I am political but not partisan - Kayihura

Kasese- The Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, has said although he does political work, he is not partisan.

The IGP, in an exclusive interview with this newspaper on Friday in Kasese District, said he was not bothered by criticism that he was doing political work because anybody who is involved in the running of State affairs does political work.

“When you are involved in the affairs of a State, what do you call that? It is political. Are you trying to say that I do not have anything else to do other than security?” Gen Kayihura said when asked about accusations that he was politically biased.

Responding to another question whether he nursed any political ambitions, the IGP said he was not after personal glory or job retention but service. The General said he has never thought of becoming a MP.
However, the Leader of Opposition in Parliament and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) spokesperson, Mr Wafula Oguttu, said Gen Kayihura is more of the politician who serves the current government than the State.

“What he says and does is different. When you serve the government more than the State then, you become partisan. And for him he seem to be a policeman of government,” Mr Oguttu said.

Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga, who has for long been accusing the IGP of being partisan, told this newspaper yesterday that the police chief was only admitting “the known view that he is a politician”.

“The IGP was only able to say the truth. He belongs to a political group of his choice and that group uses him to do their work. The IGP is only saying what the public knows, it is a public admission,” Mr Mpuuga who was a member of the outlawed 4GC (For God and my Country) pressure group, said.

Constitutional lawyer and Makerere University School of Law lecturer Peter Walubiri, observed that it was possible to be political without being partisan.

“Partisan means to take political sides whereas being political means that you look at an issue in political terms,” Mr Walubiri said.

The police chief further dismissed reports that he has militarised the police, saying what people perceive as militariSation is equipping the police with the skills that they deserve to deal with increasing criminal violence.

“Whatever skills we are giving police, it is for them to have capacities to respond to all situations, armed or unarmed and reduce the need to bring in the army and this is the vision of the President and this is what I am following/implementing,” Gen Kayihura said.

He noted that the army is called on to back the police when violent riots erupt. “They have kept on saying that and throwing it at me (militarising the police) but I am not the one who made the Police Act.

The Act says one of the functions of Uganda Police is that it can be called upon to act as military force by the minister. How can you act as a military force when you have no capacity of a military force?” he asked.

“So it is a no question, it is propaganda and should never be asked or if you don’t want, then change the law. In fact I should be commendable; I am putting it into practice,” he added.

See interview below

You have been Inspector General of Police since November 10, 2005 could you name one item which you view as your biggest achievement?
Well, it is difficult to name one item because it is a package. First of all my vision of police is consistent with what is in the Constitution: To build a profession in terms of different policing services like CIID, traffic; a police station that functions with customer care and is transformed, where the community and police are one.
There is training of cadre and patriotic officers who work on conviction not out of salary, not banyampara (mercenaries) but officers who work because of love for the country, who know that in this time in history they have an obligation to build a police institution that protects life and property, that ensures law and order.

You mean there are people who can work without pay because they are patriotic?
Those that are convinced: I think we are seeing that in these new young cadre officers. I am proud that during my time we have built a number of capabilities like counter terrorism, forensic laboratory, they were not there, dog section and you know what dogs are doing in terms of preventing crime and detecting explosives. And now we have a breeding centre in Naggalama. We have attracted different professionals into the police which wasn’t there and the numbers have increased, I found police was only 18,000, today we are over 43, 000.
The budget of the police has increased, it was Shs72b, now it is over Shs400b, it has increased by 53 per cent and this, by the way, wasn’t simply donation but I struggled for these resources. We convinced Ministry of Finance to allow us retain our none tax revenue and we have used that money to buy equipment, build modern systems like ICT.
We have a state of the art headquarter and this is only the beginning because we are going to build the main one, look at fire brigade, almost every major centre has a fire station.
But the critical contribution is changing the mindset and everybody acknowledges that the police with these young officers is much better than what used to happen in terms of their own physical discipline, in terms of response to distress calls but there are still problems and challenges.
We still have problems of kitu-kidogo (bribery). It is not yet gone but it has reduced and thanks to what I introduced, the Professional Standards Unit. We have public training centre in Yumbe, counter terrorism centre in Olilim and in other words we are building facilities that a modern police should have.

Do you have any political ambitions?
The work I am doing is political, it is not partisan but when you are involved in the affairs of a State, what do you call that? It is political. Are you trying to say that I do not have anything else to do other than security?
What I am doing is not about myself, it is not about my glory, it is not a job but it is service and as long as wherever the appointing authority thinks I can serve I will serve. Now what you are trying to drive at is whether I got ambitions to be a Member of Parliament. I have never thought about it.

What do you have to say about criticism that you have militarised police?
What we are doing is equipping the police with the skills that they require to deal with the various challenges of increasing criminal violence. Criminal violence from research and I was reading a report from 2011, from a secretariat that monitors armed violence in the world and they were saying today, criminal violence is a bigger threat than inter-state warfare. Crime has become more violent; more armed, including simple robbery, you will find there is use of firearms. You have terrorism more organised.
Whatever skills we are giving police, it is for them to have capacity to respond to all situations, armed or unarmed and reduce the need to bring in the army and this is the vision of the President and this is what I am following, implementing.
There is no way you are going to avoid the army coming if you have got violent riots and the police doesn’t have capacity to deal with it....I am not the one who made the Police Act and yet it says one of the functions of Uganda Police is that police can be called upon to act as military force by the minister. How can you act as a military force when you have no capacity of a military force? So it is propaganda and should never be asked or if you don’t want, then change the law. In fact I should be commendable; I am putting it into practice.

You have camped in Rwenzori sub-region for close to a month now, what exactly are you doing here?
The situation has normalised. We came here to initiate, investigate and cause persecution in the court martial those who were involved in the clashes. Our role as police was really support role in terms of the trials that are ongoing now, to investigate.

The second and main reason I remained here really is when I came to see what had happened, there was tension, loss of confidence and it wasn’t only here but it was all over the country. People were starting to be apprehensive for something like that to happen. So I stayed to evaluate the police capacity and rectify the weaknesses. One of the first things I did was to commission an investigation by Professional Standards Unit who did a good job and they were able to point where the weaknesses were.
Initially, the impression was that the police was powerless but actually that was not so, there could have been a few and there was some but the majority behaved bravely. The problem was one, the district police commander was one of that and that is why he is facing justice.
He refused them to be armed when he heard intelligence of these attacks. Most of the police had no arms and I want to commend the armory man because when they attacked the station, they were looking for guns, but he had locked the armory and managed to disappear. They have given me the report; we know who did what or who did not do what and we have taken action. We have overhauled the commander of the two districts, Bundibugyo and Kasese and those who have got cases to answer are being investigated.
The third one is pacification: We were lucky we were able to get ring-leaders who are basically ministers from the Omusinga’s palace and you know there are others also like the witch doctor that had come from Congo --- they confessed to security as well as to the President. That is why the President decided to forgive them (and grant them amnesty).

So what is the way forward?
The main task is to re-orient, reduce the tension. This whole situation is feeding on issues that remained unsolved relating to the two communities (Bakonzo and Basongora), the cultural institutions: The Omusinga thinks that no other cultural institution should be created but this will of course not help; dominate everybody to subscribe to his institution while the Constitution says that if a community feels that they want to have a king, they are free and that is why the other one of Bundibugyo is there and even the Banyabindi or the Basongora if they managed to fulfill the requirement of the Constitution, they are free to have such an institution.
I don’t see any problem with that but the good thing is that now Omusinga is quite….. because he has said that his initial statements were mistaken, were based on falsehoods and they were wrong and he has since began to appreciate government intervention and apologised. He is ready to work with us.

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