CampusBee has visited Pollyang Computer Solutions in “Kikumikikumi” where the late Ojok David used to work and has discovered a stark contrast between the person who is said to have started the fracas in which he lost his life and the actual person that his crestfallen workmates knew him for.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of Ojok’s lecturers who was found at Pollyang described Ojok as a person who was too kind to hurt a fly. A former workmate described him as a very calm and peace-loving person who was always smiling even when someone said something insulting to him.
The late Ojok was a peace-maker. He was kind to a fault. One former workmate of his recounted an eerie incident that took place infront of their workplace only a week to the fateful Sunday on which Ojok lost his life. A thief who had been caught stealing a laptop from the shop was being roughed up and beaten infront of Pollyang when Ojok emerged from inside and courageously pulled the thief away from the mob so as to save his life. In order to “discipline him,” the mob descended on Ojok and gave him a thorough beating.
Unbeknownst to poor Ojok, saving that thief from mob justice portended his fate. He was laying down his own life to save another. He would cross paths with death a week later by the same tragedy from which he saved the hapless thief when students at Nkrumah Hall battered and stoned him to death on suspicion that he was a thief.
A disconsolate workmate described Ojok as an almost frail-looking person who you would think was probably sick the moment you saw him walking. “There was nothing about his character or conduct that would give any sane person the impression that their life was under threat by Ojok, so the claims that he drew first blood in a fight that ended with him losing his life is totally incredible.”
“It is also probably untrue that Ojok did not know the room in which his debtor stayed at Nkrumah hence his knocking at random doors which it’s claimed is the reason that raised the students’ suspicion. He received/made a call from/to the debtor and they talked of some money, around 500k, which he hurriedly proceeded to pick from Nkrumah after they agreed. Would he have left if he did not know where he was going? He thought it would take very few minutes for him so he even left his phone behind. The next time I saw him was in the mortuary, his battered body almost unrecognizable.” finishes his workmate in an obviously pained whisper.
It is said that Ojok was an always jolly person who put a smile on the faces of all the people he worked with. A former workmate remembers Ojok as a very generous person who used to give some of the workmates loans that even money lenders were unwilling to give. The workmate states firmly that Ojok was probably among the best software programmers Uganda had. “Whenever we would ask him why he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he said he already has one: his laptop.” He would spend sleepless nights developing one programme after another and uploading most of his works for free on the internet. It is through his open source I.T works on the internet that a software company, KMG based in Ntinda, identified him and its foreign-based boss gave him a call. At the end of it all, he had gotten himself a mouth-watering job with a salary that only a few Ugandans earn per month today. That was only a few weeks to his killing.
It is at this moment that the former workmates now fly into a rage. “There was no way any sensible person would have suspected Ojok to be a thief!!! Even if he was, there was no justification in killing him!!! Those Nkrumah goons must pay for what they did to our brother!!!” one of the workmates angrily declares, exposing both the anger and emotional pain that has been gnawing at his soul these past few days.
