The woes of incarcerated former Buyende DPC ASP Mohammed Kirumira, who remains incarcerated, have accurately been attributed to NRM Secretary General Kasule Lumumba. And this briefly is how it came about: During the by-election campaigns in Kagoma, President Museveni assigned Lumumba to oversee the interests of the NRM candidate Moses Muwanika Wa¬ly¬omu. The FDC candidate didn’t win but was very formidable just like the NRM-leaning independent Alex Brandon Kintu. They had very active supporters especially in the trading centers and these were beginning to embolden voters in the rural Kagoma Sub Counties to actively reject the NRM candidate. Lumumba had to save face on good time before Museveni, who had heavily facilitated her, came to the Constituency. She needed heavy police involvement and yet she doesn’t see eye to eye with IGP Gen Kayihura.
The powerful SG had to find a way of working with Police without dealing with Kayihura directly. She got the profiles of the DPCs in nearby Busoga region districts and found the resume of Buyende DPC Mohammed Kirumira very attractive. Kirumira, who Lumumba cautiously first spoke to on the phone of one of her assistants; was called to Kagoma where she met Lumumba at a rally for the NRM candidate. Because matters to discuss were confidential, Lumumba moved to Kirumira’s small car and the two discussed privately inside Kirumira’s not so very nice car. “Ebyaffe ebya balwanyi bwebityo [our things of revolutionaries are like that-you take the situation as it is and the end will always justify the means],” Lumumba said as a much humbled Kirumira politely protested saying his car wasn’t good enough for the powerful NRM SG. She told him she has an assignment and needs very reliable police officers to oversee operations to ensure the supporters of other candidates are contained during the campaigns, voting and after.
She was fearful that, in order to embarrass and deflate her before Museveni, her archrival Rebecca Kadaga would use her connections to Gen Kayihura to create police-related advantages to bolster Brandon Kintu. She told Kirumira she was going to trust him because her great friend Felix Kaweesi had confided in her before his death that he was one of the morally upright officers in police-and begged him not to let her down. They started work and Kirumira, whose involvement in the by-election Gen Kayihura never tried to reverse, delivered to Lumumba’s satisfaction. That is how their friendship started. As they interacted after the elections, as they went about consolidating their friendship, Kirumira loosened up and started sharing his challenges with Lumumba.
He told her how he was being sidelined and witch-hunted because of his hard line stance against murder suspects and hardcore criminals. “In fact that is why I was relegated to Buyende just to punish me for standing up to my superiors who like pleading for criminals,” Kirumira reportedly told Lumumba adding that many other fellow DPCs were actually frustrated. “The system we have in police today rewards wrongdoers while marginalizing those who insist on the right thing.” He told her he had other DPCs that can corroborate the utterances or observations the President made at Felix Kaweesi’s funeral where he said wrong elements had infillitrated police to the extent that the public fears to report criminals fearing reprisals from the very police authorities.
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Lumumba, who couldn’t believe her ears, offered to arrange for Kirumira to meet the President and make that corroboration. “It will be better if you mobilize other colleagues the fellow DPCs and you go to meet him as a team,” Lumumba reportedly advised. Kirumira did as instructed. The DPCs met Museveni and disclosed more information further demonizing the police top authorities. Repeatedly referring to Kirumira as “my son,” Museveni directed that more meetings be organized so that he meets these DPCs more often to update their story. “But my son Kirumira should remain the coordinator and I will remain in touch with him to ensure the entire group members aren’t harmed,” Museveni told his office staff as the meeting dispersed. Reliable sources say from that meeting, Kirumira’s already bad situation regarding his superiors only worsened. Its true complaints had been made before impeaching his character and exposing his operational excesses as a police commander but the top police leadership had always overlooked them-never cracking the whip on Kirumira in a very decisive way.
However, this secretive meeting with Museveni, about which Gen Kayihura was never informed, turned into the last straw that broke the Camel’s back and got Kirumira into trouble. All the complaints were re-visited; file revitalized and serious investigations commenced at a time the IGP was abroad in Turkey. Gentlemen and ladies: that is how we got to where we are now regarding the Kirumira saga. We only wonder where Lumumba, who got him into all this chaos, has been thus far because we haven’t heard her as yet say anything in defense of Mohammed Kirumira whose family has already cried to the President to protect their son against vengeful police bosses that consider this to be payback time. To comment on this & other Mulengera news stories, reach us on 0703164755!
