By Mulengera Reporters
A senior Minister in President Museveni’s government has decried lack of decorum and professionalism in the way newly recruited Local Defense Unit (LDU) personnel go about their work in the respective places where they are deployed.
Moses Kizige, who is Minister in charge of Karamoja Affairs, says his own son recently directly faced the wrath of the brutality with which LDUs treat citizens in order to extort money from them. Speaking this Monday morning at Nsambya during the celebrations to mark Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy of Uganda (CCEDU) while representing the Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, Kizige revealed that his son narrowly survived being sent back to his creator when he innocently drove into Namayiba Bus Park near Kisekka Market down town Kampala.
He had just dropped someone but as the young man drove out of the park, he was violently stopped by menacing looking men who introduced themselves as LDUs operating in the area. It was broad day light but Kizige the says rudimentary manner in which the LDUs acted created an impression their recruitment process had indeed been hijacked by wrong characters and hardcore criminals just like State-owned Bukedde newspaper reported yesterday Sunday in an expose.
“You can imagine the extent to which a Minister’s son can assert himself in such a situation of clear lawlessness. My son assertively asked them you are stopping me for the driving permit as who? Are you traffic officers mandated to do that sort of work? This was sufficient to land him into hot trouble. There was a lot of scuffle that ensued and I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t called and got to me very quickly. I rang top people in Afande Kasingye’s things as you know and that is how my son survived. We got the fella arrested and the rest is history,” Kizige said.
Responding to complaints CCEDU founding and now outgoing chairman Dr. Livingstone Sewanyana who said he had clear cases of high profile extortion by the LDUs, Kizige said there is no point denying anymore that the LDU recruitment process was hijacked by people with political connections to deliberately bring in their own cronies who they very well know have criminal track record. In their Sunday story, Bukedde and Sunday Vision revealed that when recruitment was announced, criminal-minded people saw this as an opportunity to access State guns which they are now using to terrorize citizens as opposed to giving them protection. Kizige admitted this criminal infiltration clearly is what happened but vowed to work with others in government to ensure criminal-minded individuals don’t succeed in their efforts to use State guns and uniforms to terrorize citizens while extorting colossal sums of money from them. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
