By our reporter
In a recent reshuffle, the Inspector General of Police Martins Okoth Ochola reverted former Deputy Director of criminal investigations department SCP Geoffrey Musana to Human resource management directorate. To a lay man, this may not raise any eye brows, but according to our highly placed sources within police, this is a demotion and a sign of lack of confidence by the big man in the police force, read on…
Details have emerged why IGP Ochola has fired such an experienced detective from the juicy CID and put him in a less ‘engaging’ Human resource department ,where by you literally only deal with the police staff and less ‘engagements’ with the public (any one in police will tell you what it means).
According to our impeccable sources, it has been revealed that during the reign of former police boss General Kale Kayihura, SPC Musana was among the most thought after officers at CID, and infact, sources said,he was more powerful than her boss Grace Akullo because he had 24/7 free access to former boss Gen.Kale Kayihura. Afande Musana, sources intimated that he tried to interfere in several different investigations in high class cases and most times succeeded,given his seniority and closeness to the boss then.
For instance, during the trial of Jacqueline Uwera Nsenga in the High Court, Musana was put on spotlight when the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) clashed with him for allegedly disregarding its legal advice on the murder case of Juvenile Nsenga by his wife Uwera Jacqueline Nsenga.
Ms Uwera was accused of murdering her husband by running over him with a car at their residence in Bugolobi, Kampala in January 2013.
During the trial, Ms Uwera presented Mr Musana as her defence witness to testify against the State, yet he (Musana) was the lead investigator of the murder case!
It was the first time a head of CID testified against the State in favour of an accused in a criminal case. Police investigate offences and hand over the case files to the DPP for prosecution. The two government departments normally work together in investigation and prosecution of criminal cases.
Mr Musana told court that there was a long standing disagreement between the DPP and the police on what offence Ms Uwera should be charged with.
He preferred to charge the accused with causing death by a rush and negligent act on the grounds that she acted carelessly and negligently but when file was forwarded to DPP for legal advice, Justice Richard Butera charged her with murder. Musana disregarded DPP’s legal advice until DPP went to high Court and challenged the preferred police case against Uwera.
Later Uwera Nsenga was charged with murder and convicted to 20 years.
But the time the trial was going on, Ochola former CID Director was Deputy IGP following all the proceedings with keen interest and closely monitored Musana’s ‘foreign’ hand in handling some of the high class cases.
So when he was recently appointed Police boss, Ochola has decided to revert Musana from CID in order to stop him from interfering with future investigations.
“Really,Musana doesn’t deserve to be anywhere in police,if we want a clean police, tell me; how will he handle human resource admin.with his background of dishonesty, to the extent that he defended a murder suspect and over ruled DPP’s advice until DPP challenged him in high court,” an insider questioned.
Sources also said that Musana was also fired from investigations because she was undermining his former boss Grace Akullo who is currently Director CID.