The trouble with state lawlessness: No one is safe

Dear reader, it appears we are on the cusp of another revolution.

The revolution since 1986 has run its course, despite the intransigence of its owners, those who fought and their descendants. The revolution is now living in the past, the glory days of armed resistance, when they could do no wrong.

Today, that glory has turned to military might to force its will across the arms of government. Alas! Even the finest intentions are no match for the hubris bred by regime longevity.

The writing is on the wall – for those who still hold the yellow of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime dearly. That yellow is also the shade of withering things.

The paper that is our Constitution states that power belongs to the people; unfortunately, the people are paper-thin compared to the weight of the armed-to-theteeth regime. The regime, in protecting its gains, has decentered the people at the heart of any gain – the citizenry. Things are falling apart.

It’s time to pivot or continue straight ahead with neither seatbelt nor helmet into the head-on collision.

Scene 1: It could have been a scene from a Ugawood movie if it wasn’t for the real guns and, therefore, real bullets shooting from them. The July 20 viral video showed armed men, dressed in civilian clothes, shooting into the air in the crowded environs of Kisekka Market.

Uganda Radio Network (URN) indicated the shooting had lasted for at least an hour, forcing traders in the area to close shop for over two hours – because who wants to catch a stray bullet?

According to witnesses, men wielding pistols had stormed a shop in the area to arrest a trader. The said trader, seeing the armed yet unidentified men, rightfully (if not bravely) asked for their identification and the charges for which he was being arrested.

As it turned out, the gruff men did not take kindly to being asked to follow due process – a confrontation ensued that resulted in the open-air shooting. The Police later clarified and identified the men as their own officers, explaining: “During the operation, a group of individuals turned violent and attempted to obstruct the lawful arrest of the suspects. In order to disperse the unruly crowd and restore order, the officers fired warning shots into the air.”

It is troublesome that what the police identifies as a ‘lawful operation’ was carried out so lawlessly – a manner fit for career criminals. Kisekka Market has over time become a hotbed for this lawless enforcement that the traders are rightfully on edge when suspicious-looking characters, wielding guns, march in without identifying themselves.

On November 21, 2020, similarly, an opposition supporter, John Ddamulira of the National Unity Party, was ‘arrested’ at Kisekka Market. As in the July video, Ddamulira was forcibly taken by men in civilian clothes, who whisked him away in the notorious patron of state-enforced disappearances and abductions, The Drone.

To date, Ddamulira (and others) remain disappeared, their families in agonizing limbo. The mortifying cherry on top – Ddamulira’s wife died in June this year. What kind of Uganda are his children left with? The trouble with lawlessness – it does not stay hidden.

Think of it as a colonizing force – insidious and endlessly greedy. In the words of the Lion King movie, “Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

It wants everything: your women, men, children, gold, timber, lakes, rivers, forests – even deserts. When the police, whose mandate is to serve and protect Ugandans, cannot be differentiated from criminal behaviour, that right there is the unmistakable writing on the peeling yellow wall.

Scene 2: In May this year, NTV featured the heartwarming story of a family reunion. Jordan Augustine Omuse, aged seven, went missing in March 2025 during the infamous Kawempe byelection (another lawful operation, an election, held amidst utmost state lawlessness), which saw an unprecedented level of security deployment and ensuing state violence.

How can we forget the scenes from Kawempe – state security officers armed to the teeth – wearing macabre face coverings favoured by the murderous Mexican criminal cartels – and the accompanying teargas, live bullets and beatings unleashed on hapless civilians with several chased down and pummeled like rats?

So, what does a seven-year-old boy have to do with such ‘lawful’ operations? The boy’s family recounted how Omuse disappeared: “When policemen passed by our home, the child became very terrified. He ran off and disappeared.”

A social worker described the boy as being quite traumatized and full of fear that they suspected the boy had run away from home because of physical abuse.

Dear reader, the sight of the police terrified the boy; his instinct was to flee – not towards the one whose mandate is to serve and protect Ugandans but away. You might say I am reading too much into things, ‘politicising everything.’

That depends on your privilege. Did the viral video of longtime political activist Sam Mugumya, who has been missing for a year now, leave you wondering if it is AI or unsettled at what has become of the revolution?

Are you fed up with Kizza Besigye’s ‘antics’- collapsing his case into the hospital ICU as if the judiciary ICU is not bad enough when the state has been so kind as to force lawyers onto him because they care that much?

Or are you disturbed by the weaponisation of the judiciary? For those on whom the brilliant yellow of the NRM regime shines, making their melanin pop pleasantly, how long will you keep looking over your burnished shoulder, ensconced with the finest trappings of power to keep you safe?

There is safety in numbers – not the numbers of tribe or political party, but safety that comes from advocating for a Uganda that works for us all. There is no safety in lawlessness for the simple fact that when you cannot separate the police from the thugs, anything goes.

Must we be reminded of the mob justice in broad daylight that so viciously ended the life of rugby player Sydney Gongodyo? For those who argued that Gongodyo was killed because rugby is not as popular as football, what of the recent killing of the prominent footballer, David Owori, in a street mugging, another life lost to lawlessness?

To that end, the next revolution, whenever it happens, has to dismantle the state as we know it today. Dear reader, I come in peace – the peace that ensures my neighbour, regardless of their political creed or choicest insult, is also deserving of peace and due process.

There is no safety in lawlessness. The question is not whether it will one day come for those who today are protected by it. But whether, when that day comes, there will still be enough of the republic left to defend them.

smugmountain@gmail.com

The writer is a tayaad muzzukulu.

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