A group of activists have written to the Speaker of Parliament, Rebeca Kadaga asking the august house to decline approval of Gen. Kale Kayihura’s reappointment as Inspector General of Police.
Early this week, media reports indicated that President Museveni in letter dated March 14 to the Parliamentary Appointments Committee had extended the contracts for Gen.Kayihura and his deputy AIGP Okoth Ochola for 3 more years and asked the committee to approve them.
The activists led by Andrew Karamagi, a lawyer and Brian Atuheire (ethno-botanist) penned a 100 page petition to Kadaga, the chairperson of the appointments committee of parliament highlighting a number of issues they say disqualify Gen. Kayihura ‘s reappointment.
“Of particular interest to us is the blatant disregard for human life, dignity and violence that has continuously been meted out against citizens in the name of maintaining securing and public order,” Karamagi told journalists on Thursday.
“This is coupled with the criminalization of expression, association, dissent and suppression of alternative thought.”
Karamagi came in the limelight in 2014 when he was roughed up by police for grabbing the speech of the then Attorney General Peter Nyombi during a judiciary function at High Court.
Atuheire has also featured on many occasions in the activities of the National Association for the Unemployed where he has been arrested by police during their activities.
The group claims police under the leadership of Gen. Kayihura has been “reduced to a den of crime, corruption and impunity” citing the recent wave of attacks on people throughout the country.
“It is possible for the wheels of justice to spin faster than the sails of impunity he has marshalled over the past decade. He has defied public outcry and went ahead to train and fund outfits that are strange in the laws of the country like crime preventers who only promote crime,” Karamagi says.
The 1995 Constitution provides that the Inspector General of Police and his deputy shall be appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament.
The Parliamentary Appointments Committee is mandated to vet before approving names sent by the president in various positions and is headed by the speaker.
They say they have compiled reports authored by Uganda Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other bodies highlighting disregard of human rights by the police force that they want the Appointments Committee of parliament to look into.
“We think it is only disheartening that a man who has been at the helm of beating everyone is being rewarded .This is a formal way of saying that we detest the extension of his contract,” said Brian Atuheire.
He revealed that they will launch a series of activities including demonstrations in the city to show discontentment with the contract extension of the police boss.
Confronted with such accusations in the past, mostly when interfacing Members of Parliament, the IGP has consistently denied flouting national laws when conduction police work.