebe, Katushabe sought the court to nullify the election and declare her winner arguing that the respondent was irregularly nominated.

In her defence, Ndiwalana, who ran on the National Unity Platform-NUP party ticket told the court that she presented a certificate of Nursing and Midwifery Course from St Francis Hospital Nsambya, that was dully verified as an equivalent of Advanced level of education.

She however contradicted herself in one of her affidavits, saying that she sat for Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education-UACE in 1998, which she couldn’t substantiate with certified certificates from UNEB.

The Bukomansimbi district Electoral Commission Returning Officer, Easter Asiimwe complicated the matters when she told the court that Nandigire was nominated based on minimum academic qualifications of a Senior six certificate, which she failed to present before the court.

Presiding over the ruling on Tuesday, Masaka High Court Judge Ketra Katunguka affirmed Ms Ndiwalana was invalidly nominated to contest and yet she lacked the minimum academic qualification of Senior Six or its equivalent.

Ms Ndiwalana’s legal team led by Medard Lubega Ssegonna and Ssekanjako Abubakar had told court that the MP had a certificate acquired from St Francis Nsambya Nursing School, which she used as an equivalent for A-Level to be nominated.

However, Ms Katushabe’s lawyers led by Geoffrey Ntambirweki Kandebe argued that the certificate had since expired having been issued to her on April 29, 1998 and it could only run for five years, which the judge agreed with.

“An expired document is, therefore, invalid since the document she presented at her nomination had expired in April 2003. I have also looked at the said document (certificate of completion) which is not an academic qualification neither was signed, stamped nor sealed,” ruled the judge.

“The certificate has to be owned by the issuing body by either a stamp, signature or a seal and since this did not have these features it makes it questionable even when it was not expired,” she said.

Ms Katushabe said she was ready to contest again and thanked God for fighting for her victory.

Ndiwalana who spoke to her lawyers at Masaka High Court shortly after the ruling indicated that she was considering an appeal arguing that the court based its decision on mere technicalities, which she says does not make her less educated for the position of MP.