{UAH} Horror inside a kidnap drone

By UAH's KAKWENZA RUKIRABASHAIJA

On the 18th day of September 2020, I was in bed, sound asleep, when the house manager woke me up with a soft knock on our bedroom door. I checked the time it was exactly 6:15am.

"Yes Anita, what is it?"

"Uncle, there are three men outside who want to talk to you," said Anita. "Who are they?" asked my wife, in a sleepy voice.

"I do not know them and they are asking for Uncle," Anita responded.

"Have you opened the gate for them or are they still outside?" asked my wife as she got up to draw the mosquito net.

Anita had sauntered away so she didn't hear the question posed by my wife. When my wife walked to the bathroom to ease herself, I also got up and reached for the bedroom door. I turned the key, twisted the door knob and opened the door.

When I had opened it half-way, I saw about four men in civilian clothes standing in the corridor facing our bedroom. They were wielding guns. I shut the door immediately and screamed. This provoked a question from my wife in the bathroom. I had just opened my mouth to tell my wife that we had been besieged then the door was kicked open with indescribable impunity.

"You are under arrest. Put on your clothes now and we go," one officer commanded while pointing his sniper's gun at me.

He had a brimmed hat on. I stood transfixed and speechless on the carpet in the middle of the bedroom, while my wife stood at the threshold to the bathroom door.

"Is this how you bombard people in their bedrooms while they are still sleeping and you arrest them?" a question finally escaped from my mouth.

I noticed that the man with the brimmed hat was the same operative who had commanded the operation that had spirited me away from my home back in April. The man was short and energetic. He had a big nose perched on his hairless face, two owl eyes and a chubby mouth cracked by dehydration.

The argument between me and the operative of course attracted the attention of his fellow rascals, who now entered the bedroom breathing fire and threatened to take me away naked. I was in my underwear.

"We have spent three days without sleeping, looking for you and here you are teaching us how we should arrest you? Are you an insane, tall man?" the ring leader grumbled.

My wife was dumbstruck. She just watched as the criminals invaded our bedroom and demanded that I dress up. No arrest warrant, no civility, no humanity, only impunity and braggadocio. One officer fished out handcuffs from his pocket and fastened them around my wrists, before ordering me to get out of the bedroom.

"Last time you took my husband when he was well and brought him back when he was almost crippled," cried my wife.

"Our job is to arrest. We take orders and deliver the suspect. So we do not know about that," a youthful operative in cheap tight jeans and a faded T-shirt answered in a hoarse voice and with a lot of pomp and an exaggerated sense of self-entitlement. His mouth reeked like pigsty.

I was led out of the bedroom and through the corridor and into the dining room. Here Kakwenza Rukirabashaija we found two men in Uganda People's Defence Forces uniform standing with a policewoman, all armed to the teeth. Behind them stood our village chairman and his deputy who had, conceivably, been called to witness my arrest.

"Where is your phone and the computer?" the commander of the operation asked, looking at me like I had his kidney. "I remember the last time you came here, you took my computer and phones and up to now you have never brought them back yet I was acquitted of your bogus charges," I shot back.

"So what do you use to write insulting books and/or maybe communication, Mr. Writer?" Another soldier asked. He was tall and in full combat fatigues. "None of your business," I shot back.

A white drone vehicle with private number plates had parked outside my gate and the engine was running. I was led into it and commanded to sit between two officers in full combat fatigues who had been left behind and idled around in the rear seat of the car.

The car, which is supposed to carry seven people, carried about eleven – including other officers who had surrounded the house. By 6.30 a.m., the drone was roaring on the tarmac towards Kampala.

"I am thirsty. I need to drink some water please. You have arrested me without my wallet so you have to buy water and give me to drink," I ordered.

By this time, we had passed Magamaga barracks in Mayuge district. The man in the hat who commanded the operation was driving lazily and in a cowardly manner at 50 kilometres per hour.

"I need drinking water, you guys. Don't you have ears?" I raised my voice.

Truth is, I was very thirsty. My mouth was dry because I am used to waking up in the morning and guzzle two cups of water infused with fresh and succulent lemon.

"This son of a bitch wants to fill his bladder with water so that we make unnecessary stopovers along the way," the officer on my right mumbled.

I treated the mumble with equanimity and watched them vapidly joke about my request. The driver, who was also the commander of the operation, made a call and requested money from his bosses on the pretext that they had no fuel and that the suspect was hungry and thirsty and was demanding breakfast.

The money was sent and they withdrew it from Mukono, bought for me a small bottle of water for a thousand shillings, and toothpaste and toothbrush for about two thousand shillings. The rest of the money was shared out amongst themselves – ten thousand shillings each.

"What are the toothpaste and brush for?" I asked when I was handed the package. "Where we are taking you, you will need them," the youthful operative retorted. "You need it more than I need it, young man because your mouth smells like a latrine," I sneered.

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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