Kitatta: Reckless zeal won’t go unpunished
The laws of the land have finally collared Abudallah Kitatta. Yesterday, the military court jailed the former top dog of the notorious Boda Boda 2010 Association for eight years for illegal possession of firearms, and by extension, causing harm to innocent civilians. Kitatta had operated above the law. His anarchic vigilante gang fused with the Uganda Police Force was untouchable under former police chief Gen Kale Kayihura.
Kitatta was also a rabid ruling NRM local party boss in Kampala’s Rubaga Division and savaged the Opposition. Kitatta’s brute acts also saw him sued before the High Court in Kampala in connection with beating up school children, who were travelling to Nkumba in Entebbe, Wakiso District, ironically to attend a police function in October 2017.
The crime of the little schoolgirls of Winterland Primary School was wearing red ribbons on their heads, which were part of their dress code. Kitatta’s crew saw them as sympathetic to MPs opposed to the lifting of the presidential age limit then being pushed by his NRM party.
Also his gang, mainly boda boda riders, raided Makindye Court and savaged officers of court, protesting a case filed against then police chief Gen Kale Kayihura.
In sum, Kitatta had got his freedom to operate outside the established laws without even security agencies questioning his activities.
But the fall of Kitatta should serve as a lesson for all militant zealots who execute illegal orders against citizens. No doubt, Kitatta sacrificed a lot for his NRM party, but using illegal means.
Kitatta’s ill fame and tumble is a warning to us all of the misuse of power, and extending our political roles to engagement in security matters, for which we are never trained neither prepared to hold and exercise.
For Kitatta, not even the pleadings of his lawyers that he was a victim of circumstance could save him. His lawyers’ argument that the person who issued the gun and bullets to Kitatta and his bodyguard did not give them certificates of possession did not matter.
The law took its course. It was clear that Kitatta had to carry his own cross. For his notoriety, Kitatta had to be held individually responsible for his illegal acts.
At the end of his day in the General Court Martial in Makindye, Kampala, his partisan and brutal excesses against political foes of the regime, which extended to even little children, could not save him. And his hour of need, after one year and four months in detention, Kitatta was left to hang out to dry, alone.
