A former police chief has said jailed Gen Kale Kayihura can be forgiven for the mistakes he made as Inspector General of Police.
John Cossy Odomel, who was the second last none-military occupant of the same office between 1992 and 1998, told The Observer that the police is better off today on account of Kayihura’s contribution.
“People should not forget Kale’s things that he did for police such as opening many police posts, well-facilitated police officers in terms of logistics with uniforms,” Odomel said during an interview on Saturday, June 24.
“Kale’s administration was much better funded. Although the welfare was not so much improved, he managed to increase the number of police officers from 14,000 to 44,000. During our work, we all make mistakes which can be forgiven, and do good jobs that can be appreciated.”
Kayihura is in military detention on unspecified charges, having been arrested a fortnight ago. Scores of other police officers, who had occupied top jobs under him are also in custody, as a wide ranging military intelligence investigation into suspected treason, multiple murders/assassinations, kidnap and forced repatriation of political asylum seekers and refugees from Rwanda and South Sudan, proceeds.
Odomel’s lone and unlikely voice seeks to rationalise the situation. He reflects on a difficult police past, observing how “during my time, welfare was a big problem due to low funding”.
He speaks about how the police “depended on foreign donations from the British for logistics, transport and we had only one police vehicle per district, which weakened some of our work”.
Older Ugandans will no doubt remember the few police Landrovers, prominently labelled with the words ‘British Aid’ – a testament to the period Odomel talks about.
It is during that period that, “many policemen didn’t have uniforms and others had patched uniforms. Uniforms were imported,” he says.
There have been 20 Inspectors General of the Uganda Police since the Force’s formation in 1906 (eight under President Museveni). Of these, some are remembered as well meaning, law abiding and hardworking officers. Kayihura served longest; November 2005 to March 2018.
There have been varying levels of success, failure and incompetence, leading up to the brink of total institutional collapse, from which the incumbent chief, John Martins Okoth Ochola is scrambling to recover Uganda’s police.
Kayihura was the second army General to lead this institution after Gen Edward Katumba Wamala’s tenure, April 2001-October 2005. By the time he was sacked in March, public outrage at the police was approaching fever pitch; a force which had violently lurched from its constitutional law and order role and turned into a frightening, partisan fifth column.
Criminal elements within its ranks robbed from ordinary Ugandans; corruption, extortion became the order of the day; while heinous crimes, including murder and kidnap for ransom were linked to the police, amongst other felonies.
Perhaps the most unrelenting critic of Kayihura was Julius Odwe, a man who was Deputy Inspector General of Police, before he left in disgust at what he felt was the unsatisfactory behaviour of his boss.
Months before he retired, Odwe had retreated to his home in Lango sub-region, where he now farms the land of his ancestors. Odwe retired a frustrated and dispirited man in 2011 after 30 years of serving an institution he joined in 1981.
He says Kayihura began well. But his undoing started with a troubling failure to recognise professionalism — despite the advice of senior colleagues like himself. There were other weaknesses which Odwe remembers.
Like that time in 2010, when he advised against the General’s rush attempt to summarily dismiss over 800 policemen, on the wild claim that they were not on duty.
“It was wrong. I told him when he dismisses officers, they will sue him and I was not going to support him in court. He listened and abandoned the case. But still his working conditions were poor, such as calling meetings but didn’t attend them. I told him, next time when he doesn’t attend I will not attend too,” he said.
Over time, Kayihura started seeing his deputy as an obstacle. Their differences deepened when Odwe says, he refused to allow his boss to withdraw police money for unclear reasons.
“During my time, I was the finance chairperson and couldn’t leave him to waste money on non-police issues but when I retired, he misused it since it was open to him,” Odwe said.
“He was an expert in going to the field but not in office. His strength was on logistics and shooting the police budget from Shs 140bn, where he found it to Shs 514.7bn by the time he left.”
Probably one of the most devastating blows landed by the jailed General on Odwe’s police, was the undermining of rank and seniority.
