By Charles Oundo
Peter Magomu Mashate, a London-based Constitutional and Human Rights Barrister at Law, also private lawyer to H.E Gen. Yoweri Museveni is a sad man.
This is after his 95-year-old mother Nalongo Yemima Kamiti Mashate died over the weekend.
The old woman had been nursing a line of illnesses including hypertension, pneumonia and of course old age.
Nalongo Yemima is remembered for taking part in the struggle for Uganda’s independence and liberation together with her late hubby Salongo Elieza Mashate, a brother to Prof. Dan Wadada Nabudere.
It is stated that Mzee Elieza Mashate, Grace Ibingira, Baraki Kirya and Sevo were great buddies at the time something which would later manifest in Mashate’s son and barrister at Law Peter Magomu Mashate who was Museveni’s private lawyer.
It should be recalled that Magomu Mashate was part of Museveni’s legal team in 2006 alongside now Chief Justice Owiny Dollo among others. He’s also known within state House circles as having defended Museveni in United Kingdom in a private law suit against him on one hand, and on the other, defended the government of Uganda.
On Saturday however, Mashate’s widow Nalongo Yemima Kamiti also passed on after three years of battling heart-related illness.
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In 1980 for example, the couple along with their son Magomu Mashate vigorously campaigned in Mbale for Museveni’s UPM and for Maumbe Mukhwana in particular who stood as MP for Bungokho county. However, like other places where UPC functionaries operated fiercely, even here, Maumbe lost the seat courtesy of massive rigging.
The couple continued backing Museveni’s aspirations all the way to the bush war until 2010 when Salongo Elieza Mashate breathed his last and that Museveni deployed State minister David Wakikona to deliver his condolence message to the family.
13 years down the road, even the widow died on Saturday and was buried at Namunsi village in Mbale City.
“My compassion and philanthropy is premised on the struggles my mother went through in raising us, graphically demonstrating the shackles of poverty that afflicted our family after my father Mzee Elieza Mashate (RIP) fell victim of the bad UPC politics of the 1960s” Barrister Magomu Mashate said.
Magomu is also the pioneer NRM diaspora league general secretary as well as a NEC member of NRM and also the pioneer Artonney General of Inzu Ya Bamasaaba under Wilson Wamimbi.
