Luwero, (UG):- For several years, former Luweero LC5 Chairman Ronald Ndawula, who is also the incumbent district Chairman for the ruling NRM party, has been embroiled in a fierce court battle with Pakistani car dealer Qayyum Mazhar Quresh, whose Hiraa Traders Uganda Ltd purports to have sold to him vehicles roughly 5 years ago.
The two had a business relationship from as early as 2011. Quresh claims that Ndawula, who is both a politician and businessman, was supplied with 5 vehicles and his outstanding claim stands at Shs478m as is disclosed in mediation documents authored by Rtd Justice Remmy Kasule, who the High Court had assigned to oversee mediation for the two parties to resolve their dispute amicably.
According to Justice Remmy Kasule, Shs478m is the decretal sum owed. Unable to promptly get his payment, Quresh in 2021 tried to block Ndawula’s nomination to stand for the Katikamu North MP Seat but the same was circumvented through a court process instigated by Ndawula who ended up standing against the incumbent MP Denis Sekabira.
This year, Quresh resurrected the whole thing and wants the Court to disregard Ndawula’s claim to be bankrupt so that he can proceed to recover his money from him.
For some time, Quresh has been struggling to prove before Commercial Court’s Justice Stephen Mubiru that Ndawula still has property, is still a rich man and therefore doesn’t qualify to be declared bankrupt.
And Quresh’s efforts recently got boosted when Ndawula’s well-known political adversaries, desirous to overcome him ahead of the 2026 elections, hung up and agreed to give evidence for him in court to illustrate that the man is stinking rich and not poor as he claims.
Motivated by the desire to overcome Ndawula using Court ahead of 2026, the two political adversaries namely Sekabira and Nadduli have accepted to give affidavit evidence in the same court all aimed at inciting the Judge to issue an order permitting Quresh to attach and sell off Ndawula’s alleged properties ostensibly to recover the owed sums of money.
Whereas Quresh legitimately wants to recover his money, the political opponents are equally seeing this as an opportunity to deflate Ndawula and politically overcome him once and for all so that by the time the 2026 nominations and campaigns kick-off, the man is deprived of any means to raise campaign funding.
This will be good for Sekabira for whom Ndawula remains the most formidable opponent as he prepares to seek 2nd term as Katikamu North MP. Nadduli is equally interested because he has never forgiven Ndawula for twice defeating him for the position of Luwero LC5 Chairman.
Ndawula’s coming into the NRM ecosystem, to the extent of becoming the Party chairman for Luwero, equally diminished Hajji Nadduli’s political relevance for Luwero and inside the NRM politics.
Nadduli has also lately allied himself with Nasur Gaddafi, the NRM CEC member representing the party’s youth league, who equally has his eyes on Katikamu North where he intends to carry the ruling NRM flag once again. Ndawula is interested in carrying the same flag come 2026, implying that he is one of the political adversaries the vastly unpopular Gaddafi has to overcome if his political ambition is to ever be achieved.
In their affidavits, the duo of NUP’s Dennis Sekabira and Nadduli help Quresh corroborate his claims on the list of properties he claims Ronald Ndawula owns in the same politically charged district of Luwero. These include a housing estate in the Kyegombwa neighbourhood which he says comprises of nice houses which are rented by UNRA, Dinka refugees from South Sudan and an NGO called IRIS which Quresh claims pays rent in dollars.
The other Ndawula possessions are listed to include a banana plantation, a poultry farm, a storied building in which he resides and a big secondary school called Everest College in Luwero Town Council. Nadduli and Sekabira, in their affidavits, help Quresh corroborate all this information. They assert that being leaders in Luwero and having competed with him for political office, they have sufficient knowledge about Ronald Ndawula’s financial capabilities.
Sekabira also asserts that there is no way Ndawula can be a poor man yet on the eve of 2021 campaigns and nominations, he personally paid him Shs1.3bn in a mega land purchase deal. To the politically motivated Abdul Nadduli and reelection-hungry Denis Sekabira, there is no way a man who can earn so much in one transaction can all of a sudden be declared bankrupt.
Like Nadduli, Sekabira in his affidavit implores Justice Stephen Mubiru to disregard Ndawula’s bankruptcy claims and instead authorise the Pakistani car dealer to attach and sell off his disclosed properties in order to recover his Shs400m debt.
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