Me and my other friends happily taking a selfie to alert our families and friends
Every blog, newspaper/tabloid, mainstream media houses and individual personalities have been discussing about the photo (selfie) that made rounds online of a clique of people in a police cell/prison. Well, as the proprietor of the selfie and the person behind the tweeting of that photo, i will give you the chronology of the events as they unveiled from the word go.
On Saturday last week, my close friend from campus (Sam) had an introduction ceremony at Buziga in the outskirts of Kampala and it was such a colorful event. Just like any other modern group of youth, the five of us went out for an “after party” to make toasts to our efforts towards pulling off such an incredible event. So we went back home safe and sound but late. We parted ways as everyone went to their own homes.
On Sunday, I slept overtime because I was on a hangover and I also had no much work to do. At around 10am, the same friends came to my house and woke me up. My wife was already up trying to organize a few things. So we started playing games and watching TV as the wife got busy preparing lunch for us. The jazz about the previous night, games and TV propelled us towards 4pm. It was at this time that I heard a knock on my door.
In mind, i was like “But i just sorted the landlord in advance for the next three months, why is he here again?” as I walked to the door. At the door stood a tall, slender and black gentleman with very red eyes in a long sleeved checkered shirt and a kaki trouser. “Hello, i am Richard the OC of Kyanja Police station. I am here to arrest you for knocking a taxi and hiding in the house”. At that moment, his lines seemed like thorns piercing my feet. I couldn’t move! So I silently turned my head back into the house to ask these friends if this was true. They all got out and with the “Afande” (who had not proved to us with any arrest warrant), we headed outside the gate where my friends’ car (Prado TX) and the taxi had parked.
From 10am to 4:30pm, the Prado TX was out there parked and no one had come to claim anything against my friends. When we reached outside, there was a female traffic officer, the taxi driver and the conductor. The guy driving the TX told the OC the he had given the taxi driver 50,000UGX to repair the slight scratch he had caused during the accident. And the taxi driver had accepted the offer because the scratch wasn’t that serious anyway. The traffic officer immediately hopped onto the boda and left after hearing about the 50K agreement between the taxi guys and my friends.
In a peculiar manner though, the OC didn’t seem to be in agreement with the facts. He instead started using force. He told us to go with him to police or else he would call for more officers to arrest us by force. He tried to grab my friend Sam by the trouser but he failed. He removed his belt and tried to hit Sam with it. At this moment, the idle boda boda riders had crowded the place and were demanding to do a mob on us thinking we had stolen something. A scuffle was really inevitable between us and the OC. He made another attempt to pull Sam towards a ready to ride motorcycle closer but he failed. In that pull and push event, Sam grabbed the OC by the collar as the officer pulled him by the trouser. The OC once again failed to haul Sam to the direction he want to take him.
In a blink, another police officer in Uniform arrived on a boda with a gun. That’s when they decided to grab the weakest and smallest person from our group, which was me of course. They lifted me like a baby, took me to a nearby soda rider and made me sit on it with the uniformed officer sitting behind me. At that time, the OC had his belt ready to spank my back and head repeatedly while running after the slow moving motorcycle. Kyanja community police is just a few yards away from my apartment, so in a swipe, we were at the station. The OC and his other officer dragged me into some dark narrow cell, they entered in and closed the door.
The two officers performed a ritual no one would know apart from eye witnesses. It was hemorrhage of heavy slaps, punches, belt beating, gun batting and kicking towards my small innocent body. I tried to defend my head from sustaining severe injuries but it was all in vain as it seemed like the police officers were trained to beat innocent people vis a vis keeping law and order. There were two inmates before I entered the cell, the all ran to the far corner because they were scared I was going to die in there. The beating lasted for 6 minutes and it seems these officers were now tired. They got out and closed the door. (Please open this link to watch a live video of the torture https://youtu.be/fVaDu9ZiRkU)
Meanwhile, the rest of my friends came following me on foot to see where the Afande’s were taking me and after a few, they arrived one by one. The funny bit is, each of them on arrival at the station, they were whisked into the cell as well. Eventually, all of us were suffocation in a small cubic cell. After an hour, the police patrol truck came “wowing” as usual and were put under the truck like murderers or village chicken thieves and were taken to Kiira police station.
On arrival at Kiira, we put in one corner on the floor as the hosts waited for the OC Kyanja to arrive and make a statement. He was so furious that on his arrival, he advanced onto Sam and started punching him in the face like a punching bag. In a second, Sam’s nose was squirting close to a liter of nose bleed due to the OC’s rage in the presence of kiira police station officers. The OC was take aside by his fellows and i’m sure he was blamed for that action. Due to the embarrassment, the officers in charge told us to enter the police cell without being checked yet we had all our belongings in the pockets.
That’s is how my friend Napoleon entered with my phone into the cell. On entering, RP (leader of the inmates) started checking us for money. Since we were mixed with different criminals from a petty thief to a serial murderer, we had no much say as intellects at the moment. In a bit, they had stolen my phone from Napoleon in the process of checking us. However, they later recovered it on conditions that the inmates would use it to make some calls to there relatives and sureties, which i allowed.
After seeing the loopholes and unprofessionalism in our police, it was only but prudent of me to expose their flaws by taking a selfie and sharing it on my twitter handle. I knew about the repercussions that would come with cyber security but the whole blame would definitely unearth the inefficiency in police operations. We were charged for assault and distraction the next day, then in the mid morning, the tweet and selfie were going viral. So the case increased to cyber security. We spent four days in a cell before appearing in court which was also unlawful. They denied us a police bond which is literally our right. Police kept threatening to imprison us for life, they alleged we have guns at home just because one of us has close ties with the army etc.
In a nut shell, we were produced to court on Wednesday afternoon and all the detention had a force of greed for money and poverty by the OC and his colleagues. Some Afande who was our friend in Makerere had briefed this OC from Kyanja that we work with the army and we have a lot of money. So this OC was determined to extort as much money as possible before he would let go of us and i guess he succeeded too. Even when he calmed down to have an amicable understanding, he mentioned of his three women in the village with children and another one in town who is expecting soon. A close fellow told me he was recently accused of defilement and he over drinks too. So if we have such people in the police, then it is evident that our police has a lot of “Kawukuumi” as the president always says.
Today I am out, but i am pretty sure there are thousands of others behind bars or out there that have experienced the unprofessional manhandling of citizens by the brutal police. I was falsely accused of knocking a car just because my friends came to have lunch at my place. We are very responsible and intellectual citizens who love our country, the police too. But we demand that police cleans its house and starts operating professionally because it costs nothing.
paulwebs1's Blog 