My ‘Innocent’ Friend Was Lira Radio Presenter who Punched Boy to Death over Chicken Thigh

My interest was picked and I got hold of the paper, an old two page paper. On page 18 was a photo of a middle aged man lying in a hospital bed. It did not require specs or a magnifier for me to recognize the photograph. It was indeed Ochan. The headline read;

“Lira Radio presenter punches boy to death over chicken thigh”. I was shocked and the desire to read on was more than heightened.

“RENOWNED RADIO Presenter in Lira Town, who was last week hospitalized after attaining severe injuries for punching a chicken roaster to death, has again disappeared mysteriously from Lira regional referral hospital.

 

It was on Sunday morning at around 4:00am when the gospel presenter escaped from the hospital bed at Adyebo ward despite the deployment of several police officers next to his bed.

 

The lovely presenter was thumped by angry residents of Jinja camp in Lira Town after punching a 15year old boy to death. Residents said when Isaac demanded him to pay for a piece of chicken which he had gulped, the presenter replied him with a 15kg punch that took his dear life.

 

It is said Ochan who had been bonking on credit was terribly broke by the time of the deadly punch. RRU commander at Lira central police station sergeant Alex Omwa said they were shocked to note that Ochan was stolen by unknown people at around 4:00am on Sunday from the hospital.

 

“We had deployed some officers to guard him at the hospital to wait as he gained his senses so that he could be taken to court on the charges of murder.” Omwa told our reported.

 

Omwa said they have mounted tactful search to get the presenter because relatives of the deceased are already putting them on pressure.

 

This was some incredible form of information. I had known Ochan for nearly 1½ months since my incarceration. We had lived together, cooked and eaten together. For all that time I had only come to know in a by the way form that he was serving a 7year sentence.

 

He had not told me the crime for which he was in jail except that his enemies wished him a life sentence. Having learnt prison decorum that “you get what you are given,” I had never bothered to find out my friend’s crime but this day being the 8-3 2022, the information brings itself to me.

 

I shuddered, upon realizing that I could have hobnobbed with killers, criminals and robbers all in the name of prison friendship. What a place to spend eight months of one’s sane life!

 

And oh! Didn’t that crap of a newspaper cause a hullabaloo? My friend “Radio” in his naivety rushed to tell Ochan that his photo appears on some old newspaper. While i was chatting away with some acquaintance, I saw him rushing, he made as if to enter through the gate to the wood work shop only to branch to where we were seated ‘eating money’ as was the prison jargon to imply enjoying fresh air. After greetings he went straight to the point

 

 

“Karadio has lied to me that you have a paper that has written about me.”

“…Which paper?” I tried diversionary tactics unaware and unprepared of what to say.

“That it has my photo”

“..I don’t have that paper. He must have lied to you.” I lied to him.

“…..but I believed him when he said my photo was taken in the hospital because most of my photos that ended in the papers were taken in the hospital,” Ochan insisted.

 

I felt boxed into a corner and helpless. I also felt empathy and guilt at the same time. Ochan was after all my friend. I succumbed and told him I had the paper. We together walked and climbed upstairs to our ward. I looked through the pile of papers where upon I had left the paper. It was not there, naturally I believed Denis could have taken it back and I told him so.

 

In a hurry, he went to look out for Denis. I didn’t know what transpired but at the last bell ring for the day i.e at 4:00pm Denis entered and straight away came to me to request for the Wednesday Vision I was reading.

 

Before he completed his statement, Ochan was right there demanding of him the newspaper. Denis pretended to look for the paper and eventually convinced Ochan that the owner took it back and was not in the ward yet. The latter left back to his ward in Block C as there was no time left. Denis came back to me and I explained to him the source of the leak. He understood and told me Ochan had hunted him down up to the T.V room for the same and he was not willing to show him the paper.

It was embarrassing to say the least and indeed the paper wasn’t his. If Ochan laid his hands on it, he would obviously tear it into pieces.

 

Then that evening there was a light hearted Political debate. Somebody said Dr. Besigye would become President of this Country one day. This tickled the ward leader.

“…Aah….Besigye will never rule Uganda. First of all he has left FDC and joined the Action for change. I felt like laughing out aloud. Instead I smiled and went back to my family thoughts ignoring the ongoing debate.

“…….in fact……” continued the ward leader. “……it is now General Kazoora who is the President of FDC and he is the one who will stand in 2016. My interest was heightened. Since when did Kazoora became a General? Since when was Kazoora elected as the FDC’s flag bearer? I itched to correct the falsehoods confidently being spread by none other than the ward leader! But thought otherwise.

 

I recalled while in ward C_8, the ward leader there told us that Museveni did his military training in Russia! I gasped at this falsehood but more was yet to come. That Mr. Museveni went to the bush because Obote refused to appoint him Army commander and instead appointed Brigadier Oyite Ojok. I did not have the stomach to contain all these. I reminded the ward leader that Museveni’s professed reason for going to the bush was a rigged election and that Museveni other them Frelimo guerilla training in Mozambique had never attained any formal military training.

 

He was evidently embarrassed, remembering that he was an illiterate, I kept my mouth shut and prayed for my children to read and become literate.