The family of former Masaka Mayor John Tebyasa Matovu has refuted allegations that he was abducted with the help of State House and his whereabouts are unknown.
Led by Matovu’s official wife Imelda Gertrude Basudde Matovu, his elder son Dr. John Matovu and daughter Beatrice Babirye Matovu, the family asserts that the allegations are being traded by Matovu’s concubine Adrona Nyindombi who was taking advantage of his being a person of unsound mind to sale off his properties.
“She (Nyindombi) is not his wife. Whatever she is saying is a lie because she knows where Motovu is. She knows he is with his official family and two weeks ago she attended court when it cancelled her application for herbeous corpus (forcing police to return Matovu to Nyindombi’s home at Agripa House) so she cannot claim not to know where he is,”
Mrs. Matovu said.
She and Dr. Matovu were reacting to our Friday story titled; “State House Cited In Disappearance of Ex-Masaka Mayor. They were in possession of various court orders and judgments granting them authority over the former Mayor and his properties.
Among these a ruling from High Court Masaka in which Dr. Matovu succeeded in overturning an order Nyindombi had secured to have his father removed from his matrimonial home in Lunguja, Mengo – Kampala where he is currently back to Masaka.
In that application, Dr. Matovu revealed how they had to seek the attention of the President after several efforts to have his father removed from Nyindombi’s custody at Agripa house where he was being kept in deplorable conditions had failed.
In her ruling dated September 13, 2016 Masaka High Court Judge Dr. Flavian Joija agreed with Dr. Matovu that his father was released on a presidential directive after discovering that he was being kept in Nyindombi’s custody under unhealthy conditions.
“Matovu manifested broken hip, ruptured fingers and had not bathed for two weeks,” the judgment reads in part.
It on basis of such evidence and ascertaining that Dr. Matovu is a biological son, administrator of his father’s
estate and had official support of his mother/official wife that the judge maintained that Matovu should be left to enjoy his stay his matrimonial home at Lunguja Kampala.
“Perhaps what court also needs to consider is whether a person living with his children would be classified as being held in confinement, given one of the children is the manager of the estate of his father.
My answer to this is that this court cannot find with certainty that the children of the said John Tebyasa Matovu together with their mother are holding him in captivity,” the judge noted. “The children are entitled to have access to their father like any other child, the manner in which they gained
access notwithstanding,”
Justice Zaija noted before cancelling the earlier order she had been misled into issuing against Masaka DistrictPolice commander (DPC) directing him to return Matovu to Masaka. Mrs. Matovu revealed wondered why Nyindombi is coming up now yet the removal of her husband from Masaka was done way back in August 2016.
She revealed that if indeed Nyindombi was concerned about Matovu’s whereabouts, she should have reported a case of kidnap a police but to date none has been reported.
Instead, Mrs. Matovu says, she has run to the media which implies that she just wants to attract public sympathy after learning that they are moving to throw her out of Agripa house which she has been holding onto illegally.
“I personally oversaw the construction of that Agripa House in 1960s and I produced my last born in 1966 from that house so it pains me when I see someone calling a house I build with my own sweat her home. Under the law especially us Christians, a man has only one official home and this is our official home (referring to the Lunguja double-storied house),” she stated.
She said Lunguja is where they have been staying since she got married toMatovu in 1963 so there is no way Nyindombi can present Masaka as the family’s official home.
About allegations that Matovu is selling family property without consulting other family members, Dr. Matovu showed us a court judgment of Justice Jane Kiggundu of the High Court Family Division authorizing her to sell off some of the family properties to cater for Matovu’s medical expenses at Nakasero hospital, his welfare and that of other family members.
“Therefore, this court doth order that Dr. Wasswa Matovu, manager of the estate of John Tebyasa Matovu (a person of unsound mind) is permitted to dispose of by way of sale property described as Kyadondo Bkock 265 Plots 1300 and 1304 situated at Bunamwaya. The proceeds of the sale shall be used to offset the expenses incurred in the treatment of John Tebyasa Matovu and any balances to be put to further treatment and management
of the estate,” Judge Kiggundu stated in her January 13, 2017 ruling.
This was after Dr. Matovu attached mediacal receipts and loans he had taken in pursuit of saving his father’s after he secured him from Nyindombi’s custody. Matovu said that as a court-appointed administrator, he is only accountable to court and not to anybody, the very least to Nyindombi who is not an official wife.
He said Nyindombi is a pathological liar who is being investigated together with her daughter Dorothy Kyambadde Matovu by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) vide GEF 260/2014 in respect of various forgeries
they made and false statements they uttered in court.
“My father produced children from other women aside Nyindombi but none of those wives has come to claim custody of my father or property,” he said.
Dr. Matovu says Nyindombi forged and transferred over 700 acres of
farm land behind Kajansi Tea Estate. He said she was trying to transfer it into her daughter’s when they discovered the plot and Mrs. Matovu placed the caveat on the land. He said Dorothy Kyambadde Matovu had also placed a caveat on the land which court had directed him to sale and look after his father.
He said she claimed that she was a beneficiary of the Estae of Matovu but Justice Kiggundu ruled that Kyambadde can only become a beneficiary after Matovu is dead and wondered whose interest is she serving if she is not interested in having the land sold for the betterment of her father.
Kyambadde is also alleged to have formed a company JTM Heritage Limited and formed signatures of Matovu as assigning 20% shares to Dorothy in 2009 yet by that time Matovu had already been declared a person of unsound mind.
They also came up with a will purportedly made by Matovu bequeathing some of the properties to Dorothy Kyambadde.
