[UAH] Ssemujju Nganda: Police escorting NRM to its grave

Ssemujju Nganda: Police escorting NRM to its grave

Columnists

TUESDAY, 02 JULY 2013 22:22

WRITTEN BY SSEMUJJU IBRAHIM NGANDA

0 COMMENTS

On Wednesday last week I nearly got kidnapped near my gate in Bukasa, Bweyogerere.

As  I was returning from Mengo after appearing on a CBS radio weekly talk show Kkiriza Oba Gaana (Take it or leave it), some men driving in a white Ipsum Reg. No. UAP 759T overtook my vehicle at a reckless speed and parked in front of me, denying me access to my gate.

They jumped out almost before their vehicle came to a complete stop, which alerted me to danger. Instead of branching off from the main Kirinya-Bukasa road, I made a quick U-turn and fled. I rang Leader of Opposition Nathan Nandala-Mafabi and informed him. I also informed my family and some neighbours. In fact it is some of the neighbours who helped me record the number plate of this vehicle.

I was later escorted home by Mafabi at midnight. I kept asking myself several questions without answers. Was it police trying to arrest me in this new fashion? Were they robbers targeting my vehicle? Or were these murderers?

One of the men I sent out to investigate who these people were, informed me that actually a police patrol pickup from Kirinya police post had at one time joined the white Ipsum but later left. I rang the DPC Kira and he flatly expressed ignorance about the whole incident. But for him not to respond or be bothered that an MP had nearly been kidnapped pointed to something fishy.

While at the Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Directorate (CIID) headquarters in Kibuli the following day for interrogation relating to charges of defaming the president and incitement to violence, I learnt that actually the men who came to kidnap me had been sent by Geoffrey Musana, one of the top CIID officers.

Musana and the all-powerful Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander Andrew Felix Kaweesi think they have a duty to punish any politician who dares criticises President Museveni. The game plan was to have me arrested at night when all my colleagues have retired to their beds, drive me around Kampala and later drop me in a very dirty police cell.

I was also told that that Brenda Nabukenya, the Luweero Woman MP, also accused of inciting violence, and Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga, were supposed to join me in cells that night or the following day. By having us arrested and dumped in dirty police cells, Kaweesi wanted to show us that he was very powerful.

And on the evening of the day I and Brenda Nabukenya appeared before 10 CIID officers, another boda boda cyclist, Med Mbaziira, was killed in Kito, Kirinya, about four kilometres from my residence. He was hit by the so-called iron bar hit men. The death of Med, whom we buried in Bweyogerere, brought the total number of people killed in this fashion in my constituency to over 50 in just two years.

You really must be a very incompetent police for you not to have resolved a single murder of this nature in two years. And this is just Kyadondo East. I am told that a boda boda cyclist is killed in neighbouring Mukono district every after three days. Police, under Gen Kalekezi Kayihura and the likes of Kaweesi, has concentrated on regime security, forgetting about its constitutional duty of protecting life and property.

That is why they arrived late when more than 30 people had been burnt by a fuel spillage from a truck at Namungoona roundabout on Saturday evening. If they had been told that Col Kizza Besigye was near the roundabout, they would have responded within seconds. It is the reason they have upgraded Kasangati police station to a divisional level with all sorts of equipment because Besigye resides nearby.

Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago now has a platoon of policemen (26) at his residence. On Saturday I went with him to attend a wedding and a patrol pickup with riot police deployed to follow him was part of our convoy. This patrol will soon follow Lukwago to his bedroom!
These days I see two police motorcycles following my vehicle every day I leave home to go to Kampala.

As a direct result of police concentrating on shielding the regime from protests, criminals have started looming large. They can kill with ease because police is busy running after Col Besigye.

In a simplistic way, Kayihura, Kaweesi and company think they are protecting the regime as the security of persons continues to deteriorate. By the time they wake up, they will be at the burial site lowering their beloved party into the grave. That has always been the outcome of a police that responds to dissent with terror.

Since these fellows went to school, let them google examples for themselves. I hope you saw Nantaba putting Museveni on a loud speaker when she called him to talk to her electorate. Check YouTube if you missed. 

semugs@yahoo.com

The author is Kyadondo East MP.

Next >