Crime preventers and the pretenders

So the police was conspicuously absent at the Lugogo meeting. Instead Museveni was flanked by army types, including the Deputy IGP, Brig. SabiitiMuzeeyi and the Minister for Security, Gen. EllyTumwine. Museveni, however, instructed the army and police command to work together on streamlining the crime preventers’ new placement under the UPDF.

Although Museveni did not elaborate, this offer has been dubbed either oblique or impractical. In reality, the national army does not have stations scattered all over the country from where crime preventers can hang around and launch their pseudo crime preventing ventures. While, the group could claim – even without evidence – that it has 30 members in each of the 56,000 villages in Uganda who are linked directly to a police station, they cannot now make the same claim under UPDF. In any case, army operations are so regimented that crime preventers probably would not easily fit.

In any case, Museveni’s pronouncement has been criticised by many; including Crispy Kaheru, the coordinator of an NGO, the Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy.

“The legal anchoring of crime preventers has not yet been sorted. So the President’s pronouncements may remain largely political, intended to calm anxious crime preventers.”

However Mike Mukula, the NRM Vice Chairperson for the Eastern region, says as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Museveni can constitute any force under the UPDF reserve force.

And Museveni offered crime preventers another morsel of the cake.

“Crime preventers should lead in the revolution of being crime preventers and wealth creators. You should work with OWC to single out those who can become model farmers so that they do not only get out of poverty but also become examples,” he counseled.

And the Crime Preventers Forum is, on paper, ideally set up for that. According to Manuku,they are already organised into economic units. Apart from the Mwangaza SACCO, which according to Manukuis in 60 districts and should be rolled to each district across the country by May, they have units of civil engineers and other professionals ready to grab wealth creation entrepreneurial opportunities offered by Operation Wealth Creation (OWC); the government poverty fighting programme that doles out cash and production inputs.

According to Manuku, through their SACCO, crime preventers have block-making machines they used to supply blocks to the police construction unit. They also provide labour and have ventured into activities like bee keeping in Kween District. So, it appears, crime preventers could easily tap into OWC funding.

Problem is that although the National Crime Preventers Forum appears solid on paper and in functions such as the one at Lugogo and elsewhere during recruitment drives, they appear very thin on the ground. The so-called National Crime Preventers Forum (NCPF) is nothing more than a band of opportunistic mobilisers peddling influence to get government contracts and jobs.

To their critics, their claim to have about 12 million is a concoction of pretenders. Critics claim Kayihura elevated the crime preventers’ numbers to exaggerate his own significance and prominence especially when he involved them in political mobilisation against the opposition.  Even their claim to be doing various projects in 60 districts is a stretch.

Instead, descriptions by Forum leaders such as Adam Sankara are more believable. Sankara told The Independent that he was recruited as a crime preventer in 2014. The following year he was promoted to the position of Coordinator for Kampala Metropolitan under the National Crime Preventers Forum. The position put him in charge of Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono where he says he oversees 21 people; three in those particular areas and 18 who preside over the divisions in Kampala Metropolitan.

“My role is to mobilise and organise various individuals and link them to a Community Liaison Officer who is attached to every police station across the country,” he says.

Sankara says his other roles include sensitization of the public about crime prevention. “This is done with local leaders and councilors in all those areas.” He describes a crime preventer as any responsible citizen concerned about his or her social, political and economic empowerment. In other words, it could be me and you. Should that mean we are all members of the Crime Preventers Forum? Possibly, it should not. That is why the Forum numbers are being hammered.

Given the contradictions, according to Hassan KapsFungaroo; a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Internal and Defence Affairs, for now the crime preventers can only survive “if Museveni needs them”.

“These informal groups (crime preventers, among others) were a creation of Museveni and Kayihura. If Museveni needs them, the new leadership will have to find a way of keeping them. They have served Museveni well,” said Fungaroo. Will Museveniremember his election machine now, especially with the next election five years away?