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Police arrest 10 over rejecting census
Members of Nyangakeibo cult at Kamwenge Police Station. A magistrate’s court in Kamwenge District on Wednesday sentenced them to five months in jail for sabotaging the ongoing census exercise. Police in Kasese have detained 10 members of another cult, Ngulhumbuya, on similar charges. Photo by Egidio Amutukundire.
What you need to know:
The suspects, who are members of the Ngulhumbuya religious cult, reportedly claimed their religion prohibits them from being counted.
Kasese/Kabarole
Security officials have arrested 10 people in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Town Council in Kasese District on charges of resisting the ongoing National Housing and Population Census.
Police say the accused claim their religion prohibits them from being counted. The suspects are members of the Ngulhumbuya religious cult. They were arrested on Wednesday morning and taken to Mpondwe border police station.
Prosecution looms
The Kasese District police commander, Mr Bob Kagarura, confirmed the arrests and said the suspects would be prosecuted in court for sabotaging a government programme. He said the suspects claimed the enumeration is unbiblical and that counting people, which the government is doing, is a devil’s work.
The cult members neither use telephones nor immunise their children against diseases such as polio and measles.
Kasese Assistant District Census Officer Bosco Baluku said the suspects refused to be counted when the numerators approached them. He said they also washed away the “No Response” (NR) writings which the census enumerators usually write on households of uncooperative respondents.
Two residents of Nyabugando Ward, survived arrest when they accepted to be counted after the initial resistance.
Mr Baluku said some of the suspects had been locking their houses and leaving at around 6am and returning home after 8pm when the enumerators had left the field. Twenty two others were arrested in Kyegegwa District for the same reason.
Rwenzori Regional police spokesperson Bakari Muga Bashir said the suspects belong to Nyangakaibo cult in three sub-counties of Kakabara, Mpara and Rwentuha. He said they will be charged with disobedience of lawful orders under the Uganda Bureau of Statistics Act.
Police said the suspects had also shunned the national ID registration exercise which has been going on since April.
Meanwhile, Kabarole District census officer Mr Sam Mugume said it is difficult to enumerate tea harvesters of Mpanga, Kyamara and other tea companies. He said the tea harvesters leave their homes at 5am and return after 8pm when numerators have finished the counting.
He said some people living in enclosed apartments were denying census enumerators access to their premises while others even released dogs to scare them away. He said the internal district border confusion also affected the counting in Kabarole because some residents do not know which district they belong to. Some enumerators went beyond their designated enumeration areas.
Kabarole District Census technical officer Arthur Birungi said some people have been confused by impersonators claiming to be enumerators.
