Take care of your personal security, Gen Tumukunde tells Ugandans

HOIMA.

Uganda’s security minister has asked Ugandans to take personal responsibility of manning their security.

It is important that you report crime wherever you see it, said Gen Henry Tumukunde on Thursday while representing president Museveni at the burial of Susan Magara in Kitoba sub county in Hoima district. 

Magara, 28, a daughter to Mr John Magara, a prominent businessman in Hoima was abducted in Kampala on February 7. 

She was murdered and dumped at Kitiko between Kigo and Kajjansi along the Entebbe Express Highway in Kampala. 

The assailants held her for 20 days and they regularly telephoned her parents demanding for ransom which the family delivered but that did not convince the kidnappers to release the youthful cashier of Bwendero Dairy farm. 

Magara’s death has shocked the nation at a time when cases of murder kidnap and armed robberies are on the rise. 

Gen Tumukunde, a former spy chief asked Ugandans to take keen interest in visitors in their respective neighborhoods and report any suspicious persons to security officers. 

“Record any new person in your neighborhood, innocent, guilty or new as long as the person trickled in in the past one year” he said. 

He said the biggest players in the security of Uganda are Ugandans. 

He said when the NRA fighters captured state power in 1986; they did not have thoroughly trained security experts. 

“We learnt on the job. But who was the principal player in security, it was the population of Uganda,” said Tumukunde who participated in the NRA bush war. 

He said security officers can do their roles but they cannot be everywhere since they are few compared to the Ugandan population. 

“We cannot be in your bedrooms. Even if we build a thousand hospitals we cannot take care of your personal hygiene. Even if we install cameras everywhere, we shall not take care of your personal security. You must take personal responsibility for your security” he said. 

Lapses

He however acknowledged some lapses in the security system.

“We have our own mistakes, some of them are fatal. Like you deploy people - sometime they sleep. You deploy people in a location and you call them, they are not there,” Gen Tumukunde said. 

He decried the overwhelming crave for money by Ugandans who reach to an extent of bribing security officers. 

He said the cropping up gangster capitalism has never been about Ugandans whereby some people kill for money. 

“This crudeness has never been about Ugandans to murder a kid like this, incredible merciless way of killing such a young girl. These are new things about our country and we must understand why they are there,” he said. 

He said some parents send their children to join armed forces with a hope that there is money.

The former Director of the Internal Security organization (ISO) said the biggest asset Uganda has is security. 

“If you kill it, you kill tourism, business and life,” he said.

He said local leaders have a tendency of asking for money from strangers to allow them settle in their localities. 

Gen Tumukunde said he had met Bunyoro parliamentarians and cautioned politicians against ferrying in immigrants whom they target as their voters. 

The foreigners you are bringing in Bunyoro that you want votes from them, the outcomes will very costly, he said.