Statement From Mr Ejiku Robert Following NRM Tribunal Ruling on the Petition Against Mr. Atima Lee Buti Jackson in the Just Concluded 4-September-2020 NRM Primaries for MP Arua Central Division, Arua City.

05.10.2020

My people of Arua Central Division, Arua City, I convey to you all, my love and salutations in God’s name. It is now official that the Election Disputes Tribunal of the NRM EC made a ruling in the petition that I filed against Mr. Atima Lee Buti Jackson’s election as the NRM party Flag bearer for MP Arua Central Division. In their ruling delivered at the NRM EC offices yesterday October 4, 2020, my petition was dismissed and Mr. Atima Lee Buti Jackson’s election as NRM Party Flag bearer was upheld. I therefore wish to take this singular opportunity to congratulate Mr. Atima Lee Buti Jackson for this victory. Mr. Atima did all that was necessary to ensure he won in this election regardless of whether the methods were okay or not. Sometimes I guess that is what it takes to gain victory in such battles. I wish him well while celebrating this victory and advise that he does not spend too long celebrating the victory because under that veil of victory is an insurmountable task of winning hearts that have been broken during this process. I surely hope that Mr. Atima Lee will find time to send me apologies for statements he made accusing me of conniving with the tribunal to get a verdict in my favour and alleged he was aware I had ordered for a celebration to kick off in Arua City. He made these statements publicly but I really don’t mind if he chooses to apologize privately because in those unguarded moments we often say things that we later regret. An apology will wash off the eggs on his face and free his conscience for those uncharitable comments made before the Secretary General of the party. All along as he made those statements, I was calmly seated in a corner behind him with my daughter and son waiting for the same ruling. Ofcourse it does not take brains to tell that a person who knows the outcome would sit around deep into the night wasting time that could indeed be used for celebrating a fait accompli. My composure in such tough moments often confuses people and they develop butterflies in their stomachs. I could see him pace around the tent severally before making those allegations. When the ruling was

delivered is when he realized, he had wrongly accused me after all. If he is an honest person he knows the right thing to do.

I must also thank the Chairman of the party HE Y.K. Museveni, the Central Executive Committee for the idea of constituting what has now come to be called the “Enoch Barata Election Disputes Tribunal”. This was a great attempt at trying to resolve complex and simple electoral disputes in our party primaries. I am sure the Tribunal experiences will account for the many changes that our party will make in party primary elections management going forward. Although this idea was good, it was rather late to allow sufficient time for the Tribunal to properly handle the many disputes brought before it. In my particular case the Enoch Barata tribunal working in haste delivered a grossly shambolic and pedestrian ruling which clearly showed me that the tribunal had its matching orders and needed to keep up. In what was a disappointing indictment of the tribunal, the facts, election guidelines and voters disenfranchisement did not matter to the tribunal in arriving at their verdict. When I read the ruling, instead of frowning or crying, I just laughed. It was a stark reminder that truth remains the single most humiliated and abused reality of our times. Forget the similarity in most of the rulings and the flagrant mixing of details, the copy and paste decisions can never amount to a purported ‘careful consideration’ of the petition. Also forget that I was baptized Watongola Rehema on the first page…hear this again, on the first page but even simple logic would tell you that if guidelines mattered, the difference in votes would have been wiped out to less than two hundred and voting in two villages would be substantial enough to tip the balance in my favour. In my opinion you need not start from an alleged wrong position to determine an outcome but rather from when the alleged wrong had not occurred. So the reverse logic of subtracting the figures is just untenable because the ruling too admits that there are things we could never know and tell until they happen. That would immediately call for a re-run in certain areas if not all areas. Mr Enoch Barata the Chairman of the tribunal in one of the moments when trying to calm down petitioners and respondents yesterday admitted to using SFC and CMI officers to investigate certain complex cases. As to whether those investigating Officers made a report and the ruling took them into account, we perhaps will never know. In areas where the petitioner’s claims made reasonable doubt, it would have called for the report of the independent investigators to shed more

light. Since the ruling made no reference to the claimed report of investigators, we can only assume, they did not have any and purported teams sent to the field were merely on joyrides. The pattern of majority of the rulings was to avoid re-runs at whatever cost and I am yet to learn about a successful petition from Westnile region and what the facts were. It’s not my work to doubt the composition of the tribunal but to pray that future tribunals be properly constituted and given sufficient time to handle their work. For now the City Registrar and the Enoch Barata Tribunal have handed us a party flag bearer and the party members must live with that. I have no intentions at all to contest the despicable ruling of the Tribunal because I knew before I filed the petition that I was not only bringing my opponent to account but also the NRM EC for actions of its Officers during these elections. You would have to be dumb and stupid to expect the monkeys to vote for burning of the forest in which they are domicile. To that extent I am reminded of a common saying in my local Lugbara dialect that loosely translates to “this is not your mother’s possession and so why should I care”. This is often said by those who never mind about the bigger picture and are quick to tell you off when faced with important decisions to make. They just denied my opponent a believable victory and left a deeply fractured party within the constituency and I hope they too will shoulder part of his burden to regain confidence if at all. The fly on the wall has reported that copious amounts of cash have exchanged hands during this process but I’m yet to identify any member of the tribunal with doubtful character currently or in the past capable of such misdemeanor. I appealed to the tribunal’s sense of reason but not of material enrichment because I will never pay for any plastic victory that cannot be sustained beyond the tribunal gates. In matters such as this, there are winners and losers but I think after the ruling of the tribunal, we had only losers or winners depending on which picture you are focusing on. One had ‘victory’ and another exposed the flaws in the system.

