The Court of Appeal has ruled that businesman Mohan Musisi Kiwanuka has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia since 2017, and is therefore incapable of managing his affairs.
It has also ordered that the businessman convenes a family meeting within 30 days to appoint a manager of his estate. The meeting, court ordered should comprise all Mohan Kiwanuka’s lineal relatives including wives and children.
The tough ruling follows an appeal by one of his sons, Jordan Ssebuliba Kiwanuka challenging the High Court’s dismissal of his petition to subject his father to a mental health examination.
Ssebuliba had petitioned the High Court seeking to have a mental examination of his father. But Justice Musa Ssekaana, after observing Mohan Kiwanuka for 30 minutes in court, ruled that he was of “sound mind” and dismissed the case.
Ssebuliba took the matter to the Court of Appeal which admitted new evidence including affidavits from Mohan’s biological sisters, uncle, and medical doctors.
Dr Farooq Maniyar, a consultant neuralogist who examined Mohan Kiwanuka said in his report he had seen visible signs of dementia. Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning — thinking, remembering, and reasoning — to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities.
Maniyar told court that Mohan’s wife, Maria Kiwanuka had told him that he had first noticed problems with his cognition when they had travelled to the US for their son’s graduation.
“He had difficulty maneuvring in unfamiliar places. On exmaination he had a “slow effect.”
Kiwanuka’s lawyers had tried to oppose the medical report but court deemed it sufficient and made the above orders.
Kiwanuka owns several properties in Kololo and Nakasero. He is also the propreitor of Radio One and Akaboozi Ku Biri.
Genesis
In 2019, Mohan’s eldest son, Jordan Sebuliba, basing on a 2017 certified medical record, asked court to pronounce itself on the mental state of his father on grounds that he suffers from debilitating dementia, a brain condition that causes memory and thinking loss.
Incidentally, the report by a UK-based neurologist was done on the request of Mohan’s wife, Maria Kiwanuka, after she noticed lapses in his cognition. Months earlier, Mohan had just ordered for the eviction of Sebuliba, his siblings and his mother from all his properties in the upscale suburbs of Kololo and Nakasero.
