TikTok video shows a man and his newborn baby who looks exactly like him in bodily appearance, The grieving father of a then 17-year-old girl who died at Wanyange Girls Secondary School in Jinja City has bemoaned delayed justice, almost a year after the tragedy struck his family.
Josephine Namuli was on the morning of June 7, 2022 found hanging dead in her dormitory in what Kiira Region Police spokesperson James Mubi, described in a brief statement as a “suicide.”
“This is a suicide case; the administration has no problem because the girl ended her own life. However, police is on ground to establish the cause [of the suicide],” Mubi said at the time.
But Philip Mugerwa, the deceased’s father, insisted that Namuli “was murdered by people who know themselves” and that “it was the work of the investigators to fish them out, although it has taken long.”
“The file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to give an opinion, why is it taking so long?” he asked in an interview this week.
Mugerwa says he will only find closure after knowing why his daughter was “murdered” and when all those responsible are brought to book.
However, Jacquelyn Okui, the Public Relations Officer in the Office of the DPP, said the case file had not yet been submitted by the police to the office of the Resident State Attorney, Jinja.
“The Resident Chief State Attorney is looking into the delay. The case file has to first be submitted to our office. Thereafter, we peruse it and determine whether Namuli committed suicide or was murdered, based on the evidence therein,” Ms Okui said in a telephone interview.
Mugerwa further explained that he was never helped by the school, adding that he entered into a contract with the school signed by the head teacher, but when he sent a team over, it was allegedly locked outside the gate while the headmistress reportedly decided to keep away.
Earlier, in a social media post, Mugerwa accused the school of being “insensitive”, saying no mention of the tragedy was made by the school in its end-of-second-term circular to parents, but instead described the term as being “successful.”
Efforts to get a comment from Wanyange Girls’ SS headmistress Deborah Basekanakyo were futile as her known telephone number was off early this week.
However, following Namuli’s death, she said: “Our student was found dead in the dormitory at 7am by her friends after morning preps- and called in the police who acted promptly.”
