Nkrumah Hall at Makerere University was again Sunday night the ground for another condemnable horror as heartless students stoned to death an innocent recent graduate whom they wilfully and negligently mistook for being a “thief.”
An investigation that this Campusbee writer did reveals that the victim identified as Ojok David, was actually a recent graduate from the institution, having graduated in January 2015. He was attached to Nkrumah hall and actually used to watch football matches from its TV room
. He used to work in a Computer Shop known as “Polyac” in the nearby Kikumikikumi area.
It is said that on the day he met his unfortunate fate, he had come to the hall to demand money from a resident student who owed him but had been dodging him for some time. As he walked through the hallway, the chairman-elect of the hall, Marvin Mutungi, accosted him and asked him who he was, suspecting him to be a thief. He asked him for an Identity Card but he had none to show.
Wary and aware of what the uncontrollable students are capable of whenever the word “thief” is shouted, the terrified victim attempted to run away to save his dear life but it was too late. He was chased and eventually overpowered by the students.
They dragged him all the way out to the entrance of the hall, stripped him and stoned him with the heaviest stones that they could land their hands on.
The merciless stoning and beating eventually split his skull into two. It is said that by the time Police came to “save” him, he was already dead.
During the stoning, some of the students who knew him bravely tried to save him but their attempts were totally ignored. It is said that even the person he had come to demand for money from was called to the scene but when he was asked to acknowledge the victim, he disowned him saying he was a stranger.
One of the people this Campusbee writer spoke to said that he knew the exact place where he worked and today morning went there to ask his workmates if they knew what had happened but they replied that they did not know his whereabouts, having left there his laptop and its bag the previous night; the last time they had heard of him alive.
This horrible incident is the second in a space of just three months at the same hall, with the first one having happened earlier in the semester when a mob of students lynched and set alight a suspected thief. Up to date, nothing has been done about that earlier incident to bring to book whoever participated in it.
If there is true justice and the rule of law in Uganda, Campusbee is sure that each and every individual student at Nkrumah Hall who was complicit in this unacceptable and backward act of mob justice will be made to pay heavily for their heinous crime by the long arm of the law.
