President Yoweri Museveni has ordered the deployment of 24,000 reserves to reinforce security in Kampala and Wakiso areas.

Museveni says the Local Defense Unit (LDU) personnel will be armed and trained to help the Police to fight crime.

This follows the recent spate of city murders with the recent being the assassination of former Buyende District Police Commander ASP Muhammad Kirumira at Bulenga on Saturday evening.

Museveni revealed the decision in his national address on Sunday.

“I have therefore called for the mobilization of 24,000 LDUs and we shall arm them. We shall use mainly crime preventers and these crime preventers shall be vetted by the Local Council,” Museveni said.

“Kampala has got over 1000 villages. We shall flood all of them with manpower and our own guns,” the president noted, adding that “This will help us in the shortrun. In the long run, we shall deploy more technical means like  cameras, drones and other means to detect and witness possible crimes.”

Museveni says criminals only take advantage of narrow gaps but cannot commit crime at big events like the visit of the pope and national football matches because security is always mobilized.

“We have now decided to fill the gap with more mobilization and man power. For instance during Kirumira and the Abiriga murder, the residents saw the killers who were moving on boda-bodas and even tried chasing them. So If the residents were armed, they would have been able to engage these killers,” Museveni said.

“Like we defeated rural terrorism from Congo without anybody’s support, we shall also defeat the residual urban crime and terrorism whatever the source,” he added.

The President also affirmed that the process of installing cameras in Kampala has started and is ongoing.