EMBATTLED GENERAL KALE KAYIHURA: I REGRET EMPLOYING ABDU KITATA, HE SPOILT MY NAME AND CAUSED ME MORE PROBLEMS.

Former IGP Kale Kayihura recently hosted his old ally Ofwono Opondo at his farm in Kashagama Lyantonde district and while there, the two old friends had a frank discussion on so many things. They mostly reflected on the highs and lows that characterized Kayihura’s colorful reign as the Police Chief last 13 straight years in office.

Sources privy to what the two reflected upon say that the brutal activities of NRM Rubaga Chairman Abdullah Kitata and his notorious Boda-Boda 2010 is one of the areas Ofwono Opondo used his old investigative journalistic skills to get Kayihura say something about. Reliable sources say that whereas a paranoid Kayihura was very defensive on most of the things (including claims that he killed Kaweesi and desired to upstage the H.E. YK Museveni), on the Kitata saga he owned up like never before. That he told Opondo the circumstances of the day left him with no option but to rely on informal operators like Kitata whom he thought would act in good faith and be effective in gathering crime intelligence.

Kayihura told Opondo that at some point as IGP, he realized some of his men had become too compromised and couldn’t be relied on to decisively combat crime because of the collusion tendencies which H.E. the President has always been talking about. That with time, he lost trust in some of his commanders and had to rely on informal actors like Abdullah Kitata on the genuine conviction they would be helpful.

He told OO that later on when he realized the extent of the brutality the Kitatas unleashed on innocent citizens, all hiding behind his name, he became very remorseful but it was too late for anything to be reversed. “Relying on such informal operators is something I sincerely regret and I’m very remorseful about that Ndugu. I can’t believe all the things that group did to people claiming to operate under my protection. That one I sincerely regret. It’s one thing I wish I avoided, my legacy would certainly end differently,” Kayihura reportedly told Opondo during their chat.

He also vehemently rejected the claim that he was using the crime preventors to prepare for a political challenge on the President. Saying nothing would be further from the truth, Kayihura told OO the H.E. was aware and fully briefed from day one long before even the Crime Preventers program was rolled out. He admitted the project too had its own defects and didn’t work out well but such imperfections are expected in an African society that is largely peasantry and economically backward.