Armed guard shoots minister dead, how many firearms do we need for security?

One of Uganda’s wonders of the world, is that our country is similar in some ways like the open carry states in the United States where firearms are displayed like popcorn. It’s also part economics, part power structure.

Ugandans generally are very peaceful people, there is a general ambivalence towards violence especially in the country’s mid-belly that bore the brunt of the guerilla wars, even the north, and north-east that were shredded to the ground by the lengthy 20-year insurgency after the fall of Milton Obote. 

There are some pockets of ongoing settling of scores inside the country, the unresolved Rwenzururu question, whether greater Kasese belongs to a bigger kingdom outside the borders of Uganda, the Karamoja question which is a more complicated internal war over food, land, cattle and precious minerals. 
In Buganda, there are always outbursts of violent crime now mostly caught on cameras linked to a troubled domestic economy. People steal for spare parts, stock, food and witchcraft which is also associated with other forms of idolatry and religious worship.

So the news that a UPDF guard executed his boss, the Minister of State of Labour Col Okello Engola, 64, commando style before court martialing and executing himself rocked the news cycle at least for a day. It appears Wilson Sabiiti had some financial problems, and took it out on his principal, not his employer. What was going on in the army private’s mind is anyone’s guess. Overwhelmed by his surroundings but wondering why his “small problem” of Shs 4 million could not be handled. He probably did not take into account that the fallen Minister, like the few who are lucky to have a job in Uganda, are overwhelmed by financial responsibilities. The minister’s family on arriving at the scene were overwhelmed by grief, loss of a breadwinner is not a simple subject at all.

Then we turn to the true description of Sabiiti’s job. In our economy, we justify everything in the form of a job. It is a cynicism that came from colonial times. In the days the Indians dominated the economy, the Africans devised a mode of work, minimum work to justify the low wages, that have driven the low-wage, low productivity narrative. 
In the context of the modern state, this cynicism is driven by continuous recruitment into “non-jobs” with job security, but for which a living wage is not possible given Uganda’s perilous finances. 
In 2022-2023, the total wage bill was nearly Shs7 trillion. If all promises to give a living wage were honored, the wage bill would almost double to 12 trillion. If the 400,000 jobs unfilled in the public service were filled, your guess is good as mine, the wage bill would consume nearly every shilling of domestic tax revenue.

Where does this leave the “political class”?  There are many jobs which are only a stimuli response to a public job highlighted on Labour Day. Why would so many young men in their prime even if they were soldiers have to sit, guns facing in the air accompanying politicians to work, home, shopping etc. Yes at times there are threats to the lives of politicians, but the biggest threats are inside the political system itself. Our political system like that of the colonial era is dominated by mistrust, fear and suspicion. Everybody needs security, except in the villages where the locals consume a different kind of security, “twebaka ku tulo”.  

Every few months, the villagers tolerate the theft of foodstuffs, livestock, and then the villagers come together and either use some form of juju to track the thief or way-lay them. My sister Regina Mauricia Kiwanuka saw some of this in her father’s home in Kisaabwa Bukomansimbi a few years ago, when the domestic help dismantled a solar cell on the roof, and was trailed by a dog to his house. The villagers like Private Sabiiti often have a criminal code of conduct, they may pounce on you leaving you lifeless, or simply remove your iron sheets and expel you from the village. Sabiiti in a cynic manner walked himself to the gallows shooting in the air, no one could stop him, his problem was with the system, not the town dwellers of Kyanja. A double tragedy or even triple tragedy in itself.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]