{UAH} Justice Ogoola: crime preventers illegal
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Justice Ogoola: crime preventers illegal
Written by OUR REPORTER & URN
Justice James OgoolaJustice James Munange Ogoola, a former Principal Judge has joined the growing list of critics questioning the legality and purpose of crime preventers ahead of next year's elections.
Ogoola told a news conference at Protea hotel in Kampala on Wednesday that there is no known law and legal framework under which crime preventer operate.
"If it were in our power, we would have no crime preventers of the kind that have come up suddenly from nowhere. We believe the police has a function to play, we believe the police are trained, they are deployed according to rules, they have legislation and law that govern what they do.
If we felt that they are not sufficient for the occasion, there could be other ways such as bring a law to be debated by the representative of the people in parliament to ensure what kind of crime preventers we want, how we train them, how we recruit them, how we deploy them, how we supervise them - all these are the issues that are in the dark", Ogoola said.
Ogoola's concerns come at a time when opposition politicians including presidential candidates Kizza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi, civil society activists and members of the public are also questioning the role of the crime preventers in the election process.
On Tuesday, independent presidential candidate, Amama Mbabazi expressed apprehension on the involvement of crime preventers in the alleged update of the voters register.
"I can tell you that crime preventers throughout the country have been given the voters register everywhere and they have been given the responsibility to determine whether this voter is alive or dead.
And when you are alive; they tick you, when you are dead; they put 'D'. The political commissars of the army, UPDF have been given the same and they are doing the same in their areas of operations. The question in your mind, is, why are they doing this? We have a voters register, we all have copies even our ourselves. Why would they employ state machinery because now crime preventers are appended to the police", Mbabazi said this week.
President Museveni inspects a parade by crime preventers at Nyakasanga play ground in Kasese townSimilarly, Church of Uganda archbishop Stanley Ntagali also voiced his concerns over crime preventers after a closed-door meeting involving the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU), the Elders' Forum of Uganda (TEFU), National Consultative Forum (NCF) and politicians from various political parties at Serena hotel.
"There is a general outcry among Ugandans regarding crime preventers. They are becoming sources of crime and injustice instead of causing peace," Ntagali told the media on Tuesday.
"The police should be left to do their work because that is their main objective of keeping law and order", Ntagali said.
Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson could neither pick nor return our repeated calls. His deputy Polly Namaye declined to comment saying she was off duty. However the police leadership has in the past insisted that crime preventers are there to support police work to stop crime.
Early this year police Chief Kale Kayihura, said they were targeting to recruit and train at least 2 million crime preventers ahead of the 2016 general elections. In fact, Internal Affairs Minister, Rose Akol last week presented to the parliamentary Defence and Internal Affairs Committee the FY 2016/2017 budget framework paper for her ministry, which included the proposed budgetary allocations for Uganda Police Force.
In the framework, the ministry was requesting for Shs 37.4bn for community policing exercises aimed at recruiting and training crime preventers for the purpose of fighting crime through neighborhood watch programmes as well as bolstering the police force.
The request was rejected by the MPs - with Defence Committee Chairperson, Benny Namugwanya stating that facilitating crime preventers at the expense of the regular police force would demoralize police constables.
"First of all, you have your own children which is the regular police [and] you can not cater for it. Then you have your crime preventers whose policy is not even in place but you are able to facilitate them. We also need to know as a committee, have crime preventers really added a lot of value and what are we going to do on the issue of demotivating your regular police officers?", she said.
According to the national coordinator in charge of tertiary institutions at National Crime Preventers Forum (NCPF), Oscar Mugabe, since 2013, they have recruited and trained at least 30 youths per village. With 57,792 villages in the country, it would translate to 1.7 million crime preventers.
Meanwhile, Ogoola also announced that the two-hour presidential debate featuring all the eight candidates is set to take place on January 15, 2016 at Serena hotel to "fill in the gaps that can not be filled in the drama, in the hype and hoopla of ordinary political rallies to which the general public is treated by each candidate. Each candidate appearing sole, alone, without the benefit of the other candidates. Its drama, its hoopla, its hype but somehow it loses something and that something will be filled in by these debates"
Pastor Joseph Sserwadda, Justice Ogoola and Archbishop Ntagali addressing JournalistsPastor Joseph Sserwadda, the representative of Born Again Churches on the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRC-U) governing council - the organisers of the debate explained that candidates will be presented with a set of questions that pertain to the desire, plan, vision and expectations of the masses.
President of the People's Development Party, Abed Bwanika has already expressed readiness to participate in the debate. It was another presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye who challenged the incumbent President Museveni to a debate at the start of campaings, to which he promptly agreed. In the last presidential election in 2011, Museveni did not show up for the debate instead choosing to send Vision group CEO Robert Kabushenga to debate on his behalf.
very high education. We can call Obote all bad names we have, but the bottom line remains that he got more scholarships for Buganda than all previous Uganda leaders combined. That includes Sir Edward Mutesa, President Lule, President Binayisa, up to and into Ssabasajja Mutebi. Who all happen to be Baganda leaders." MulindwaDisclaimer:Everyone posting to this Forum bears the sole responsibility for any legal consequences of his or her postings, and hence statements and facts must be presented responsibly. Your continued membership signifies that you agree to this disclaimer and pledge to abide by our Rules and Guidelines.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
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Comments
Judge, I remember the days when your Honors friends daughters( three of them one early morning in October 1985 ) were massively raped!!
