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By Our Reporter and News Agencies
“They fired so many bullets. When I realized that it was bullets I fell into the seat. Brenda then suddenly screamed “Jesus!” and collapsed on me. That’s when I realized she had been hit.”
General Edward Katumba Wamala, made the above remarks Wednesday during a prayer service and vigil for his 32-year-old daughter, Brenda Nantogo who was killed alongside his driver in an assassination attempt on Tuesday.
He explained that, “sadly, I don’t know if it was God’s plan that my daughter should protect me,” but the attackers were shooting from her side and not his.
The former army commander and Transport minister told mourners he needed to “repent” because he “questioned God during the attack.”
With his left hand supported in a sling, he explained at his home in Bulabira, Najjera II: “I need to ask God to forgive me because in that moment I asked myself, I am a good person, I love all people. Why would something like this happen to me? I ask God to forgive me because I doubted him in that moment.”
According to Gen Katumba, the occupants of the car mistook the first bullet that they had to be a collision with a boda boda cyclist. After Nantongo breathed her last, Katumba stated he opened the door and fell out before he asked his body guard, Sgt Kalid Koboyoit to get out of the car.
After getting out of the car, Sgt Koboyoit fired shots at the assassins that he says had come back to finish the job. Gen Katumba said Koboyoit’s fired shots scared the assassins away and this gave the two surviving members of the car an opportunity to run and hide behind a house near the road.
After ensuring that his boss was safe, Koboyoit left the general and went back to the scene of the shooting to make sure the assassins had not followed them to their hiding place.
With no sign of the assassins, Katumba got out of his hiding spot and walked back to the scene of the shooting where Nantongo was still laying in the car. Together with his guard, Katumba was taken to a near by health facility by a boda boda cylist before being transferred to Malcolm X.
Katumba says he was scared to sit on the bodaboda thinking the rider might be one of the assassins
In his speech, Katumba thanked God for saving his life and his guard. He said Nantongo was his friend and the primary carer at home who planned their meals and looked after her parents when they fell ill.
Moving on, Mrs Catherine Wamala, Nantongo’s mother said when she had her daughter had died, she thought it had happened due to a car accident. Mrs Wamala revealed that losing her mother and daughter was so hard since she loved them both very much.
At the time of her death, Nantongo was working at Bombo Hospital. She was the forth child born to the Katumbas. She studied her primary school from Green Hill Academy before she went to secondary school at Nabisunsa Girls Secondary School. Thereafter she traveled to the U.S where she studied both her undergraduate and masters degree. She had a master’s degree in public health that she attained from Savannah Atlanta University.
Nantongo will be laid to rest 3 June, 2021 in Kikandwa kasaawo, Mukono.
The Independent magazine – Uganda contributed to this report
