A man in Jinja has been arrested after police Flying Squad raided his rented home in Kimaka village in Mpumudde Division and discovered a gun, army uniforms, jungle boots, rounds of ammunition and rocket bombs.
Denis Oyo, 36, who was whisked to Kiira Regional Police Headquarters, stays in the Kimaka village which is just next to the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) Senior Staff College in Kimaka.
Kiira Regional Police Commander Onesmus Mwesigwa declined to comment on the matter but this writer witnessed the arrest and spoke to some of Oyo’s neighbours and the village leaders.
“Now this is the second person they are arresting from this village in connection with possession of firearms. Government should come to our rescue otherwise we are not safe,” said one of the residents.
On Sunday, April 8, 2018 police retrieved an AK47 assault rifle with three magazines from a pit latrine in Idogoro Village, Mafubira Sub-County in Jinja District. Mafubira is less than two kilometres from Kimaka.
Police sources said the rifle that was tightly fastened by a polythene bag and left to freely sag in the latrine, was discovered by a neighbour who had gone to answer nature’s call.
They added that he thought a human being had plunged into the latrine and immediately reported the matter to the owner of the latrine who in turn informed the police.
Kiira RPC Mwesigwa confirmed the discovery of the gun, saying the rifle was found inside the pit latrine of Katib Kafufu, a resident of the same Village. He added that the gun was rusty, making it difficult to identify which security institution it belongs to.
Mwesigwa said that Kafufu was not arrested but is helping with investigations into how the gun ended up in his pit latrine and appealed to the public to always be very vigilant and report people in their respective areas who lack proper identification.
In a separate interview, the acting Jinja Central Division Police Commander, Nasur Anguyo, while displaying the gun to journalists at Jinja CPS, said the weapon had been in the latrine for ‘close to five months’.
Incidents of guns being found in Jinja have started worrying the residents, and Michael Muwanguzi who works in Jinja wondered whether the citizens are safe when almost every day some gun is recovered from illegal hands in their area.
In December last year, police in Jinja recovered two guns stolen from two different local security firms operating in the second largest town in the country.
The then Jinja Central Division Police Commander Martin Mbabazi, while addressing journalists, said that one of the guns was stolen from Blue Light Guard Ltd on December 14, 2017, and was recovered from atop a house along Iganga Road.
He said the second gun recovered had been abandoned by a guard at his place of deployment on December 26, 2017.
“For us to recover these guns it was team work; we involved the community, crime preventers and of course the UPDF who patrol with us at night,” said Mbabazi.
No arrests were made in both incidents but he said police were hunting for the suspects.
