In a surprising twist, the spate of killings of women that has been registered in recent time has been linked to the work of misguided opposition politicians.
Recently, a number of women have been found murdered either by strangulation or being hit with blunt objects, and their bodies burnt, in Kampala suburbs.
A major case that is in now in court involves Musa Musazizi, a 23 year old man who is reported to have confessed to killing four women, Noreen Nabirye, Violet Kansiime, Abigail Nakitende and Elizabeth Mutesi last month. He also killed Kansiime’s 3-year old baby.
Musasizi is jointly charged with 23-year-old boda boda rider, Abdul Kasaija, with the murder of another woman, Mackline Ahereza, in February (2021).
Medical tests done on Musasizi show that he is mentally vivid and he claims to have done the killings as a hobby. However, security honchos reject this take, reasoning that nobody engages in criminal activities as a hobby unless that person’s head has a problem. So, it is either that Musasizi is a psychiatric case or has other motivations, or those have been linked with a grand plan involving other incidents where women have been murdered senselessly within the high political season of elections and after.
A newly elected councilor in Mityana was also murdered mysteriously after she had told family that she was going for a visit in Kiboga. Within security circles, these incidents are being treated as “politically-engineered crimes” intended to undermine the government and if possible stir up a situation that would fail the swearing in of President Yoweri Museveni scheduled for 12th May 2021.
The killings have been linked to the infamous murders of women in Masaka, Nansana and Entebbe in Wakiso district that occurred after the 2016 elections where bodies would be found dumped in several localities with the victims severely mutilated and their bodies burnt.
The pattern, which also involved kidnappings for ransom, centered around Kampala, Wakiso, Masaka and Mukono districts, before it was contained.
Some of the victims had sticks pushed into their private parts, underscoring a motive of inflicting severe pain, violating their dignity to the fullest and sending shock waves into the public.
“This is how the minds of terrorists work. To sow as much fear as possible in the minds of the public so that they retreat and to lose hope in those charged with guaranteeing their security”. “If you target a woman, you target humanity. If you target security, you target President Museveni’s key constituency.”
Apparently, this is in tandem with the interests of anti-NRM actors whose plan is to make the public lose confidence in the ability of the NRM to safeguard them while also sending a message that if they rise up they can overwhelm the “weak” system.
“This is a message that has been propagated by opposition politicians hoping to precipitate a sort of ‘Arab spring’ in Uganda,” the source added.
The thinking in the system is that a reoccurrence of the same frightful incidents of 2016 riding on the political discontent is very likely since the opposition is bent on implementing “plan B” and handing matters to the “public court”, both of which are understood to be euphemisms for high level defiance and insurrection.
“You tell me, is it only Musasizi who has suspected his girlfriend of being involved with another man? How come that not all men are killing their girlfriends for cheating? There is another motive to this case,” the security source reasons, adding that if all men who suspected the women in their lives of straying killed them “corpses would be everywhere.”
The source added that any law-abiding citizen who has faith in the government wouldn’t take matters in his hands like that. “These things are calculated as part of a grand plan.”
Apparently, the murders would be more rampant if it were not for curfew measures imposed to help contain Covid-19 infections.
“If it were not for curfew, people would be moving all night. You would see bodies lying everywhere,” the source added.
Asked whether that means that curfew would not be lifted soon, he said measures are place to follow the perpetrators, whether curfew is lifted soon or not.
