By Andrew Bagala and Tabu Butagira
Daily Monitor
KAMPALA, UGANDA – The Police Force has started arming senior traffic personnel following violent attacks on them in the line of duty by unruly motorists.
Lower cadre personnel, including Police Constables deployed to regulate traffic flow will later on also start wielding guns under the drastic administrative reforms intended to bolster their safety.
Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, the inspector general of police, said the officers were routinely being brutalised by errant drivers and motorcycle riders; including armed robbers and petty thieves.
“Our traffic officers are operating in a dangerous environment. I think we should consider arming them,” he said early this month at Police headquarters.
Although the IGP appeared to simply suggest reactivation of the seemingly abandoned proposal to arm traffic officers in the capital and on highways, some of the traffic officers, including the commissioner, Mr Steven Kansiima, said they had already been given pistols for self-defence.
Last year’s scheme to arm traffic wardens was shelved amid public anxiety that some officers could misuse the weapons to victimise and forcibly extract money from motorists at fault, especially after a bunch of apparently ill-trained and trigger-happy Special Police Constables were implicated in killing civilians.
But an upswing in heinous onslaughts on hapless traffic officers, including physical assault and calculated knocks by speeding drivers, has emboldened the Police to press ahead with the unpopular move to arm its officers.
“People are becoming wild due to our extensive operation to restore sanity [on the roads],” said Mr Kansiima, the commissioner for Traffic, whom some motorists clobbered at the start of the ongoing traffic operation in April.
Another driver offered him Shs20,000 as ‘lunch’ in a mocking public show that appeared calculated to cast the traffic officer as a greedy and easy-to-bribe lot, which is the dominant perception among the public.
In the same month, a group of commercial motorcycle riders, locally called boda boda, pelted Lawrence Nuwabiine, the Kampala Extra Traffic Officer, with stones.
Three weeks ago, some boda boda cyclists attacked traffic policemen on Queensway in downtown Kampala, prompting them to call for reinforcement from a nearby police post.
Earlier, a bus had run over a female traffic officer on the Masaka-Mbarara highway.
Mr Kansiima said, “If there is a threat to our [traffic officer’s] lives, [then] we need to carry guns.”
Three traffic officers have, since last year, reportedly died as a result of harsh beating or deliberate head-on accidents caused by wayward motorists they waved down in attempts to verify their driving permits and inspect the vehicle’s road worthiness and insurance cover.
Records show that 27 other traffic officers were assaulted within the same period, the latest being on Tuesday, when a group of boda boda riders, whose motorcycles had been seized by police, pounced on and beat four of the officers severely.
The suspected assailants; Mr Alex Ngagala, Mr Wasswa Katongole, Mr Joseph Ssemukasa, Mr Paul Kiwanuka and Mr Davis Wamala have since been arrested and are still in police custody, pending further investigations.
Their victims, whom police have declined to name, are said to be receiving treatment from city hospitals.
The public has been griping that the civilian security authority was using highhanded – sometimes crude – methods to enforce traffic compliance in the nationwide clampdown crafted to rid the streets of mechanically defective vehicles and unqualified motorists.
Ms Judith Nabakooba, the Police spokeswoman, last Tuesday said attacks on their staff, which are on the rise, are inexcusable, necessitating heightened protection.
Currently, regular constables who patrol streets and urban neighbourhoods offer sporadic guard services to lower cadre traffic officers. Many of the SPCs, who kept watch as auxiliary forces at city road intersections, have since been transferred to upcountry stations, creating a vacuum.
Ms Nabakooba said traffic officers are conversant with gun handling but had not been armed due to the nature of their work.
“It isn’t easy to handle an AK47 gun while directing motorists,” she said. It is still unclear how the Police Force plan to assuage public fears that traffic officers holding assault rifles would not be a menace on the road.
Since traffic officers work during the day and night, it would be difficult for commuters to distinguish between genuine police personnel and masquerading robbers, when flagged down, especially at lonely road stretches.
Ugandan police officers say their counterparts in Indonesia, Thailand and the US carry guns but still do decent jobs and that is why they need arms to tackle rogue elements.