By Bakampa Brian
Baryaguma
Kampala has hitherto
been well known for being a safe and secure city, with hardly pronounced
incidents of thefts, robberies, and other major crimes, in spite of being in a
highly volatile region. Lately, however, this good reputation is fast phasing
out, with increased incidents of thefts, muggings, and murders. I have
personally experienced and witnessed some attempted thefts, and also heard
several stories of them from very reliable sources, while reports of robberies
and murders are commonplace in the media lately.
For example, once I was
in a taxi on Kampala road, at City Square, when I saw a dirty looking man
unsuccessfully try to snatch some items from a passenger in another taxi, ahead
of the one I was in. Then, one evening I was smartly dressed in a suit,
carrying my laptop bag containing a laptop, books, and other valuable items,
walking in Kikuubo, a busy Kampala street, when I was besieged by two men, one
of whom was drunk and held the upper part of my arms from behind, speaking to
me unintelligible things about KCCA, while the other searched my court pockets.
When I realized their trick, I fought them off, and they run away, without
stealing anything from me. Then, a few meters ahead, I saw a man snatch a bag
from a lady, and attempt to run away with it, but was caught by another man,
who took away the bag from the thief, and returned it to the lady.
Interestingly, in all these scenarios, the thieves seemed unbothered by the
likely consequences of their criminal acts, like arrest, as they just lingered
around, without anybody else caring much about them. In the past, in such
incidences, alarms would blaze, and hot pursuit would ensue, to punish the
suspect.
While discussing this
matter of insecurity in Kampala on Facebook, my friend, Mr. Manzi Solomon,
argued that I was, ‘… a near-victim of escalating insecurity in an
over-crowded, unequal city with too few haves, and too many indigent [and]
wretched have-nots … Middle-class proletariats like you become the buffer
zone!’ In other words, that high income inequality has caused poverty, such
that the poor end up preying on the rich for survival. Mr. Manzi is right.
Every possible measure should be taken to ensure equitable distribution of
resources among all people in different socio-economic classes. One absolutely
necessary measure is regime change, since changing those in charge of
allocating public resources and devising public policies, will facilitate and
ultimately translate into income re-distribution among the people of Uganda.
Otherwise, Kampala, once
so secure that it was common to find down-town traders carrying large sums of
money in their hands or polythene bags, to a nearby bank, amidst heavy traffic
and congestion, is slipping into horrible insecurity (and certainly social
anarchy) as is the case in some places like nearby Nairobi city in Kenya, where
one would be lucky to just walk or drive through town wearing, for instance,
beautiful jewelry or expensive watches. I am already missing that amazing
Kampala. The one of today scares me very much. It is very unfortunate that our
beloved city is becoming too insecure and intimidating to live in.
I therefore, call upon
our gallant police, intelligence, and other security agencies, to scale up
round-the-clock security patrols and surveillance in order to curb this absurd
trend. As a country, we should seriously equip our security apparatus with the
requisite manpower and equipment, necessary to guarantee the safety and
security of people and their properties. Plus, I call upon the people of
Kampala, and Uganda at large, to revive their vigilance against such
inconveniences as theft. A few years ago, it was well known that if a person is
nabbed stealing in Kampala, and in most other surrounding areas, he or she
(usually hes) would be thoroughly beaten and burnt to death with car
tires. Thanks to such measures, security was very high. I am tempted to endorse
and encourage the re-introduction of such radical measures. Much as I am a
lawyer, well knowing the legal niceties of presumption of innocence and
the like, when the security of my person and property is out rightly impaired,
undermined and negated, then such legal niceties inevitably count for so
little.
No comments:
Post a Comment