Express penalty ticket prompts another self-immolation in Kazo

Kazo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A 23-year-old soap vendor is nursing burns at Kazo health centre IV in after setting himself ablaze. He has been identified as Mugisha Akora, a resident of Umoja village-Nyakasanga ward in Kasese district.

Mugisha was intercepted by the traffic police along Kazo-Ibanda highway for riding a motorcycle without a helmet and a facemask and given an express penalty ticket of 40,000 Shillings which he had to pay in the bank.

But as soon as he was told to go, Mugisha went to the nearby bush and lit the fire using reserve fuel he carried in a bottle according to the officer in charge of traffic at Kazo police station Charles Drabo. The officers came to his rescue though after sustaining severe injuries.

Mugisha told URN that he was frustrated by the penalty which would take his entire capital yet the traffic officers ignored his plea for mercy.

This is the second cases of self-immolation within a space of three weeks. The first was Hussein Walugembe, a guard at a construction site who burnt himself in the office of Ibrahim Ssesanga, the officer in charge of traffic police in Masaka after failing to convince him to return his motorcycle.

Walugembe’s boda boda was impounded on June 30, by a traffic officer Julius Ewalu after finding it at a petrol station beyond curfew time. The police officer allegedly suspected that the boda boda was being used to transport passengers.

The two police officers were dismissed from the force for abetting corruption and scandalous behaviour.

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