President Yoweri Museveni has revealed how he is pained at the uncessaey deaths of Ugandans.
During a national briefing on the security situation in the country on Saturday, Museveni said: “I am annoyed and pained by these unnecessary deaths of Ugandans; but I am confident because we have the capacity to respond. We were able to respond and win when we had less means. Our means are much greater today. I encourage investors to assemble the cameras here so as to have more local content.
The pigs that have doomed their future by shedding the blood of innocent Ugandans, have only themselves to blame for their eternal damnation.”
He highlighted seven measures to end crime in the short term. They include;
- First and foremost, vigilance (oburindaara) by noting and reporting any new persons, motor-cycles or cars that hover around your area or you notice following you. The killings of the Sheikhs, Kagezi, Kiggundu, Abiriga and, recently, Kirumira were, obviously, done by people who were either following them or waiting for them. A limited degree of vigilance would have exposed them before the act.
- Quick coordination with the Police. Each Police Station or Post should have a number that is known to the public in the area that every member of the public with a phone can ring when he/she sees anything suspicious. This number should not be the number of the OC (officer in charge) of the station because that officer may be in meetings where he/she switches off his/her phone. It should be for the police personnel on duty at the Police Station so that the reaction is instant. That is how the Police and the wanainchi killed the notorious Kiddawalime that had been part of the gang that killed 5 people on New Year’s day, 2018, in the Masaka area.
- Efficient coordination within the Police force using radios rather than the slow methods of using the unprofessional mobile phones. The radios alert everybody to be on the lookout for the fugitive motor-cycle or car rather than a mobile phone that communicates with one person at a time. It should be the Public to use the mobile phones not the Police, while communicating among themselves.
- The deployment of the UPDF or the Reserve Units, as stated in my address of last week (9th September, 2018), in the Wakiso-Kampala area or any other area where they may be needed.
- There has been serious internal criticism of the intelligence staff that have been neglecting information from the public, unjustifiably labeling information sources as intelligence peddlers or not concluding investigations.
- The purge of the criminal and corrupt elements that had infiltrated the Police is continuing. The incidents of crime that have been happening expose these elements. The apprehension of those criminal elements, illuminates more the evil elements involved. The Police force is being cleaned of them.
- The private citizens that are able should continue to install cameras in their homes or business premises. All these will help.
“By the end of 9 months from today, most of the elements of the smart and safe City will be in place. We can, then, scale down the reliance on human intelligence and human observation because the technical (the machine) means will be in place,” Museveni said.