The media coverage of the death on Tuesday Nov. 10 of the former army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini, was fairly detailed but in its detail, it did not ask the questions that should have been asked.

This is proving to be the biggest story in the country since the September riots in Buganda and with good reason. Uganda, at present, is a country awash with rumours, conspiracy theories, and a refusal by most people any longer to believe anything that passes for the official version of events.

The Red Pepper tabloid published a gory front-page photograph of Kazini's blood-soaked face and on the inside pages went into detail on the circumstances surrounding his killing.

Once again, the media was full of the familiar hyperbole, the overstating of praises and achievements of the dead that is typical of Ugandan society, leaving out the important questions.

Lydia Draru was, after all, Kazini's mistress. If indeed Kazini was drunk on Monday night and during their argument she hit him with an iron bar, it can be assumed that by the next day she would be full of remorse and, in shock, regretting what she had done.

Why, then, does she come out and emphatically state and re-state that it was she who killed Kazini? Even in taking responsibility, Draru does not give a strong enough reason to kill her man. She does not tell us that he is an evil man, does not say he was a murderer, and if he died, she whose welfare he was taking care of would be the loser.

And the Daily Monitor, which reported that Kazini was carrying a pistol, then fails or does not explain further why Draru, who knows what a pistol looks like and what it does, would still go ahead and bludgeon Kazini to death and, somehow, he does not draw his pistol to shoot her.

The media, even if for understandable reasons is under pressure from the state, should start to ask a few questions and not simply report blandly what leaders say.

Both the New Vision and the Daily Monitor published President Yoweri Museveni's call for an investigation into the reported car accident in which Brian Bukenya, son of Vice President Gilbert Bukenya, died on Saturday night.

"Speaking at the funeral of Brian Bukenya yesterday, Museveni said he was going to probe the circumstances under which the accident occurred, wondering why they were traveling so early in the morning," reported the state-owned newspaper, the New Vision.

This promise to personally probe the reported car accident involving Bukenya's son is reminiscent of the "keen interest" Museveni said he had taken in the 2005 murder of the lawyer Robinah Kiyingi.

Why would the country's head of state, burdened by so much on the domestic and foreign policy front, announce that he will personally probe the Bukenya accident? Why that accident and not the many others that occur daily on Uganda's roads?

A casual phone call to the police's chief traffic officer by the inspector general of police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, would be enough of a probe.

For those who do not know who Museveni is, this tendency to take a keen interest in specific crimes bears all the hallmark of personal guilt. That is how predictable Museveni has become.

In fact, his announcement that he is going to probe Brian Bukenya's death is the final evidence that Ugandans and a host of conspiracy theorists needed as proof of what really killed Bukenya's son and why.

The mood of conspiracy was added to by the President of the PPP party, Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali after he narrowly survived with his life in a car accident on Saturday Nov. 7.

Addressing a press conference in Kampala, he said: "Could there be a foul play in this? I am left guessing. I am not insinuating anything but I am wondering about the coincidence of the accident. I think there must be something fishy. I am a bit perturbed by the disappearance of any clue," Mr Bidandi said, adding: "After the accident, we could not see the motorcycle which hit us or the cyclist. They all disappeared. There is no way the cyclists could have disappeared after hitting us because we were traveling at 120km per hour."

Suddenly, the media that had gone into a lull following the heights of reporting during the September riots, is back on another high.

ENDS