“Incidents of lynching are mind boggling,”

General Kahinda Otafiire, the Minister for Internal Affairs, has advised police officers to conduct themselves with discipline and honesty  to restore trust from the public.

Otafire says one of the reasons why the public is resorting to acts of mob justice is because people have lost confidence in police and the system. He says incidents of lynching are on the increase in villages because police officers are not doing their job properly.

Otafire was presiding over the pass-out ceremony of thirty-nine senior police officers who have completed a year of training and studies at  Bwebajja Police Senior Command and Staff College Entebbe in Wakiso district.

“Incidents of lynching are mind boggling,”

He urged the senior officers to perform their duty of keeping law and order by among others curbing corruption but also called for junior officers to undergo training to restore trust in the system.

“Incidents of lynching are mind boggling,Why does the population resort to lynching? When you see those incidents it is a direct indictment of the police force , because instead of people running to the police for lawlessness, they instead take the law into their own hands, that’s why we must train officers at lower levels,” Otafire explained

A total of 181 police officers have been trained since 2015 when the first cohort graduated at the college. The Police force has over 47, 000 personnel, most of whom are below the rank of Superintendent of Police.

Otafiire says the college needs to train even lower cadres so as to create a critical mass of positive change agents in the Police force. ”

The most important officer is a Police Constable, not the Inspector General of Police. It is the constables who do most of the work so they need to be trained too,” says Otafiire.

Maj. General Geofrey Katsigazi Tumusiime, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, warned police officers against corruption and other tendencies that ruin the image of the police force.

compiled by Minah Nalule