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On 23rd January 2025, the Observer newspaper carried a news story which portrayed the Deputy IGG Anne Twinomugisha Muhairwe as an encroacher and degrader of wetlands; whereas not. They also implied acts of torture and cruelty on the otherwise dignified lady whom lawyers say is a senior citizen and Ugandan lawyer of high repute.
Their reporting further claimed that Muhairwe had conducted a torture session during which she bragged how she doesn’t recognize any other authority in Uganda apart from President Museveni, Gen Salim Saleh and First Lady Janet Museveni. The lawyer says this too never happened. Yet the newspaper asserted many other false and potentially defamatory things and in the process disrupting the Deputy IGG.
Bad for them, Naomi Namara Karekaho who speaks for NEMA, which is charged with wetlands protection, made it clear that the Authority for which she speaks wasn’t aware of the alleged wetland degradation in the Kajjansi neighborhood.
NEMA heard of the same for the first time through the Observer news story, which was replicated by many online news media platforms which are now equally facing similar litigation. Muhairwe, whose good name was maliciously disrepute, kept quiet and preferred to have the last laugh.
She has since instructed and hired the much-feared Kampala law firm, Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) which has assembled a large team of lawyers to sue all media platforms and news websites which carried the defamatory story.
Several online news platforms and websites proprietors, who wrote about the same are already having sleepless nights as the KAA lawyers prepare to begin the litigation which will result into big sums of money being recovered to atone the damage Muhairwe endured as her name was being disparaged and dragged in the mud even when she remains one of the few public officials who have no record of engaging in corruption and other inappropriate dealings.
The same Observer newspaper controversially reported that the environmental protection Police officer was made to kneel down and to apologize to a one Robert Asiimwe, who they falsely claimed was Muhairwe’s son whereas not. That the Police officer was forced to pay Ugx3m to Asiimwe for the inconvenience he is supposed to have suffered while being stopped from degrading the wetland, which also never happened, according to the lawyers’ filings.
The Observer newspaper’s source was the sanctioned environmental protection police officer, a one Alex Katungi and his lawyer former MP Mwesigwa Rukutana who authored and circulated a huge document demonizing the deputy IGG.
In their latest filings, Muhairwe’s lawyers say that the Observer carried the defamatory story in both its print and online versions including on twitter where it was viewed by more than 120,000 people; liked by 1,100; reposted by 382 and attracted not less than 200 comments.
The newspaper is also faulted for refusing to reach out to Muhairwe for a comment even when she is a public figure with a known official address. The lawyers say that the news story portrayed Muhairwe as someone unfit to hold public office on the account of being a corrupt law breaker, a fraudster and trickster; which the KAA papers show she has never been.
That this was too much disparaging to her being a wife, mother, lawyer and advocate of the high court of Uganda. That the false and demonizing news story adversely affected Muhairwe’s “international and national reputation especially as a public servant with an uprising career in a high level public service.”
The KAA lawyers say that she has instructed them to squeeze Uganda’s currently most sued newspaper (the AG Kiryowa crippled them recently) to pay up to Ugx3bn in damages besides unequivocally apologizing to her in a prominent way both in their newspaper and also on their twitter/X platform.
The apology must be conspicuously published and clearly indicate they are apologetic, remorseful and will never ever write such reckless, negligent and malicious stuff or content about the person of Anne Twinomugisha Muhairwe, the deputy IGG of Uganda. They have seven working days within which to deliver on all these demands or else prepare to face her full wrath at the commencement of the hearing of the impending civil defamation case.
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