TO FIGHT TERRORISM, WE NEED CONCERTED EFFORTS East Africa is reeling from Alshabaab attack on Westgate. As right thinking people, we ought to ruminate about this bizarre incident and devise means of guarding against a recurrence of this cowardly act in Uganda. In Kampala, we ought to tighten our belts; malls are not the only targets for terrorism but churches, schools, mosques and local villages are targets which should step up security. These terrorist set up their cells in suburbs in secluded homes in our communities, they will be able to do this simply because all LC 1 are nolonger vigilant to ask for letters of introduction for any new resident from his former LC1 chairman. This lapse will cause infiltration of terrorist amidst us. In order to counter terrorism, local councils, hotels and all other places of paid for accommodation should monitor their check in guests so that those with ulterior motives can be detected earlier. I am sure in Kenya these ominous terrorists should have camped in some suburb for a period not less than a Month preparing and doing routine reconnaissance at the mall. Let’s not give these heartless fellows room to execute their plans, just as we dealt with bomb blasts in Kampala, let’s all be watchdogs in our communities, any homestead with unfamiliar occupants should be reported to the authorities. In church Kanyanya St Paul’s Church of Uganda, we instituted a policy out of sheer brethren love to know each other, for any visitor, we ask the visitor to tell us where he / she is coming from which person he has visited etc in doing this, we get to know the person and offer a courteous visit to him at leisure any time. If anyone has sinister motives, a visit of this nature at his home with a simple request to visit a place of convenience, will be enough for one to notice his uneasiness and covert activities. Such a scenario is enough for one to pick up suspicion necessitating a report to the authorities. Remember terrorists are people who pretend to be well intentioned guys in society. I am sure if Mosques and churches do this, terrorists will have nowhere to hide. The only way to reduce the rate of terrorism penetration in Uganda is to revitalize and legalise the now non functional and illegal local council systems throughout the country. The government in general and the Ministry of internal affairs in particular ought to carry out the aborted 2006 local council elections so that these vital institutions of governance are given the requisite instruments of power to oversee security related issues in their areas of jurisdiction. The legal and operational local council system will now go back to their tenets of registering their residents, enforce the rule that requires any resident hosting a visitor or an allein to introduce him to the local council chairman. Currently no local council can authoritatively show such statistics which were then very vital in identifying residents. This lapse will force many youths to commit crimes. Local councils should be rejuvenated, remunerated and facilitated in all possible ways so that they can be police watch dogs to look out for marijuana growers, bhang smokers, serial rapists etc and hand them to police. In the same breath, the government should seriously and expeditiously continue with the issuance of National identity cards so that every Ugandan can be easily identified. This will ease the police work of apprehending foreigners who enter Uganda with intentions of committing felonies.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:17:18 +0000
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