To my supporters who were the real troops in the trenches and physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially supported me, I convey to you my most heartfelt gratitude for your support. I know many of you questioned my move to petition the results of the election and I told you I believed in giving a chance to the party’s structures and systems to work and be tested for their believability. I believe they have worked to the best of their abilities inspite of the fact that they

were ‘handcuffed’. They were handcuffed by time, flawed considerations and decision making, unclear independent investigations and we may never completely rule out mediocrity. I sought justice for my supporters and they certainly did not get one from the Enoch Barata tribunal. I will not tire until justice prevails but I would like to ask the people of Arua Central division to quickly constitute themselves into an appeals tribunal and deliver their ruling on the matter come January 2021. In any way you look at it, the ruling was a victory for us all. We now know for a fact that the party members have their work properly cut out for them. In the coming days ahead, we will all make our decisions on how to approach the coming elections and whatever that decision will be, you must never throw away your vote because it’s those actions that deny you justice. You must exercise your right to vote and come out boldly to make your choices. Do not wish or dream about your choices but step out and actively determine your destiny. If you don’t come out and speak loudly with your vote, you have no right to complain about what you get or don’t get in return. If you choose money now, you will give away so much in return and do not forget that. You deserve good services and that must come with your future representative’s indulgence. For those who were in the campaign taskforce, you will remember that we went into the primary elections as dismissed underdogs but by the election time, our unassailable lead was evident. We failed in handing out an embarrassing defeat to our opponents for reasons we now know. We too could have overlooked certain things but we now know better never to ignore anything even if it looks and sounds obvious. There is a saying in Lugbara that ‘even a dead snake can bite’. So remember that. This ruling does not present us with an excruciating conundrum but rather opportunities to right our wrongs and a motivation for our active involvement in the upcoming general elections. Before you run away from the loud barking, take a moment and look back, it is just a toothless bull dog after all.

At a certain point during the campaigns, seniority in the party and useless propaganda was used to undermine our surging support but the party members knew the difference between reality and fiction. As a new party member I am grateful for the great show of support and together we will go many places. Those who are not party members but approved of my person and character, I should thank you too because it’s only my wide appeal and your belief that gained us the

ground in these campaigns. Some of you hated and openly opposed the idea of me formerly joining the party but still maintained your support and for that I am exceedingly grateful. You called it the party of the oppressor but I called it the party in need of good people. Like all the other parties, we all have our lows and highs but the undisputed fact for my decision was inclusiveness and a better regional outlook. When you puke all over yourself, you recollect yourself and clean your vomit. You then ensure that you use the appropriate anti-emetics in time to prevent any future vomiting. So the parties all get dirty but it’s the role of the members to clean them up. So the current hiccup for the NRM party will be overcome in time. All other parties too must overcome their difficulties and never question why they find themselves in the mess they are in because they were bound to get there anyway. I have only made it clear that if a party turns into a ‘tribal assembly’ without real regional appeal but an array of people in regions desperate for a change, I would advise my people against joining and supporting it because you will never even have half a chance at assuming any positions of leadership within the party even after the founders are long gone. The real oppressor comes dressed so well and is always attractive. Chairman Mao struggles to keep together what is left of DP because he has really never been accepted by a section of DP Members majority of whom recently left the party for temporary shelter under NUP. How appropriate given that their symbol is an umbrella. The marriage of convenience ended sooner for some of the brides who only discovered, the groom was ‘weak in bed’ and could not manage a polygamous task. They are now running around like headless chicken trying to find another marriage to wreck. So any choice that is made out of principle is welcome but we must not imprison our thoughts because of our obsession with a “non-living thing” called tribe to which we have given life in this country. At the end of the day we choose the devil we know and not the angel we don’t know.

To my lawyers Alaka & Co. Advocates, I must thank you for the representation and prepping of my petition. In particular Mr. Kato Fred Lukwago who represented me at the hearing and those both in Arua and Kampala who prepped my petition. I am sure you fully understand my decision not to contest the ruling despite the obvious grounds for appeal or further contestation. Now we move that to the people and as I often say, in the game of politics, it should not be about who lives and dies but rather whether the voters are convinced that our message

speaks to their aspirations. It’s that connection with the voters that really matters because we eventually get emotionally connected and no one can take that away from them. So thank you.

Above all I must thank God that we have successfully completed this phase and he will give us guidance into the next phase so that the good things we want for ourselves also go to our people. Like Pope Francis put it recently, “it is a good thing to be happy but it is even better if others are happy because of us”

Thank you all.

For God and my Country.

Ejiku Robert,

Aspirant in the just concluded NRM Primaries in Arua Central Division, Arua City.