Africa-Press – Uganda. The High Court in Kampala yesterday declined to grant a request by the runner-up in the Kampala Central MP race to serve area legislator Muhammad Nsereko with the election petition through substitute service for allegedly failing to physically trace him.
Presiding judge Phillip Odoki held that he was not convinced by Mr Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu’s argument that he had failed to locate Mr Nsereko since he had travelled out of the country.
“Having failed to show the date, the time, whom he interacted with when he (court process server) went to effect service, I am not satisfied that all reasonable efforts were made by the process server to effect service on the 3rd respondent. I will therefore, decline to grant the applicant the prayer to serve the 3rd respondent by substitute service and/ or by posting it upon the court’s notice board,” ruled Justice Odoki.
Option
Justice Odoki said since elections are of much public importance, he has since given Mr Nyanzi one more week to look for Mr Nsereko and serve him physically with the poll petition.
The ruling arose from an application filed by Mr Nyanzi in which he argued that the court process server, who was assigned to serve the poll petition to Mr Nsereko, failed to locate him at all his known places, including Parliament.
“The process server avers that he went to Parliament where the 3rd respondent (MP Nsereko) works, later to his known home at Old Kampala and his personal office at William Street but did not find the 3rd respondent there.
“He avers that he informed the applicant (Mr Nyanzi), who made inquiries and discovered that records at Entebbe airport indicated that he had travelled to Nairobi via Kenya airways,” court records state in part.
“The process server further avers that the 3rd respondent (Mr Nsereko) was seen on NTV live via Zoom while in New York on Saturday March 13, 2021 on a programme called Ebigambo Tebita.
The applicant said all reasonable efforts were made to effect personal service on the 3rd respondent but without success,” court records add.
Mr Nyanzi, the elder brother of leader of the National Unity Platform, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, is seeking to nullify the re-election of Mr Nsereko, citing at least 17 grounds of alleged electoral malpractices by the Electoral Commission and Mr Nsereko.
In the January 14 parliamentary polls, Mr Nsereko was announced the winner with 16,998 votes against Mr Nyanzi’s 15,975 votes. The margin between the two contestants, was 1023 votes.
