{UAH} Hopefully, Cheeye gets noticed by the President as he so craves

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Museveni-led-me-to-sin---Cheeye-/689844-3882540-1f5741/index.html

By Ivan Okuda

What lessons have you picked from this experience?
The greatest lesson is that prison is a continuation of one's life when he is out. If one was a thief, he continues. If he was an academician, he continues that way but you are also not cut out and you remain part of society. Some people get better, others worse.
I met Omusinga [Rwenzururu king] Wesley Mumbere, [Opposition leader] Kizza Besigye, [former vice president] Gilbert Bukenya and [former spy chief Gen] David Sejusa during my time there and we reflected on why and how we got there.

What was your own reflection with them on how and why you secured yourself a place in prison?
It was because I stepped on many toes and I didn't have a backup.

What do you mean?
The system wasn't keen to protect people fighting this economic injustice, so I was swallowed up.

What economic injustice were you fighting?
I was fighting corruption since 1990s when people didn't see it was a big issue. Corruption is like cancer; if you fight it early you can win. We fought corruption by exposing in the Uganda Confidential and some people would say why are you fighting somebody eating public funds, is it your father's money?

Whose toes did you step on that landed you in trouble?
I don't want to go to history; I closed that chapter and forgave them.

The whispers out there are to the effect that you rubbed the First Lady in a wrong way and that is how, in part, your problems began. What is the truth?
The First Lady? Yeah, I had a case with her in court which I won but I don't want to go there. I want to look forward.

Are you suggesting you were framed?
I wasn't framed. The money from Global Fund that I used was to fulfil [President] Museveni's pledge hoping his money would come but it didn't, so I borrowed from Crane Bank to do the work. It was Shs120 million which I got from Global Fund and I borrowed from Crane Bank to do the work.

It was Museveni's pledge to who and in what context?
I don't want to go there, just know it was a pledge. When I got these problems he never allowed me to talk about the pledge.

Are you blaming Museveni for your problems?
Yes! Even the Bible talks about people who lead others to sin. Museveni led me to sin by making a pledge he didn't fulfil.

The pledge was made to who?

The details are not the problem.

I won't let you get away with such an allegation on the person of the President in a desperate attempt to rewrite history. No alternative facts here, sir!
Yes, I have said it and I don't want to go further. I want to leave the past.

I have read the judgments of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and they are clear on the 26 counts of embezzlement, forgery, false accounting
I think Mr [John] Bosco Katutsi looked at it legalistically, not with common sense. I don't know if people who do law do economics, but he looked at it legalistically that is why when we went before him, I didn't defend myself because he didn't look at it with common sense to see work was done.
Justice James Ogoola's commission of inquiry had Andrew Kasirye, Phillip Karugaba, Emmanuel Mutebile who found work was done and only asked me to pay back Shs241,000. You can't tell me Katutsi by any means, nature or standard is better than Ogoola.

Justice Katutsi, one of the most thorough judges of our time, didn't walk to the kitchen to convict you. He based on facts, evidence and the law which the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court upheld
By the way, I have been in prison and seen people convicted on evidence that is not there.

The difference is that you appealed up to the Supreme Court and your appeal was dismissed. Surely, the entire Judiciary cannot have conspired to convict you
We are now going to another water level. When I was thrown to the judges they also had their own way to finish me off because I had stepped on toes of Wako Wambuzi [former Chief Justice]. It is a cult; you attack one, you have attacked everyone.

For your information, Justice Wambuzi wasn't on the Coram that heard your appeal at Supreme Court. It was Justice Benjamin Odoki's show at the time and his bench had incredible justices, including Justice Tsekoko who ruled twice against President Museveni. So he could not have been part of State conspiracy to throw you to the dogs!
Let's not go there, they did their part and I served their sentence so what is your problem?

My problem is that you want to use this platform to malign some of the finest judges in the land, dragging them to your trenches
I don't blame the Appeal and Supreme courts because the best they could have done is reduce the years.

So you now admit your conviction was after all right and the sentence should have been lenient?
It was cruel and crude!

It was based on facts and the law that exposed you
You can't tell me you can get somebody who embezzled Shs110 million, you give him 10 years and order a refund of Shs100 million. Really?

That is the law sir! Are you faulting the judge for sticking to the law?
I am not saying what Katutsi did was wrong. He was part of a cartel to finish me off.

What cartel is that?
I pioneered revolutionary and dangerous journalism, and across history fighters for freedom have suffered so I paid the price of revolutionary journalism.

It is too late for you to try to make a hero out of yourself. You paid the price of stealing State resources meant for the less privileged! Can you respond to the question of your forgeries?
What happened is that there was a pledge Museveni made and didn't fulfil and I made a foolish mistake of believing he can't fail to fulfil a pledge.
I went out of my way to fulfil Museveni's pledge and to find excuses to lock me up the judges went for the law. I got a consultancy from the Global Fund secretariat and received Shs120 million to investigate if money sent was used properly.
I would send people to the district and because it was kind of investigative journalism they wouldn't announce themselves. So the courts based on that to say I didn't work.

