About eight months ago, Campus Bee ran a story about thieves who broke into Ndejje university’s geomatics store and stole surveying instruments amounting to over Ushs.300 million, little was it known that it was some of the students who participated in the theft.
Three students among whom is Valentine Ayabare, a fourth year student of bachelors in survey and geomatics, also commonly known to his friends as Vaal was among those who were arrested vending the stolen items in Wandegeya, a Kampala suburb. The items stolen included three total stations, two dumpy levels with their staff totaling to a tune of over 300million shillings.
On that fateful day, the “student” thieves descended on the surveying office which sits at the basement of the building with an office window facing the back of the main building where askaris don’t have a view of what is happening. However, security cameras are installed in that area but it was surprising to find out that no images of the suspects were found in the CCTV footage. From investigations carried out by this website, it appears the thieves opened one window of the store where the instruments were being kept, then pulled the machines one by one using a string late in the night.
After several investigations into the matter by the university, the survey lecturer also the store keeper Ms. Pyerina Akumu was made to write statements on the theft of the items on suspicion that she might have left the store door open. However, according to Pyerina, she had not appeared at the campus for the last two weeks and had no idea on how the instruments were stolen.
Lucky enough, just a few days ago, Pyerina who’s one of the renown experts in surveying instruments in the country and a lecturer at Makerere university received a call from a friend in Wandegaya asking her (Pyerina) to go verify if some survey instruments being sold to him were genuine. Upon reaching there, Pyerina was shocked to discover that the instruments were the ones stolen from Ndejje University although the thieves had already painting it with another color.
“I reported the matter to Wandegaya police station and immediately they swung into action to fetch the sellers. After several call attempts to reach the sellers, the police finally located them and they were arrested. To my big surprise, it was Vaal one of my survey students who was found to be the leader in the theft of the instrument,” Pyerina told our reporter.
Valentine was then taken to Wandegeya police post to record statements and later revealed his gang and how they stole the instruments.
According to a close anonymous source from the university, the culprits have been expelled and will not be allowed to continue with his studies in any other campus of the university.
In the past months, theft of personal items especially laptops, phones and other devices has been rocking the hostels where students reside at especially in Ndejje Trading centre. Students are urgued to be vigilant of thieves especially as the semester is coming to and end.
