When Uganda Police Detectives
first crossed to Kenya
A Police Story...
Sam Mwaka-karama
‘Athi
River Murder’ – became a first rate Ugandan crime
detective story exhaustively followed and reported by DRUM magazines for years
in the 1960s and 70s - long after the criminals had either been apprehended,
vanished or for others melted away with their trail running cold every year
that elapsed.
The drama had unfolded at Lugogo Indoors
Stadium – the night was light and somewhat cool as it often was in Kampala
evenings, the night sky favourably clear and star spangled up there; a huge
tropical moon slightly past overhead noon point. As the guests packed in, security was normal.
There was an air of political anticipation; then President Obote had just few
years earlier successfully abrogated the independence constitution, made his
‘Nakivubo Pronouncement’ as the build-up on his ‘Move to the Left’ political
philosophy.
Lugogo
was one such political philosophy build-up event - there that night Dr. Obote
was set to unfurl his next dictum what would begin to piece together the complex
steps towards mapping-out his political philosophy – and the visualized
build-up of the ideology [move to the left] - next door in Tanzania then
President Julius Nyerere, equally worked-up the Tanzanian people with his
“Ujamah” African socialism political mobilization Ideology – already the
fire-brand was talking about ushering a transformation. While at the same time
then Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta united the Kenyan people under his
‘fly-whisk’ political ideology of ‘’pull-together’’ in his long characteristic
call –‘’ Harambee’’. To foreign observers and African watchers the East African
region looked very-much set for a major change.
That night in Lugogo as Obote was set to
make another major pronouncement, a group of the Kabaka’s Buganda loyalist die hard;
following the crisis of 1966 that saw the exit of Kabaka Mutesa II into exile
in Britain – the loyalists were determined to end President Obote’s life –
though the old Police systems had already gotten wind of the loyalists
arrangements, they had been several steps behind and, actually very late!
The ‘assassin’ moved easily and freely
among the mostly security un-conscious VIP and eminent guests, and dressed in a
popular Kitenge design with the Presidents head centred on his Kitenge shirt;
just like so many chanting praise animatedly, Kyeyune eventually picking his
moment approached and actually fired! The rest is a well known police story –
in Uganda history.
For the detectives, headed by Indian Hassan
Sundrani, and going by the book as it were - they were said to have been
closing on the trail of the suspect group a long time, Kyeyune just freaked
them out; because he was the ‘dummy’ - he was the most unlikely of the group
that included names like John Obo (1965/6 Army dismissed mutineer Captain), and
some of Katwe’s toughies the detectives trailed all the time. It was in the
dying eleventh hour of the ‘Lugogo take’ – that Hassan’s detectives got the
name and identity of ‘the man with the golden gun’, from a Suzana Night Club
prostitute – now they knew the ‘dummy’ was the assassin; but where was he? The
last minute race began then...
In the blinding stampede that followed
Kyeyune’s shot – the assassin aided by his back-up [who suddenly crushed and
demolished their way through the scampering mass of falling entanglement of
bodies] rode on the back of the stampede-crowd and falling VIPs and hysterical everybody
and Kyeyune was out of the focal point
perimeter in barely seconds. Huge throngs of people burst out of the gates, in
minutes a whole lot of them wearing that Obote Kitenge, spilling onto that
stretch down towards Lugogo by pass – where those detectives later theorized
that the most likely route where the getaway car probably waited for the assassin
action team.
Other theories said the action group might
have fled [along with the huge crowd of dancing groups from the Naguru
community, who had been the mobilized welcome cultural group entertaining
Guests outside the indoor stadium] running on foot across the Lugogo by-pass
and onto what used to be open rugby ground and probably boarded the getaway car
someplace near the Delinquent kids’ home close to the old Naguru housing
estates flats. And the convoy of perhaps three or more cars drove through the
night in sturdy Datsun 1600 SSS - to Kenya border. Kyeyune, the man who nearly
killed President Obote disappeared into Kenya. It was rumoured among the junior
detectives that a top Kenyan political criminal who went by the fake name of
Mark twist might have master minded the Obote assassination attempt – however
the many-many investigative articles written in the Drum magazine for several
years after, never actually associated Mark Twist to the Lugogo event.
Emancipation of
Uganda Police
Kampala was in turmoil after that fateful
night – though Obote was out of danger, and was healthy enough to live many
more years after the hurting of that assassin’s bullet; the challenges fell
squarely on the shoulders of the Police; to find and bring to justice all
involved accountably. The Scotland Yard landed investigators to aid the Ugandan
detectives structure the group identikit and, begin tracking them down...
Since the UPC and KY political alliance had
collapsed and come to an end – with the Kabaka of Buganda having much earlier fled
into exile in Britain. And, Dr. Milton Obote assuming position of Executive
President thus making Uganda a Republic by abrogating the Independence
Constitution – the Buganda loyalists of the Kabaka had pledged a bullet on
Obote’s head... and that was delivered by Kyeyune that night... the drums
resounded throughout Buganda as the people were hysterical that actually
President Obote had miraculously survived.
The now really heated President bared down on the AG, DPP and IGP and the three powerful officers pretty-much roughed-up Commissioner
Hassan the CID Chief – who quickly delivered a report that the assassination
group had fled to Kenya and, he needed clearances to cross a detective team
into Kenya. Obote was a powerful East African President and, a friend to his
East African peers – Hassan’s team was in Kenya in no time at all.
While in Uganda in the period following the
Lugogo incidence, a spate of violent robberies broke-out as the loyalists
raised cash for the exiled assassination group now living in Kenya... the
robbery money used by the group in their settlement in Kenya was to
dramatically make things doubly difficult for the detectives holed-up in
Nairobi.
The team comprised high ranking action
oriented detectives included a group of Police Women accompanied by top
prostitutes who knew the assassin group well and had divulged a lot of their
plan and contacts in Kenya. Rampant arrests back in Kampala had set the
loyalists fleeing, and even as the core assassination group secured houses
where they lived in posh areas of Nairobi – the detectives never the less
closed-in and found outer periphery members, but not the core group till one
prostitute found the men and, was lured into some meandering randes vous that
eventually ended in the cat and mouse where the women were murdered in Athi
River – the night the assassins drove to Mombasa, where they barricaded
themselves for years later.
‘Äthi River Murder’ – hit the headlines all
over East Africa and beyond – for the core group of the assassins, that was the
desired thing, something as big as the shot in Lugogo – would get the
detectives off their backs at least for a while... and as the group went
underground in Mombasa, the team of detectives pulled-out with the bodies of
the dead women. It would take sometimes for the re-org and given the political
weight of the whole matter, it eventually became an indefinite thing. Uganda
detectives kept the thin line alive though and, many others were periodically
picked.
In the final analysis the blockbuster as
punitively nibbled out by DRUM and other magazines and newspapers actually
eventually spelt-out the emancipation of the Uganda Police – highlighting
standards exhibited in the field of crime detection for which Uganda was more
often internationally considered as performing fairly well. ‘Athi River Murder’
is on the very top of Uganda Police detective achievements to date – as it was
foundational. Assassin Kyeyune was reputed to have materialized during the Amin
era a free man with a business in Kampala – was the paradox! ***
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