Marriage Lawyer Diana Winter expressed disappointment in the Makindye Division Urban Council, Town Clerk Geoffrey Rwakabale for terminating the marriage between Hon. Anite Among and FUFA President Moses Hassim Magogo while citing unclear reasons.
In a letter that made rounds on social media yesterday, the couple had their marriage registered on August 15, 2022, but Rwakabale canceled it the following day. He wrote to the Registrar of Marriages for Kampala district informing that he had removed the marriage from the register due to “inaccuracies, glaring omissions and errors occasioned to him as a consequence of duress while processing this matter,” as the letter partly read.
Diana pondered about who exerted duress on Rwakabale and whether he followed the law before registering the couple’s marriage.
“From a political perspective, this leaves a lot of loopholes on the people holding powerful positions of government visa-vis others because, at that moment, the town clerk was in the authority of his office as compared to the Speaker. At his office, he was supposed to treat her like any other Ugandan, not as the Speaker,” Diana stated during an interview with James Onen on The Fatboy Show.
She was commenting on the termination of the Speaker and her significant other’s marriage after the clerk wrote that he discovered errors made as a result of being coerced, and halted its registration so as to carry out investigations.
Diana continued, “We need to stop equating the status of the position of power to people who come to us when we also yield our power bestowed by our offices. I believe that if he had quoted a section of the law, he could have saved himself from the public shame of appearing like he holds a position he had no power over.”
In the letter, Rwakabale aired that the couple’s application had inaccuracies and glaring omissions that led to the termination of the marriage and await investigations.
It is alleged that the said inaccuracies have to do with Hon Magogo’s first two marriages that he conducted under the Marriage and Divorce of Muhammedans Act concerning the acceptable Islamic laws.
“If indeed Magogo conducted the first two marriages under the Muslim Act, much as they are potentially polygamous, it is unlawful to turn around and marry under Customary law,” said Diana.
She explained that whereas a person can marry more than 1 under customary law, for church or civil marriage, they are mandated to first divorce the extra and marry 1 person.
In the case of Magogo and Anite, Diana advised that the couple had to be married under the Muslim act for her to become the legal third wife or Magogo had to divorce his first two wives and marry Anite customarily and in the church wedding.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, and Sarah every weekday from 6 am to 10 am on RX Radio.