By Julius Odeke, Journalist
The world over, elections is a very fragile exercise with several stakeholders, who have different ambitions, expectations, interests and missions. Therefore, to manage the expectations of these stake holders, and to have seamless, nonviolent, non hostile, nonchaotic electoral exercise, police involvement is unquestionable when it comes to matter of electoral lawlessness and crowd management.
In Uganda’s case, the Electoral Commission is mandated with responsibility of organizing, supervising, managing and delivering credible, fair and transparent elections from the presidential elections to the lowest offices at local council level.
The elections management by Electoral Commission starts with bankrolling the electoral guidelines, road map, processes and procedures, which should be followed to the dot by all candidates, agents, supporters, political party members and media houses among others. However, in most cases in Uganda’s case no candidate expects to be declared a loser and as a result, electoral violence, disputes, political hostility and disagreements among other provocative misconduct tend to come into play, which automatically calls for direct involvement of Uganda Police personnel as the custodians of law and order.
In the context of the current electoral exercise in Uganda, there have been incidents of provocations of our security officers, especially by the opposition members, specifically NUP foot soldiers and sympathizers. Imagine pelting police officers with stones, what does a right thinking Ugandan expect from a bleeding policeman?
Of course it is reactionary response and the nearest tool of trade is his gun purposely to secure and safeguard his life. Police officers are human beings with blood in their bodies, for that matter, they are prone to emotional reaction when provoked, which in most cases lead to undesirable results and at the end of the day, short sighted people blame police without finding out the background of such reactions.
A case in point, in Iganga one Okello Mesach was innocently shot as reported by the Daily Monitor after departure from the campaign venue. This all came as a result of hooliganism from the so called foot soldiers. In most cases, all the cases of violence come as result of defiance conduct, like change of campaign routes especially in heavily populated routes, campaigning at night, campaigning beyond the stipulated time set by the Electoral commission, violating traffic guidelines when transporting supporters among other lawlessness, all purposely to attract public sympathy.
In yesterday’s fracas in Nimule-Elegu highway, instead of Kyagulanyi campaigning in Atiak which was the EC programme, his team wanted to go all the way to Elegu border, which police had to block for purpose of avoiding clatches with supporters of other candidates. The NUP group and their sympathizers have always thrived in chaotic and dramatic environment, however, we have learnt that they don’t have serious mission to take Uganda forward and don’t even deserve attention from right thinking people of society.
In close observations, there is no serious group of people called opposition politicians in Uganda. What we see is just a group of misguided, lose association of visionless, noise makers without sober and clear agenda for Uganda, whom we can’t trust to undo the gains we have so far achieved.
Therefore, in executing their mandate, like in other countries, the Hon.Simon Byamukama’s led Electoral Commission, cannot work in isolation of the Uganda Police Force in collaboration with other security forces for purpose of executing security guidelines to the candidates and their supporters and to safeguard against the emergence of violence, lawlessness, hostility before, during and after the electoral exercise.
With this background in mind, the responsibility of securing and safeguarding elections in Uganda squarely lies on the shoulders of Uganda Police Force personnel in collaboration UPDF when need arises.
For this matter, no Ugandan regardless of his political standing especially the so called foot soldiers from opposition outfits has the rationale of seeing police and other security apparatus as tresspassers, violators, and saboteurs of their right to display open air hooliganism, violence and hostility on innocent Ugandans.
The existence of Uganda Police Force is clearly and well provided in our constitution, specifically Article 211 and Article 212 clearly spells out the functions of the Uganda Police Force as a) to protect life and property b) to preserve law and order c)to prevent and detect crime and to cooperate with civilian authority and other security organs , therefore, in these electoral exercise, Police personnel are frontline stakeholders and can’t be backbenchers and spectators like the foot soldiers have it their minds. This is exactly what Uganda Police has been doing, not anything else outside the law.
In conclusive summary, there is no substitute for the role of police in safeguarding and securing the lives and property of Ugandans before, during and after electoral exercise. For this matter, Kyagulanyi and other opposition leaders, have a big role to play in guiding their members to respect state institutions like police because they will need them in the unforeseeable future when they assume presidency. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
