The Inspector General of Police, Abbas Byakagaba has dropped the acting Traffic Police director, senior commissioner of Police, Lawrence Nuwabiine, the Nile Post has learnt.
According to the latest transfers, Nuwabiine has been replaced with Senior Commissioner of Police Franklin Kugonza who has been at the police mechanical workshop.
Former IGP, John Martins Okoth Ochola appointed Nuwabiine as the acting police director in 2021 to replace Basil Mugisha who was also in acting capacity.
For the last three years, Nuwabiine who is at the rank of Senior Commissioner has been serving in acting capacity since he is not yet at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police which is requisite for all police directors.
By the time Nuwabiine bounced back as acting traffic police director, he had in 2014, been benched by the then Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura after being dropped from the position of Kampala Metropolitan Traffic Police Commander and replaced by Norman Musinga.
The return of Nuwabiine to traffic saw police intensify operations against reckless drivers and those violating traffic guidelines.
To this, police started publishing lists of violators of traffic guidelines who were captured on CCTV cameras.
A stickler for the rules, Nuwabiine decried impunity on the road, especially by government officials.
For example, one time he said two unnamed Kampala Resident City Commissioners had asked that traffic police back off cracking down on boda bodas in the city.
“Surprisingly, I have copies of letters written by some leaders. Two of them are from RDCs. They are saying that we should stop demanding riding licences from bodabodas. This person has been here for a while; the bodabodas have been here for over three decades and he wants to stop us when we are trying to solve these problems,” Nuwabiine said during a function at Hotel Africana.
These people don’t even know our mandate, they don’t know whether we are following the law because they don’t know the law. Instead of coming to us, they are inciting the people.”
During Nuwabiine’s time, Police also resumed drink- driving operations in the city where hundreds of motorists were arrested and ordered to pay fines.
However, some traffic officers loathed Nuwabiine for always acting without carrying out thorough investigations.
For example a number of the officers have been transferred under circumstances which are still being questioned.
A number of officers in charge of the express penalty scheme were last year sacked after being implicated them in the theft of the EPS ticket cash but a thorough investigation let them for the hook.
This didnt augur well with these officers who were sacked before investigations had been completed.
