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‘I’ve lost four phones this year’
Gabriel Buule displays boxes of his smart phones that were stolen by thugs in Kampala this year. PHOTO/MONITOR
What you need to know:
- “After helping a hapless pregnant woman retrieve her stolen phone, I have on multiple occasions been powerless at the hands of phone snatchers,” writes Gabriel Buule.
Viaticum—that Eucharist given to a person near or in danger of death—is what I thought I needed after recently losing a smartphone for, wait for it, a fourth time in less than a year.
My first encounter with a phone snatcher was in, surprise, surprise, downtown Kampala.
This was along Ben Kiwanuka Street toward the famous Queen’s Way alias “esaawa ya queen.” A mean-looking man, raging like a hungry cobra, arm-twisted a pregnant woman before grabbing her smartphone as everyone looked on.
I froze while the man briskly walked towards Nakivubo sewage channel as the woman cried for help. Back then—in May of 2018—I was a daring youth doing my university internship at The Sunrise newspaper.
All of a sudden, I started chasing the man who jumped into the sewage channel. To this day, I have no clue as to what possessed me. Onlookers started cheering me on and I picked courage to face the phone snatcher.
Moments later, the snatcher tossed the phone to the ground and took off. I took great pride in returning the phone to its owner.
A little over four years later, I experienced first-hand the raw emotions that the pregnant woman grappled with when her phone was snatched from her clutch.
Shoe on the other foot
On a busy evening of December 13, 2022, while on the commute from work to home, I had a vicious fight on Mawanda Road with criminals.
They ruthlessly tussled for my laptop bag smack in the middle of a traffic gridlock. The boda boda rider who was taking me to my abode in Kisaasi (Banaku Road) tried to spring to my rescue. To be honest, the odds appeared stacked against us.
When the dust settled, the rogues had made off with my phone. We, however, managed to fend off an attempt to steal my laptop. It was a newly acquired gadget, having had one pinched off me in Pearl Rhythm’s production studio at the National Theatre.
After losing my phone whilst on a boda boda, my daughter consoled me. I vividly remember her saying that it is not right to speak on the phone while on the road.
I was so flummoxed by the episode that I only reported it to the police post at Mawanda Road an hour later.
While I did not quite expect the police to pull a rabbit out of the hat, what I encountered at the police station was downright nauseating.
“My brother, those boys are very smart and many of them are on Mawanda Road,” the police officer on duty said to me, adding, “Just try to be careful next time. Sometimes they even use boda bodas and they target people in jam.”
He further asked me if I wanted the police to go at the scene or just to file a case to get a letter so that I could replace my sim-cards.
“We can help him go there, but we can even find them,” he told his fellow officer, almost oblivious to my presence or feeling of loss.
Lightning strikes twice
Deep down in my heart I was convinced that maybe phone snatching can only happen on busy streets. I thought that I had carte blanche to speak freely on the phone whenever I reached the Northern Bypass.
That all changed on April 5, 2023. We were caught in a traffic gridlock at a climbing lane on Northern Bypass a stone’s throw from the road that heads to Nansana.
A man forcefully grabbed my phone through the passenger window that was fully open. My daughter, who was with me in the car, said that she saw the man coming, but she never thought that he was coming to grab my phone.
My workmate Caesar Abangirah, who was driving, laughed in shock because he never expected such a thing to happen at that particular place. Of course, I attempted running after the thief only to be stopped by Caesar and my daughter. They judiciously warned that I could get stabbed for my troubles.
This time around I went to the police a day later for the formality of getting a recommendation letter for a sim-card replacement. I knew that any thought of retrieving the phone was off the table. Once bitten, twice shy.
Third time unlucky
Unbeknown to me, the worst was yet to come. Fine, I realised that whenever a car is stopped or in a traffic gridlock, the windows must be up. I followed this counsel from a lived experience to the letter.
However, on September 11, 2023 my car briefly stopped in a traffic gridlock toward the Mulago junction. Within a minute, a man had grabbed my phone. Again.
This time around I opened the door and gave chase. In a moment, I stopped after noticing that I was up against a three-strong group of rogue elements.
Oddly, the phone was snatched shortly after I had just shown my girlfriend a video clip of a phone snatcher reportedly recorded from Kibuye. I had just mouthed something about being vigilant when the thief struck. A day later, I reported the incident at Wandegeya Police Station. The officer who received me asked me if I did not know that the brazen manner of such thefts is the trend in the area.
“Eh! My brother, kumbe [so] you do not know that boys around here steal from cars?” he said.
As he looked for a pen to file my complaint, I stole a quick glance at an open page of an A2-sized book. Twenty cases of phone theft had been recorded on one page that day.
The officer asked if I wanted him to track the phone. I politely declined. A day before, a police friend had warned me that phone tracking is a tool officers in police posts use to extort money from victims.
I was told that it is hard to locate phones. People who have phones pinched off them are usually milked the same amount of money that can buy a new phone.
That same day, an hour later, a friend who grew up in the Mulago area offered to speak to a gang that steals phones in the area.
One of them told my friend that the gang would be willing to bring back the phone at a fee. My phone had, however, been stolen by a rival gang that operates in the Katanga area.
I asked my friend why it felt so hard for him to notify police about the gangs in the area and he said to me: “Police is aware and they often arrest them and release them.”
Another phone goes
Friends on social media led by novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija and Eng Ben Misagga extended the money that I used to secure a new phone.
I didn’t hold onto it for long, though. In October 2023, just weeks after buying the new phone, a man whose speed is comparable to that of a peregrine falcon, squeezed his hand before making off with my phone again.
I twisted my index finger in the episode that to this day is but a blur. What I clearly remember is the thief crossing the road and jumping onto a boda boda.
Taken together, in less than a year, I have lost four smartphones worth Shs6 million. Those are staggering figures whichever way you look at them.
I have written this account to do more than release pent-up emotions: let it serve as a warning to all and sundry. Kampala’s streets are dotted with rogue elements that need little invitation to take your handset.
The last phone I lost worked as storage for my data for stories and content with lots of recordings. All of that went up in smoke. The third phone I lost was tucked with an automated teller machine (ATM) card and national identity document or ID for good measure.
This means that I am not in position to replace the sim card early since the national ID is needed to replace a sim card. Telcos no longer accept National Identification and Registration Authority or Nira letters for the process.
My case is currently being handled by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). For now it seems like Viaticum is what has been recommended.
Leading crime
The 2022 Uganda Police annual crime report listed phone theft among the leading crimes in the country, with at least 6,936 mobile phones stolen that year.
The report indicated that Kampala Metropolitan (KMP) North registered the highest number of mobile phone thefts (936 cases) followed by KMP South with 843 cases.
Just this week, Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesperson, told this newspaper that there has been a recent spike in phone thefts. He listed Kawempe Division, the Northern Bypass, Kafumbe-Mukasa Road and Namirembe Road as hotspots. He further revealed that phone snatchers “often get bail after being on remand for six or more months.”