“Command and respect for senior officers has collapsed, where many officers of lower rank are the bosses of higher ranks,” he said.
On top of his destabilising, almost weekly reshuffles, Kayihura made a habit of ousting old hands and replacing them with inexperienced loyalists, fresh from police college, in high positions.
Of this infamous tendency, Elizabeth Muwanga, the former director of Welfare at Police headquarters, concurred with Odwe, telling The Observer on June 22 that “when officers realise you don’t trust them in their work, they can’t also support you.”
“Once you disrupt the system and your juniors become your bosses, the system collapses,” she said.
The eight Inspectors General of Police under Museveni include; Luke Ofungi (1985-1987), David Psomgen (1988-1990), Apollo Byekwaso (1990-1992), Odomel (1992-1998), John Kisembo (1999-2001), Gen Katumba Wamala (April 2001- Oct 2005), Kayihura and Okoth Ochola who took office on March March 4, 2018.
Ofungi stands out because he has the distinction of having been chief across three different governments. Odwe says Ofungi was a “responsible officer” and this could explain why he led under Idi Amin (1973-74), under Dr Apollo Milton Obote (May-December 1980) and then across Gen Tito Okello Lutwa’s chaotic junta. Ofungi was also police chief for the first year of Museveni’s presidency.
Odwe worked under all eight, including Obote’s other police boss, Boniface Okoth Ogola in 1981-1985. He remembers Ofungi as a hardworking officer.
The Psomgen years
After Ofungi was dropped, David Psomgen arrived and had a relatively uneventful 1988-1990 stint. Odwe found him to be a polite, calm and respectful man from the old school, a chief who depended on his officers.
Byekwaso
Then Apollo Byekwaso came in also briefly (1990-92). He was an operational and hardworking man.
“But, however, his level of professionalism was low and he worked for a short time,” Odwe remembers.
Odomel
This bespectacled officer reportedly introduced new ideas like strategic management, which included strategic annual work planning, now used in different police departments. He also introduced annual crime reporting, police trainings on management courses, with many officers attending courses in England.
But it was also under him that institutional graft and human rights abuse flourished.
“Odomel’s work as IGP was affected by the Justice Julia Ssebutinde Commission of Inquiry into corruption in police, which found that he was selling food to police officers inside the force, which was unprofessional and he was sacked,” Odwe said.
Ssebutinde reported that under Odomel, the police declined in professional standards, discipline and observance of human rights.
Kisembo
Odomel was replaced by his deputy John Kisembo, who was a quiet man. He worked with directors of Criminal Investigations Department, Special branch, Operations and Administration, as his deputies until the Ssebutinde Commission wound up.
“Since his work was full of the Ssebutinde Commission, he didn’t do much for police development, but his role of managing 2001 elections was peaceful and successful,” Odwe said.
Gen Katumba
The filth unearthed by the corruption inquiry partly the appointment of former army chief, Gen Edward Katumba Wamala from April 2001 to November 2005.
Gen Wamala is a hardworking person and excellent officer, who cleared the police of drunkenness, Odwe says. He remembers when Katumba sacked about 250 police officers who failed to perform due to alcoholism.
“He caught up with police work. He had good management principles and consulted fellow police officers…The Ssebutinde commission suggested 280 recommendations to clean up corruption, extrajudicial killings and extortion, among other crimes. I worked with him and we implemented three quarters of them,” he says.
Ugandans will remember Katumba for working in communities, trying to improve policing although they were poorly equipped, understaffed and underfunded.
“He started campaigns in different organisations like Uganda Revenue Authority, Uganda Investment Authority, Parliament to buy police vehicles to improve on community policing,” Odwe says.
Katumba also oversaw Operation Wembley, which cleared the city of violent crime under a controversial shoot-to-kill directive. Like Kayihura, Katumba Wamala, however, was always accused of being a partisan chief, who made life miserable for opposition politicians.
