High Court in Kampala will in seven days, deliver its ruling in the Nansana Municipality election petition in which victory of Wakayima Musoke Hannington Nsereko is being challenged by his rival Hamis Musoke Walusimbi who accused him of lack of academic qualifications to be in Parliament due to discrepancies in his names.
The victor, Wakayima a National Unity Platform ticket holder, garnered 67,862 votes while Walusimbi got 744 votes.
Walusimbi filed a petition against Wakayima and the Electoral Commission raising eight grounds which he later abandoned and proceeded with one major one for lack of academic qualifications.
In his petition, he argued that Wakayima was nominated when he did not have the minimum academic requirement of an Advanced Level of Education to be elected as a Member of Parliament.
After listening to submissions from both sides on Tuesday, Justice Henrietta Wolayo said that she will deliver her decision on the matter within seven days via email.
Court also heard that Wakayima who has never sworn a proper deed poll changing his name adding that even the documents he relied on were sworn by a different person in the name of Wakayima Musoke Nsereko Hannington.
Walusimbi's lawyer Abbas Bukenya also told the court that the letter of verification Wakayima obtained from the Uganda National Examinations Board was not properly signed as required under the law.
According to Bukenya, the verification letter was signed by only the UNEB Secretary yet the law says that it should also be signed by the UNEB Chairperson too.
However, in response, Wakayima's lawyer Richard Latigo told the court that the issue should be whether his client has gone through all the processes to effect that the academic documents he submitted to the Electoral Commission can be attributed and traced back to him.
Meanwhile, Hamidu Lugoloobi the Electoral Commission lawyer also defended Wakayima's victory saying that the issues that were raised by the Court of Appeal three years ago related to name discrepancies have since been rectified.
Lugoloobi noted that Walusimbi has since sworn a deed poll and rectified his name.
