Ludigo has overcome addiction, criminality

Born to Ernest Kyendigwaku and Goreti Namiro, and from an extended family of more than 37 children, Ludigo describes himself at the time as a very short, dirty and stubborn child who always relied on the bigger boys for protection.
At school, this landed him in the company of the ‘bad boys’. Not only did these tough boys offer Ludigo protection, but they also introduced him to the world of drugs.

“In Senior Two, I started bullying people,” says Ludigo, adding that he also moved around with a knife to scare away people.
But this way of life soon landed him in trouble with the school authorities and he says by the time he finished secondary school, he had attended six schools, most of which he was expelled from.

Dealing in marijuana
Even when he went back home, the tough boy in Ludigo followed him. This saw him again surround himself with the wrong elements in society.
What started as a group of lawless youth soon transitioned to a gang, and Ludigo soon became ‘Napoleon the First’.
His gang adopted the name ‘Above the Law’, a name he carried forward from his St Peter’s Secondary School.

“We opened up our territory in Ntinda, although I was staying in Namugongo. In Ntinda, I was a bad guy, but in Namugongo, I was a humble boy before my parents,” he says.

Ludigo and his crew operated in Ntinda, Kira, Najjera and Kamwokya. They dealt in marijuana and were also involved in theft.
“If someone came and said ‘my phone has been snatched’, I could tell who took it if they told me it was in Kira, Ntinda or Kamwokya,” he says.

“They would steal the items and I’d go and sell them.”
Around 2017, the gang got involved in selling marijuana to make more money. Ludigo says he would travel to Entebbe to collect the ‘weed’ and then distribute it to his gang who would supply it around his territory.

But this gang life wasn’t without trouble. It soon marked the beginning of Ludigo’s troubles with the law.
Ludigo says he soon became a darling of the police cell, but boasts that he never spent more than a day in detention because of connections he had established.

“After my first arrest, my dad saved me. Then I started befriending policemen to evade detention,” he says.

Back to church
Despite being expelled from different schools and being involved in criminality, Ludigo never gave up on school. He later joined Makerere University Business School where he pursued a Bachelor’s of Leadership and Governance.

“In my second year at campus, I wanted to stand as youth counsellor for Namugongo Division. As I was coming from school one day, I found a guy stranded by a car. So I was like, ‘let me help this guy so that he can vote for me’. His name, I later found out was Peter Birungi,” Ludigo says.

They met again after sometime. “He gave me Shs4,000 and we became friends. He invited me to his home. But for a month I didn’t go,” says Ludigo who later visited Birungi.

“He said ‘come and escort me somewhere’. I was like, ‘where?’ He said church. I was like, ‘No. I have spent about nine years without going there.”

But Birungi persisted until Ludigo went with him to church one day. Ludigo says it all did not make sense to him and he dodged going back to church for another month. But when he did, something attracted his attention.

“They invited some youth to come and give testimonies about YXP (Youth Xplosion, a space where many youth come to dance, sing play games as well get inspired about God). So when they were telling us their experiences in YXP, I felt this was a cool space for me to be in.”
He then started attending YXP every Saturday, but never did he go for Sunday service because to him it did not make sense.
Ludigo soon joined the YXP organising team, but that did not mean he had given up on his old ways.

“I would go do my business and also come and enjoy YXP. During that period they were teaching about purpose, purpose, purpose! It was like the song of the day,” he says.

Ludigo says from there he started thinking about his life, and slowly started seeing a change.
“I woke up one day and told my guys that we are closing this business. They never understood me. I tried explaining, but they didn’t understand. I told them they could continue, but I was done.”

Dealing with addiction
“I’d stopped the drug business, but I was still addicted to drugs. I wanted to stop, but I didn’t know how. I went and did research on how to stop drug addiction. I was told that when it is cold you always feel like smoking, so I bought flasks and would put there porridge. Whenever I felt like smoking I would take porridge instead. But it didn’t work,” he says.

Ludigo says although he has overcome the addiction, he cannot remember how exactly he did it. He says since 2018, he now spends more time with God and his new Christian friends.