On 16th March, this website reported a gruesome incident where a suspected thief was lynched and burnt by some “gallant intellectual students” of Nkrumah Hall inside East Africa’s best University, Makerere University. Nothing was seen to have been done by the university administration or other responsible authorities about it. Less than a month later, on 14th April, this website again breaks the story of another “rendition” of the same atrocity at the same hall at the same spot where the earlier incident took place in the same university. In the latest incident, an innocent Ojok David was killed under hazy circumstances. It is the latest chapter in a string of similar incidents at not only Nkrumah hall but other halls of residence. Unlike other similar episodes in the past, this one has held captive the entire nation’s imagination.
Around the temple of justice, Ojok’s bloodied soul is pacing. Painfully knocking to be let in and take solace inside. The faint cry of Ojok’s last plea for mercy still lingers around the entrance of the hall. That last suppressed plea as he watches through the side of his cut eye the intellectual lifting and aiming at him that huge piece of wood with nails sticking out of it; the object that probably extinguishes his last breath.
Back at home, the father who from his meagre salary as a police officer treaded on the most thorny of paths to see that his son goes through the best institution that Uganda can boast of lays down late in the night on his bed, lost in thought. A tear wiped away every now and then, maybe? Only he can understand best the pain he is going through.
The very place to which he took his son to achieve the most respected degree so that he could live a dignified life in future is the very place that has cut his future short, a future cut short by some of the very people with whom he used to have fun watching a game of soccer, some of whom tried to save him only to be overpowered by the intellectuals.
The intellectual who ended his life now has only one objective: to cover his tracks. No one must know how he raced out of his room to come and quench his blood lust. No one must know how he dedicated the entire energy in his body to lifting the heaviest object there was to bring it tumbling down a split second later to shatter Ojok’s skull. No one must know. He would rather clutch on the probability that Police investigations will fail to nail him, other than confess his sin for a reduced punishment. He’s an intellectual after all, and that’s how intellectuals are supposed to do their thing. Gashumba should dare call him a hooligan and see.
The day the temple of justice swings open its doors to let in Ojok’s battered soul is the day his body will rest peacefully in the grave. However long it will take, justice will be done.
Justice, Will be Served.
