Probe Oulanyah poison claims

Former Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah, 56, suffered multiple organ failures due to progressive, recurrent, diffuse large B cell non-Hopkin Lymphoma, a type of cancer of the lymphatic system, according to doctors at the University of Washington Medical Centre in Seattle, US.

In specific terms, while reading the abridged copy of the autopsy report on Tuesday, Health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng told the country that Oulanyah’s death followed failure of his liver, lungs, kidney and heart resulting from cancer, bacterial and viral infections along with bleeding in the intestines and that a missing spleen made matters worse. 

The minister’s statement refuted the March 20 claims by Oulanyah’s father, Mr Nathan Okori, that his son was poisoned. He claimed that his son had informed him that a woman from Acholi was used to poison him. This claim should have been investigated by the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) even before the President warned people who use difficult situations for cheap politics.

The President had warned that those who say Oulanyah was killed would be called to police to give details. The warning did not stop Mr Okori from repeating his poison claims. At the burial of his son on Friday, Mr Okori spoke plainly and with confidence as he reverberated the same allegations and punched holes in the abridged autopsy report.

It is disturbing that police are not taking interest to investigate Okori’s poison claims. An efficient police force would seek to interview Oulanyah’s father without fear of being misjudged to find out where Mr Okori is coming from with his poison claims, and what he knows that might be material to inquiries. Who is the woman he alleges administered the poison?

There is also a need to assure the country and the Oulanyah family that there was no foul play. The fact that Oulanyah had a pre-existing spleen condition does not foreclose that he could have died of another cause. It is also true that Oulanyah’s pre-existing medical condition could have resulted into the cancer of the lymphatic system, causing his death and not poison as Okori claims.  

Mr Francis Emuna also claimed that a person he did not disclose, blocked him from travelling to the US to donate bone marrow to his sick brother Jacob, and that by the time he travelled there, it was too late for allogeneic transplant. This claim too requires police investigation to expose the alleged person who blocked the bone marrow transplant and the motive.

The full details of the actual post-mortem from the US doctors have not been disclosed to the public. Dr Aceng read a summarised version of the report but did not read the autopsy verbatim. It is logical that government releases the full report from Seattle and a copy should be given to CID to support investigations.