Passing sentence, Magistrate Gukiina said that court had been reliably satisfied that Nsikonnene’s shrine had been broken into and his property stolen, especially given that the ‘mayembe’ was recovered by police from the home of one of the accused men.
The three men who intended to get wealthy by stealing money and tools of the witchcraft trade from a seasoned traditionalist but ended up having a 2-years-and-8-months jail sentence slapped on them by Nakifuma Magistrate Peter Gukiina.
While Vincent Golooba, Zakayo Oloka and Musa Muwanga, residents of Namasengere cell in Nakifuma-Naggalama town council in Mukono district were getting set to begin on serving their long sentence, the complainant Habib Ssezigu Nsikonnene is proudly bragging that it is the spell of his witchcraft that led to their arrest and incarceration.
The magistrate was driven to sentence them after they pleaded guilty to the charge which they committed in the night of May 31, 2025 when they burgled into Nsikonnene’s shrine and stole cash amounting to sh50m, three drums, six bedsheets, three pots and ‘mayembe’ (cultural fetishes).
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Passing sentence, Magistrate Gukiina said that court had been reliably satisfied that Nsikonnene’s shrine had been broken into and his property stolen, especially given that the ‘mayembe’ was recovered by police from the home of one of the accused men.
Nsikonnene was heard making a sigh of relief, saying that since he lost his property, he was hit by a setback in his work as his spiritual power was somewhat compromised by theft of his fetishes. Musa Muwanga has earlier admitted the offence and earned a lighter sentence of 1 year in jail.
He threatened would-be future attackers of his witchcraft saying that he has accommodated such attacks twice but that the next time, he will not take culprits to the law but will personally mete out personal justice on them using his spirits.
“In 2022, three villagers broke into my shrines and stole sh80m, but when life became hard for them as a result of my spell, they approached me and apologized and I pardoned them; I did this silently and nobody besides the concerned parties, knew about it,” he said.
What simplified matters for him, he said, is the fact that one of them, Muwanga Musa approached him and confessed, and residents wanted to subject him to mob justice but he (Nsikonnene) blocked them. One of the culprits Golooba, he added, is a fellow traditional healer who thought that by stealing his ‘mayembe’ he would take over his power and grab his clients.