Who was responsible then? Any soldier was brought to book??
No, never! For a fistful of dollars you are preaching nonsense in Uganda!!
Those lads are there to provide safety and security. Are you going to do it instead of them and what would happen is they were not there and violence break out?
You would run away from Uganda to Kenya or London and smile how you managed to estabilize Uganda. Piss off judge!!Do try my Dilma!You will like it "Your Honor"-crook!!!
Lunatics do. Hell is where Museveni belongs along with his criminal rats.
They were also told that they hold their current offices because of the current NRM government and therefore must do all they can to ensure NRM stays in power if they want to retain their offices.
They were tasked to establish patriotism clubs and crime preventers. So far, that has happened meanwhile, Presidential Candidates are just looking on.
If i were a Presidential Candidate, i would pull out of the race and file a suit in the constitutional Court challenging the decision to create an illegal branch of the NRM called Crime Preventers.
Here is the Mathematics: Every District has about 26000 thousand crime preventers (I prefer to call them crime promoters).
Multiply that figure with the 112 districts, you will get about 2,912,000 of them country wide.
That means that before we go into the election, somebody has that number of voters against his name. Almost three million.
Then there is another group called Patriots or patriotic clubs, these are also in every district.
They number up to 10000 and again, multiply that by 112, that is over 1,120,000 voters county wide.
All he needs is another four million voters and he is ready to enter state house. For those who love the game of math, let me also ask you to establish how many soldiers and police men we have in this country, then add prisoners, then secret or under cover agents, then add the number of DISO and their respective GISOs, then add RDC, then Gombolola chiefs country wide.
For those of you still day dreaming, drumming support for Besigye and Mbabazi, you are wasting your time and dont say am discouraging you, you are simply fighting a loosing battle. For me, i can say is that see you in Court, not at state house.
Thw law books. Do you really need to raise such an obvious thing?
Your language is so wanting, it is abusive from the first word to the last. Dont think you love NRM more than us who went to the bush to bring this government into power.
You need to tone down, go slow. The man you are trying to insult (that is if he ever reads your emotional writings) is one of those few accomplished judges this country ever had.
His judgements were always thorough and lived a clean man throughout his career on the bench.
Please take it easy, Mr N. Those guys are as illegal as those who have created them. Join them too, if you wish to.
We (the peope) will sort you and them out eventually. Please do not ask me how that will be done because I have neither the mandate to represent nor talk for we (the people) as defined by our National Constitution.
Now that is a real scare if we are to go with that information as given my Oscar.
It is true in 2013, they recruited 30 per village in my home district of Sironko. We have about 1300 villages in that District.
Again in 2014 they recruited more and again this year they did the same and were passed out mid this year by the President in Mbale.
It literally means that by Feb 2016, we may have about 4,500,000 crime preventers country wide and on whose money are they being paid, tax payer and who is the tax payer, me and you.
The group will be disbanded at the end of the elections in February, for they would have accomplished their task of delivering some people to state house.
There is no other crime as far as the crime preventers are concerned.
Where is your reaction to my witness statement??
As you may conclude I went trough rough times before you were even planned to be borne!!Guess What?
This is the reason I support M7 and NRM, speciallly gallant UPDF/NRA which brought liberty and stability to Uganda!!And you dickheads , you want to bring those times back and you are encouraging that ugly character of Kizza Ezza and scunk Pinokio who want to confuse Uganda and bring it to the knees and give to th dogs?
Aw,Aw,Aw NEVER!! EVER!!! READ MY LIPS!! Buyaye!!!!
Justice Ogola stated in plain non-partisan terms that the so called crime preventers are not provided for by any current or past laws of Uganda.
Mr. Nakasiru if you dispute Justice Ogola's observation don't just respond in vitriol and abusive language.
Prove that it is not a typing error that your seemingly true name of Nakasiru does not come out as Nakasero due to a typo.
Educate justice Ogola about which provision of Ugandan law creates this partisan militia.
What law spells out how the members of this militia are chosen, how they are trained, and how they should be provided for under Uganda's budgetary framework.
2-'to ensure what kind of crime preventers we want, how we train them, how we recruit them, how we deploy them, how we supervise them - all these are the issues that are in the dark", Ogoola said.
This is just common sense which even an illiterate can see.
But more than that
- What specific crime is beyond police ability which they are meant to prevent.
- Estimate is 1.7m force, who determined the number,based on what, who determined their renumeration/be nefits, are they on 'contract' or permanent ?
- which administrative infrastucture are they going to use - ie to process leave, claims in case of injuries,discip line etc.
Surely because of massive unemployment and poverty, museveni &co are fooling and abusing the innocent and vulnerable youth of this country.
This is abuse and God will never forgive museveni &co.