Court throws out case challenging election of NUP’s Sekabira as  Katikamu North MP

The High Court in Kampala has thrown out a case in which NRM Youth League’s Gaddafi Nasur challenged the election of Denes Sekabira as Katikamu North MP in the January 14 polls.

Nasur, who came second in the polls 10,771 votes challenged the election of his National Unity Platform(NUP) tormentor who got 18716 votes saying there was bribery of voters.

However, in a judgement delivered on Thursday afternoon, Justice Margaret Apiny ruled that there was no evidence to prove the bribery claims.

“It is therefore this court’s finding that the petitioner has not proved to the satisfaction of this court that there was any registered voter who was bribed by the 1st respondent either directly or through his agent with his consent,” Justice Apiny said.

The judge noted that the court had to be careful while entertaining bribery allegations in election matters , noting that because the prize for the winner is political power, witnesses may easily resort to telling lies in their evidence, in order to secure judicial victory for their preferred candidate.

She therefore ruled that the petitioner had to do more that claiming bribery in order to satisfy court.

The petitioner, Nasur had also asked court to throw out Sekabira for having been invalidly nominated to stand for the position of Member of Parliament but the judge threw it out.

“I have already found under issue one that this court is not clothed with jurisdiction to hear a complaint regarding nomination of a candidate as a court of first instance. It would naturally follow that this issue cannot be inquired into at this point, as such it is answered in favour of the respondents.”

The judge noted that having answered two of the questions in favor of Sekabira, the resultant action would be having the petition dismissed.

“In the final result, Election Petition No. 6 of 2021 is hereby dismissed with costs to the respondents.”