Mess with a ballot box, get a bullet – Aswa Police spokesperson

Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Police in Aswa region have warned the public against tampering with voting materials, saying it has issued orders to its officers to shoot on the spot anyone involved in any related malpractice.

Addressing journalists from Northern Uganda at the Media Club, ASP Jimmy Patrick Okema, the Aswa River Region police spokesperson, said his men will not hesitate to shoot anybody who tampers with a ballot box.

“Anybody who plans to run away with a ballot box, please don’t try. If its me at that polling station and I have a gun, I will shoot you,” Okema warned. The warning comes barely hours to the presidential and parliamentary elections due Thursday.

In the 2016 elections, a number of ballot papers were reportedly damaged in Aruu County by the incumbent MP Odonga Otto, citing election malpractices.

In Okema’s view, vandalizing, running with or destroying the voting material “amounts to treason,” and one should be shot on the spot.

Article 22, Chapter 4 of the Constitution however stipulates that no person shall be deprived of life intentionally except in execution of a sentence passed in a fair trial under the laws of Uganda and the conviction & sentence have been confirmed by the highest appellate court.

Okema revealed that there will be maximum deployment of the forces on the polling day to give people confidence and assurance of peaceful elections.

While making his pronouncement, Okema  asked the locals to cooperate with the armed forces and urged them to refrain from going into the polling stations while drunk.

The country had witnessed violence prior to the poling day mainly in the central region. The worst case was the November incident that claimed the lives of more than 50 Ugandans,  with dozens others injured.

*****

URN