It is not as romantic as you paint it. You claimed you transported people on a caterpillar wheel loader that uses diesel and at another time it used petrol. To use Justice Katutsi' words, "is this stupidity or impunity?"
People brought receipts and I didn't know if they used tractors.

You were the sole signatory of that company, your wife its secretary and withdrawals were made. When you were asked where the money went you feigned ignorance and told the judge to do what he wanted
The issue of signatures is different. I don't know where those receipts came from. You heard Museveni say in the Hassan Basajjabalaba case he signed documents taken to him by Jolly Kabatsi and someone called Muhozi. If Museveni can sign without attention to detail, what about me?

Then you claimed to have used a car registered under UAE 684T that uses petrol and Mengo Hospital later proved the car belongs to it and uses diesel. They had never hired to you
That car was brought by someone working for me.

That was Jeffrey Nkurunziza who testified to court how you used him like a robot for your thieving ways
Yes, he was a signatory to the receipts. I closed that chapter. The court convicted me and God used them. What I got in prison was better than what I would have got had I stayed out.

May be so society was saved from you and the court saved you from yourself
I don't know. It is God who directs. I am not corrupt. I was convicted legalistically.

Of course a conviction would have to be based on the law
I don't know how to explain to you. I am not denying I did something foolish but the one who caused the sin is Museveni.

Museveni didn't forge the bank balances of the company or make fictitious accountability for no work done. Why don't you carry your own cross?
But the Ogoola commission didn't fault me.

A commission of inquiry's findings cannot supersede a conviction that was approved by the Supreme Court
Ok that is now history so take it the way you want. I was wrongly convicted and served their sentence.

You have loitered all over the media since your release maligning judges and the President, refusing to carry your cross until now
Katutsi was used by God to make me achieve what I achieved.

He was used by God who guided him to protect society from people like you
Take it that way; we can stop the interview on that note. That is ok young man.

Before you walk away sir, the court in sentencing you held that your behaviour needed monitoring in prison and that when you reform you can return to society. Have you reformed?
Yes I am now reformed; I learnt from prison.

Can you now say sorry to Ugandans for stealing monies meant for TB, malaria and HIV/Aids? There are victims who might have died because you denied them chance to live another day
There is no sorry, I didn't commit crime.

You just admitted you made foolish mistakes!
That was a mistake but I told you I borrowed from the bank to do work.

Which work did you do?
The people from the Global Fund didn't complain. Do you know that?

Which work was done?
Whether it was done or not, that is history. I am looking forward.

Can you apologise to the country now?
There was no injury caused. I fulfilled Museveni's pledge and was convicted for my foolish mistake.

This is the tragedy with your dishonesty sir. The court system you are attacking now acquitted you of rape and kidnap of a woman in Kampala so you cannot turn now and demonise it
I don't think that really I would like to go back to the past, I look forward. Aren't you satisfied that I didn't escape from jail and served my sentence fully? Are you unhappy I am out? Did you want me to die in jail?

At the heat of presidential campaigns, through your newspaper you wrote an obnoxious story claiming Anslem Besigye had died in Nairobi and was being preserved in a fridge by Winnie Byanyima. How more callous could you have been to humanity Mr Cheeye?
I may regret that one because I wrote that Anslem was dead and Winnie was keeping him in a fridge but I got that information from a respected top NRM official. I feel sorry for that.

Your standard excuse is, 'I was hoodwinked'. You are a brilliant man so surely you can't keep saying you were misled
I will meet Winnie and say sorry to her. What you should know is that I paid a price for journalism. A former minister offered me a lock-up shop and a city tycoon offered me a shop, but I refused so as to be a clean journalist. There is no estate you will link to me or square mile where I have evicted people. My poverty is evidence of my honesty.

Other veterans like Wafula Oguttu and Onyango Obbo paid that price but were not sent to jail over corruption like you because they were clean
The Onyango Obbos didn't name names. I was the first to name people. They were like these quack NGOs that carry out stupid corruption campaigns where they make general statements. I dare them to name people so they feel my pain.

How did you transition from journalism to intelligence?
Museveni called me thinking we would work to fight corruption from within but he was hoodwinking me.

What is your opinion of him now?
He is a good man who had good intentions but lacked the scientific, economic knowledge so he cannot tackle interest rates, unemployment, land question, foreign exchange, increasing exports yet he has the zeal.

Have you talked to him since you got into trouble?
I wrote to him while in prison asking to be pardoned, but instead he pardoned killers and Prof Ssenyonga who as PS ministry of Agriculture embezzled Shs20 million.

On Museveni, Amama

Did you feel betrayed by your leader or that yours was a case of small fish being hunted as the crocs swim?

I am happy he had a hard heart and stiff neck that saw me sail through to the next island. He led me to a mistake and believed what those who fought me told him. One time Amelia Kyambadde asked me how I could issue receipts for tractors basing on what she was reading in the papers. It is strange how when the papers write about them they dismiss and when it was about me they believed.

Were you surprised by former prime minister Amama Mbabazi falling out with Gen Museveni?

Yes because when I told him then as our line minister he said, "Cheeye, the President I know cannot betray anybody." He repeatedly told me, "The Museveni I serve cannot betray a human being." I am glad he saw my point at last.

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