NOTE: This article is a word by word extract from Jeremy Steven Ntambi’s twitter page. There was no editorialization done by the team at Techjaja
I have walked years of shame in Prof.Tickodri and Paul Isaac Musasizi as they grabbed this project (my final year project) (a student-led initiative) from me now claim to have started now called Kira Motors Corporation.
During the work Paul Isaac Musasizi always scoffed at the project and mentioned that it was impossible and I was being too ambitious…during the time we worked I was labeled a fraud and always threatened to remember he supervised my final project as a student.
While chasing this dream, we had moments where we went without food and had to squeeze for space with other students when we traveled abroad because we could only borrow money for the ticket with help of our parents and support from well-wishers and the university organs.
ALSO READ: Why Jeremy Steven Ntambi’s claims for the Kiira Motors idea could be a fabrication
With all the backlash and character smear by the very people we entrusted to supervise the project…only to be punished for daring to dream and innovate.
Chased from his own project
When I had traveled for my masters, H.E Kaguta Museveni came to support this and I have learned that I both Professor Tickodri and Paul apparently working out of the country which was not true. I now realize that they were setting the stage to claim the project.
Innocently I came back and thought that since we had support. It was now time to move this forward, I was only met with an immediate instruction never to come back to the project by both Professor Tickodri and Paul Isaac Musasizi the people I invited to supervise the project.
H.E. Kaguta Museveni I believe was hoodwinked because I mean it was a professor saying so. I remember being told that I would be I was a nobody and no one would ever listen to my story.
The record of the trail is all over the spinning wheel of history. But I realized I had to have a Ph.D to ever be heard. Just google my name, Steven Jeremy Ntambi. I have over the time written letters to Kaguta Museveni to no response.
ALSO READ: Uandan made Kiira Motors buses to hit the road by December
You might ask why now.
1. If you know the power of a teacher over a student psychologically you will realize that it’s not easy to come out, especially after suffering massive abuse and yet I must so that no one else has to ever suffer at the hands of lecturers stealing project.
2. I have learnt that been used interestingly as an example of how power Paul Isaac Musasizi can do that if he could remove me from a project I started, then who can’t be removed by him. Imagine that has left innovators of this project intimidated and many of them leaving.
3. I realize my silence has allowed this vice to persist and destroy what otherwise was envisioned as an ideal dream. This dream was nurtured when Tesla was still in idea form imagine it’s potential. We attracted the best of innovators who have since left because of this.
4. We are at a tipping point in the 4IR and I believe this project should be properly inspired a vice-like this creates a very unsustainable trajectory.
5. I believe this behavior that has been characterized by intimidation needs to be punished so that the young innovators know it is a safe place to innovate and not worry that a professor and his assistant will run off with their work.
6. A part of our lives as a team was sacrificed to see this project come to fruition, the masquerading claim is a big insult and i hope it can be corrected
Coming out with this has been the most difficult journey. I have been intimidated into death threats Kaguta Museveni if I ever bring some of this truth to light it is a price I must pay if that’s what it will take to give a voice to the next ambitious innovator.
The next ambitious innovator and next generation of a scientist who is scared into silence when funds have materialized. Kaguta Museveni I hope you can create a safe place so they don’t think they need to run away and give these to another country.
Prof. Kagonyera, Godfrey Kamuntu, Alfred Kabuchu, Peter Mugarura know these facts very well as I believe does Capt. Gasatura, Eng. Muloni, Hon. Ham Muliira.only but a few. These are people I had to reach out to for support when the project was in a lot of obscurities. I hope that as you really push for industrialization and Innovation you actually don’t just create a trap for people like us who have paid the price so much but will probably never be heard and are only faced with harsh intimidations.
This is a gross situation of obtaining a project and positions by false pretense. I long hoped and thought about the people who partnered. They would have done their due diligence and yet they continue to even honor them as heroes. Can you imagine how beaten down and scary to come out that has been?
“Hyenas were entrusted to take care of goats”
When you see people who simply got a student project and now turned it into a corporation by simply running with your dream and now receiving support from the state. These guys have invested well in PR and any attempts to even get a media house like New Vision or the Daily Monitor to get the true story out has been met with deaf ears and if any, been told, if I know how powerful these guys have now become.
The most interesting part is, they both knew nothing about what we were doing technically. We had to prepare all the presentations, even while we had traveled the only edits they made were about grammar. So even at supervision I actually to reach out to M.I.T. And, while the project was stolen, the vision was long lost because in the end, Hyenas were entrusted to take care of goats and when they are eaten, it needs to be known why.
During the project I had asked Prof. Tickodri to come visit so I could show him an idea of the plant used to built FIAT in Italy so when we came back he would champion this ambitious dream of setting up proper innovative manufacturing and as for Paul, he was a desk person who normally scoffed at the project and normally stated we were trying to con people by our plans of setting up manufacturing and yet when this support came, they now both claims to have had this dream.
ALSO READ: This is the cost of Yaka if you owned an electric Tesla Model X in Uganda
“Tesla has no reason to be ahead of us”
I expected a little more from Prof. Tickodri but was surprised when this project was aimed at changing paradigms in a lot of things. Tesla has no reason to be ahead of us, I just can’t fathom it. We both started around the same time and have a better advantage on many levels. But then, Kaguta Museveni you were hoodwinked to entrust a goat to hyenas, Professor Tickodri and Paul Isaac Musasizi, who actually have no understanding of this and where it is supposed to go. They only got excited because there were funds injected.
