Lives we lost: Father of 10 shot in neck near his house

In the new series, we chronicle how bullets prematurely shattered the blooming dreams of dozens during two days of madness last November. In interviews with our reporter, Gillian Nantume, grieving families and friends share the triumphs, travails and final moments of relatives in a way that offers insights into the lives of victims hitherto treated as statistics.

PETER KINTU 

The 40-year-old boda boda rider was working at a boda boda stage at Unicalo House in Kololo. He had bought his motorcycle on hire-purchase and at the time of his death, he was left with only Shs800,000 to complete the loan.

Kintu was renting one room in Kibulooka Village, Nansana Town Council, just a few metres from the main road. Besides riding a motorbike, Kintu also had a job of transporting fixtures between different branches of Sports Betting. It is a job he did every morning before travelling to the city.

His widow, Ms Maureen Nakazibwe, says her husband had 10 children. 
“By the time he died, I knew of only eight, but two children showed up during the burial. I have been with him for 10 years and we had only one child together. He was a calm man, but he loved talking. He could sit down with whoever was willing and have a long conversation on almost any topic,” the widow says.

Kintu loved watching football and he was a Manchester United fan. His wife says he planned to acquire land after completing the loan payment on his motorcycle.  He wanted to build a home where he could collect his many children.

On the day he died, Kintu rode back to his home when the rioting began in downtown Kampala. 

“He feared chaos and rioting, and every time a riot would start in Kampala, he would come home. That day, when he reached home, I had just finished preparing lunch. I had cooked his favourite food, rice pilau. After he finished eating, he thanked me and said the food had been very tasty.”

The couple went outside and began chatting with their landlady, who was standing a few feet away, at the main house.

“After sometime, he told me he wanted to see what was happening on the main road. He walked to the welding workshop that is next to our house, but about five minutes later, he came back. There was a hole in his neck and blood was pouring out – like water from a jerry can. The landlady screamed and ran back into her house.”

Helpless
Kintu had been shot in the neck. He fell into his wife’s arms (she was still sitting in the doorway where he had left her). Together with her eight-year-old son, they begged him not to die.

He was still alive by the time. The welders came out of their hiding places to take him to the main road to try and find transport to hospital.

The welders say an Local Defence Unit (LDU) operative, who passed by the shop as they chatted to Kintu, is the one who shot him. 

Kintu lay by the roadside for three hours since there was not car passing by. He reportedly died at around 7pm as the ambulance drove into Mulago National Referral Hospital.

He was buried in Namutamba district. His wife says no state official has approached them concerning her husband’s death.

[email protected]