Karugaba’s letter
When the story of the Uganda police is exhaustively written, one officer’s views will forever stand out. On June 12, 2014, months before Uganda Police Force was about to celebrate 100 years, Hebert Rheno Karugaba, a former director of CID wrote a letter to Kayihura, telling him how he had destroyed the force and turned it into a political outfit of the Museveni regime.
The scholarly Karugaba joined police in 1980 and served for 18 years. He is amongst that crop of consummate professionals, who once occupied the effective Special Branch, which was disbanded for political reasons.
Karugaba told Kayihura how, “he was contacted by a senior officer from police headquarters, who informed me about this anniversary and invited me to join you and other officers for dinner at Serena Hotel Kampala. I declined the invitation. I will share with you some of the reasons I declined the invitation.”
He then outlined a litany of misdeeds:
“Ever since you became IGP, you have taken the police on a roller coaster of partisan policing, which has never been seen in this country.
In a democratic society, the police serve to protect, rather than impede, freedoms. The very purpose of the police is to provide a safe, orderly environment in which these freedoms can be exercised.
The mandate of the police is very clear in the Constitution of Uganda. Article 212 provides as follows:
The functions of the Uganda Police Force shall include the following-
(a) To protect life and property;
(b) To preserve law and order;
(c) To prevent and detect crime; and
(d) To cooperate with the civilian authority and other security organs established under this Constitution and with the population.
Democratic, accountable policing is one of the hallmarks of democracy.
In a healthy democracy, a police service exists to protect and support the rights of its community, not to repress or curtail freedom and ensure power for the governing regime.
Holding the police to account for their plans, actions and decisions provides the necessary balance to the exercise of professional discretion by police officers.
Accountability also provides a means by which the relationship between the police and the state can be kept under scrutiny; a way of providing insulation against internal and external interference, with the proper function of the police.
Every time I use public means, I listen to the comments of fellow passengers and I also observe the deportment of traffic officers. They nowadays receive monetary bribes in full view of the public, something I last saw in Lagos, Nigeria some 25 years ago.
The living conditions in the police barracks are horrible. The buildings have never seen any renovations since their construction during the colonial era, and the hygiene situation is very threatening due to leaking water pipes and overflowing sewerage lines.
Under your stewardship, the UPF has been used to brutally suppress protest, hunt down and harass those in opposition to the NRM regime, to the extent that President Museveni has publicly referred to you as the best NRM cadre. As far as I am concerned, this is a poisoned chalice that you are drinking from.
You have turned the UPF from a civilian law enforcement agency into a highly militarised goon squad, specifically aimed at controlling the grey area between what constitutes ‘crime’ and ‘politics.’
In this effort, opposition to authoritarian rule has been criminalised, and any opposition to NRM is now considered unpatriotic, and thus “crime” has been politicised.
Political partisanship on your part and the growth of crime in Uganda have in many cases undercut the development of democratic policing, by ensuring more militarised responses to disorder.
The UPF will have to prove its legitimacy through effective operation, often through direct engagement with citizens on the ground.”
Four years after Karugaba’s denunciation, Kayihura wallows in military detention, where some say the corrupting influence of the absolute power which he was allowed to wield is catching up with him.
Police spokesperson Emillian Kayima, however, protests public criticism of his institution.
“People who can’t appreciate our services can go. (sic) Police is mandated to protect life and property so that nobody is assaulted, killed or robbed of property. It’s our role to detect and prevent crime through our intelligence. And also keep law and order such as supporting bailiffs in the implementation of court orders,” he says.
Ochola’s plans for police
Kayima says, last month Ochola visited western units in Greater Bushenyi, Rwizi in Mbarara and Masaka, reminding police officers to work professionally, avoid corruption and use the available resources.
“Ochola advised officers to quickly respond to all incidents such as responding to all telephone calls, dress professionally in police uniforms to avoid losing credibility from the public,” he said.
It is 100 days since Ochola took over alongside his understudy, Brig. Sabiti Muzeyi, the former commanding officer of the military police, Ugandans are watching them.
zurah@observer.ug