Kidnapped MTN engineer was a victim of mistaken identity

Ndawula with wife after return recently

KIDNAPPED   ENGINEER   MTN

Andrew Ndawula the former Switch Planning Engineer with MTN who was kidnapped in August 2005, after allegedly hearing private conversations before the late South Sudanese Vice President John Garang's plane crashed, might have been a victim of mistaken identity Saturday Vision has learnt.

A senior security source privy to the investigations revealed that Ndawula was apparently not the target of the kidnap from the MTN station on that fateful August 5, 2005 but rather found himself at the "wrong place but at the right time," and incidentally became a victim of circumstances, the source revealed.

It remains unclear who carried out the kidnap. However Saturday Vision has learnt that apparently the perpetrators of the kidnap had a profile of a key engineer who manned the switchboard on August 1, 2005, who they wanted when the helicopter Garang was traveling in crashed into a southern Sudan mountain range in bad weather, killing 13 people on board.

It was believed that the pilot made distress calls just minutes before the crash. There could have been fears that these messages might have been received by various persons, which could have resulted in the events that led to the kidnap of the MTN Engineer," the source revealed.

Efforts to get a comment from Ndawula were futile by press time, save for a few close family friends who mentioned that there was really no further course of action any more in the matter, which has been put to rest and they really thank God that the victim is alive and well, which is the most important thing.

Ndawula was kidnapped five days after that fateful crash and his whereabouts remained unknown. He however, recently resurfaced and wedded on December 14, 2018.

For several years, different media houses reported him as a missing person while others quoted family members stating he might have been killed. In an interview with the media a few years after his disappearance, family members said they had received rumors that he might have been killed and his body buried far from sight.

However, the family did not believe him to be dead because his body had never been found and different family members had had dreams of Ndawula returning home.

At the time of Ndawula's disappearance, his father Kigongo Musiige was working at the National Curriculum Development Centre.

Shortly after, he retired, and spent much of his time searching for his son and traveled to far off districts and different places searching for him, but all visits yielded no results.

The family also kept all newspaper clippings on Ndawula's disappearance, which were placed in a neat pile next to his bed. His bed was fully made and the sheets are washed often, in the hope that when he returned, he would have a clean warm bed to sleep on.

His company not only helped to search for Ndawula, but also placed numerous radio and newspaper adverts calling for information into the case.