Following recent reports carried by the Bukedde and the New Vision newspapers starting Monday, December 29, 2003 I wish to clear the air on a number of issues and falsehoods contained therein.

There has been a lot of talk in the papers and over the electronic media concerning my involvement in football. The content has mainly depicted my personality and activities as corrupt, rife with bribery, unfairness and that I am the worst thing that ever happened to Uganda’s football.

(L-R) Villa's president, Mr. Francisco Mugabe and Treasurer & Chairman , Hajj Omar Ahmed Mandela (file Photo)

For the moment I wish to express my disappointment over the unfair and unresearched reporting that has come to characterise some sports journalists.

I wish to state that the Bukedde back page story of December 29, 2003 by Fred Kateregga was ill conceived and maliciously designed to tarnish my person. The allegation that on arrival at Namboole for the Villa General Assembly, I pounced on the said journalist, pushing and shoving him out while insulting him, is at best a fertile imagination. It only exists in the reporter’s mind that I threw stones at him. This concoction is meant to depict me as a mentally unstable person who doesn’t deserve a place in a right thinking society.

Calling into the Tuesday, December 30, 2003 CBS Akaati K’emizannyo programme, New Vision’s and USPA’s Mr. Joseph Kabuleta claimed Fred Kateregga had told him that I had beaten him up. This is completely unfounded. Since the Police are handling the alleged incident, I will not comment but will wait for the conclusion of the investigations.

Nevertheless, the reports of two other USPA members that covered the function, Fred Kaweesi and Douglas Bugingo of The New Vision and The Monitor respectively, should present a very interesting dimension. In all their initial reports, none of them ever reported Kateregga as having been assaulted by anyone – let alone by myself! All they reported was that some Villa fans had hurled angry words at Kateregga because of his biased and malicious reporting about the club – a strange kind of sports journalism that is driven by hatred, bias and hearsay. Both Bugingo and Kaweesi attest that the closest I came to Kateregga was by guaranteeing his safety and full access to the Villa Assembly even after some fans had expressed unease with his presence in what was by and large a card-holder-only event.

Ironically, the New Vision’s Monday Sport Opinion of December 29, 2003 ignored Kaweesi’s main report that they carried in the same issue. Instead the paper sought to deliberately distort what happened at Namboole on December 28. The writer – one Joseph Opio – who was never anywhere near the stadium maligns me as having a blemished soul and a hobby of bashing pressmen. Such is the extent of the biased reporting.

He claims I assaulted the Bukedde reporter and that my esteem for Uganda’s sports scribes is lower than that for my houseboys – never mind that I call them “house helps” and never houseboys!

Whatever the case, I have never made any such utterance.

As a businessman who employs and interacts with various categories of people, persons of diverse trades, professions and backgrounds, I do hold a lot of respect for all professions and occupations for which people do rightfully and honourably earn a living. I know that we cannot all be the same in life and that society demands interdependence.

I believe that the New Vision sports editorial sought to portray my house helps as a low calibre genre, which is erroneous and backward. I believe there is need for everyone to respect the honourable livelihood of others however modest instead of seeking to demean some jobs against others.

As a person who was present at the Villa Assembly, I can swear that never did anyone beat up Fred Kateregga. The said reporter was denied access to cover the Assembly and was urged to leave. I believe that such refusal is the prerogative of Sports Club Villa fans that form the Assembly. They surely reserve the right to admit observers and/or journalists to their events – including the Assembly, parties and even some matches.

It is my hope that the concern shown in this matter by the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA), Uganda Journalists Union (UJU) and the Uganda Sports Press Association (USPA) transforms into a thorough and exhaustive internal investigation into the conduct of some of their members.

I am sure USPA, UJA and UJU are aware that some of their members don’t live or operate according to the NIJU and the universally accepted code of conduct for journalists as summarised by the ICFJ.

I believe these professional bodies are aware of their members who blackmail and extort bribes in cash and other freebies from the people and institutions they are supposed to cover and report about based on the truth without fear or favour – but also fairly, objectively and in the most balanced way possible.

Such major lapses in professionalism – especially deliberate unethical and unprofessional conduct that borders on blackmail and corruption – should surely be of greater concern to professional bodies such as UJA, USPA and UJU.

The public should patiently watch and wait to see what USPA, UJA and UJU are going to do about their members who deliberately distort the truth, tell lies, attempt to forge medical evidence, demand money before reporting announcements and events of public interest, etc.

I hear there are some senior members of USPA who have been very economical with the truth – to the extent of not even letting their own association’s membership know exactly how much they receive in various donations, like the one that is now popularly known as the “BLANK CHEQUE”.

I have also heard allegations that there are also members of USPA – some of them holding executive positions – who reportedly campaign or unduly influence-peddle to ensure that they win journalism awards when there are others more deserving within the profession and industry. If USPA, UJU and UJA are genuinely interested in protecting their members and ensuring professional and ethical standards they should also be questioning the glaring biases and distortions in the work that is daily produced by some of their members.

Should journalists – USPA officials inclusive – for example be so ‘embedded’ to donors to the extent of running the donors’ private/personal errands and sucking up to their financiers? Shouldn’t this unprecedented development worry USPA and other professional bodies?

Is it ethically acceptable for journalists to knowingly and deliberately distort facts or unscientifically report hearsay as in Mr Kateregga’s claim that SC Villa “killed” an Akol player? Why didn’t these bodies pursue justice and seek to find it on the basis of the Police report in that case? Is it because they foresaw the obvious conclusion as an indictment of one of their own?

Is it ethical for a journalist to claim he was beaten – and for others who were not even present to witness the event to add to the imaginary fireworks -- when all eyewitnesses and the several reporters from the same media houses who attended the Villa Assembly saw and reported events to the contrary?

Are we as SC Villa (the club), and individually as fans and officials, not entitled to fair reporting from sports journalists and the media in general? How are USPA, UJU and UJA addressing our genuine concerns and interests about blatant bias, unfair and subjective reporting of events and issues in the sports world?

Consider this list: Blackmail, distortion, corruption, bias, outright lies and concoctions, falsehoods, forgery, dishonesty, etc. Are these acceptable “attributes” in Ugandan sports journalism?

I could go on and on. But let me end on this note: USPA, UJA and UJU would do everybody a great service if they let the Police do their work and let the law take its course to ensure that Mr Kateregga and the targeted individuals from SC Villa all get the justice they deserve. I hope this time these bodies shall have the courage to publicise the truth of the police findings however bitter and contrary they may be to their personal interests. Otherwise one begins to suspect something fishier than ordinarily meets the eye in this latest anti-SC Villa and anti-Mandela “crusade” by USPA’s Mr. Kabuleta.

It was the same Kabuleta who was recently heard on the CBS radio programme boasting that USPA now “has the money” – to apparently allow him use the association’s resources to pursue his hidden personal agendas and vendettas. This, among other things, sounds like an insult to the Police who are handling the investigations.

Is Kabuleta suggesting that the Police can only extend justice to those who have money such as Kabuleta’s USPA? Perhaps Kabuleta should be reminded that the money he receives in donations to USPA is meant for nobler causes designed to serve the greater good of all sports journalists.

How sad that so many other journalists, media houses and professional associations have been unwittingly sucked into all this shameful game by their less than professional colleagues pushing very personal (but unfortunately unethical) agendas under the guise of journalism!

Hajj Omar Ahmed Mandela,
Treasurer & Chairman (Administration),
SC Villa.