MP Akena in a war of two women

• Wife Amongi shocked by Akena’s secret love child
  
• Speaker Kadaga counsels Akena, other woman
  
• I have nothing to do — MP Jimmy Akena

Betty Amongi, the MP for Oyam County South has a pending case at Kira Road Police Station of threatening violence (G.E.F 029/2014) against another woman.

The woman, a journalist with the Nation Media Group, is a mother of two of MP James Akena’s children. James Akena and Betty Amongi took wedding vows in April 2013. Amongi is also the chairperson of the Uganda Parliamentary Women Association.

That was about a year after Akena (MP Lira Municipality) and the journalist, Lynn Musiitwa, had broken up. “I broke up with Akena when he started dating Betty behind my back. That is the last I saw of him,” said Musiitwa when contacted about her current relationship status with Akena.

Musiitwa says she only sees Akena and Amongi on TV, and that is the closest she has come to them. So, she was surprised when Amongi called her (on her office line) and rudely told her to back off her man and her property; a house in Kajjansi.

“He is my husband and you have a child with him. I’m asking, what was your intention when you decided to get that child?”

Amongi questioned Musiitwa. “You should discuss that with him (Akena),” responded Musiitwa. From then, the fight shifted to property.

Fight for property

The house along Entebbe Road from which Musitwa was evicted with Akena's children

The property in question is a house located in Kajjansi, along Entebbe Road. In a phone conversation, Among tells Musiitwa, “the first thing I want you to do is to find your level and leave that house in Kajjansi.”

Musiitwa is then heard pleading for compassion, albeit in a state of confusion. She goes on, and on. It got to a point when she threatened to reveal an entire encyclopedia of knowledge about the house.

“You do not know how that house was bought. I’ve just discovered that you have been staying in that house for a while,” she said.

So what made her want to possess it at this particular moment? It is a question Amongi did not want to answer. She referred us to her husband Akena. And neither could Akena answer the question because “She (Amongi) has all the right legally now” as he texted to Musiitwa. He went ahead and advised Musiitwa to leave.

I can’t help you — Akena

Musiitwa was given a week to vacate the place. When she asked Amongi what and where she would go within a week with her kids, the latter was adamant. The exchange between the two women continued.

It hit the level of threats. It became a matter of life and death. Voices got stronger and steadfast. Someone was going to push the other over the cliff . You could hear their breath within the pauses of the conversation. “It’s for your own sake and your security and that of your child,” Amongi warned.

To Musiitwa, this was not a mere caution. She treated it as a threat, and reported the case to Police.

“I am aware of the property we share,” says Amongi. “We own so many properties together and I’m in custody of the land titles to the properties and plots of land,” she continued. She says she has documentary evidence that she owns the properties.

When asked for specifics about the house in Kajjansi, she gives several responses. “I do not know anything about it.” When pressed further, she admitted knowledge of it. “We have about three properties along Entebbe Road. However, I am not from Kampala so I cannot tell the difference between Kajjansi, Lubowa or such areas,” she explained.

“He (Akena) will know where to dump his children if he is determined to take away a shelter from them,” Musiitwa finally roared, angrily.

“But you are talking about children and not a child ...(pause)...What do you mean?” queried the MP. On the other end is silence, as if Musiitwa is still trying to place her head on her neck.

“It’s very complicated. You talk to him about it. He knows and he’ll answer all the questions you are asking,” she finally advised.

“You mean you have more than one child with him? How many...., which, who, what you mean....” We could hear the end of the conversation so we allowed ourselves to exaggerate the likely questions that ended it.

And the second child?

When Amongi started the fight for the house in Kajjansi, little did she know that she was opening up a whole can of secrets about her husband.

“He came clean and told me about his children and that he has no dealing with the mothers of those children,” says Amongi. It was after that that they made an “agreement and commitment in marriage.”

That is why she was perplexed when she heard about another child. And who knows what else she is going to bring out of the shell, because this story just started only two weeks ago and there is no telling where it will end.

Musiitwa and Akena have two children together, one aged four and another two. It isn’t clear which of the two children Akena declared to his wife Amongi. “My kids are older than their marriage,” says Musiitwa.

When Akena was contacted for comment, his comment was “no comment”. For a politician to only give a two-word answer is surprising. Perhaps, it could be fatigue. Is he facing a hard time ever since it came to his wife’s knowledge that he had not come clean before marriage.

“I do not know the children from other women,” says his wife Amongi. The statement is immediately followed by another: “He told me about all his children before marriage. They are his children and he knows what he is going to do with them.”

I’m scared for my children- Musiitwa

“I went to Police because I am scared for my children,” says Musiitwa. She is scared because with no roof above their heads, the children’s livelihood will be threatened. That is not the only threat to her children. A er the security warning she got from Amongi, she says, “I am not sure what she may do to them.”

For the last two school terms, their father has been paying their school fees. He took up the responsibility after the Speaker of Parliament; Rebecca Kadaga intervened and forced him to take parental care of the children.

“I approached the Speaker and asked him to talk to Hon. Akena so he could pay their school fees. Before that, he had completely ignored their existence,” says Musiitwa.

Recently, without Akena’s knowledge, Musiitwa left the house to tenants. She used the money paid to her to rent another house which is easier to access from her place of work. When we visited the house on Tuesday, the tenants informed us that people had come to evict them.

“They said that it was Akena’s house. But we told them that we have a landlady and we do not know any Akena. They threatened to bring the Police to evict us but never returned,” one of the tenants said on condition of anonymity.

The Kampala Sun