Government has distanced itself from gangster Paddy Sserunjogi also known as Sobi who was killed by a mob in a botched land eviction in Gomba.
Addressing journalists on Wednesday, the state minister for Information and national guidance, Godfrey Kabbyanga said whereas Sobi was a Ugandan, he didn’t work for government.
“Every government employee has a letter appointment and has a job description. A government employee must have an identity card for government but Sobi didn’t have any of these,” Kabbyanga said.
“He has been a criminal who on several occasions was sent to prison , served sentences and returned. He recently said he was reformed.”
Kabbyanga asked members of the public to desist from mob justice which he said could take away the lives of innocent souls.
“He should have been arrested and taken to courts of law.”
Sobi came to the spotlight in 2017 when he confessed to be the leader of Kifeesi, a criminal gang, which terrorized Kampala and its environs.
He was involved in several robberies in which forex bureaus were targeted in Kampala and huge sums of money stolen.
He was also involved in simple robberies of phones and other items.
Sobi was also involved in several cases of land grabbing where he was allegedly used by ‘big shots’ to help them take ‘enticing’ pieces of land in any part of the country.
For example, in 2021, he was involved in forceful fencing off of four acres of a swamp in Nakuwadde village near Bulenga in Wakiso district.
In 2022, Sobi introduced himself as a soldier from the Special Forces Command to grab a five acre piece of land from a 94-year-old man in Mukono district.
He raided Musa Mwanje’s land – measuring 5 acres on the orders of Fulgensio Ssembajwe, the administrator of the estate of the late John Lule Ssebakijja, a neighbour to Mwanje.
Sobi said then that before the death of Ssebakijja, he had bought 20 acres of land from Mwanje, and unfortunately after he died, the transfer process was not completed.
The gangster was killed during a botched land eviction in Gomba where he had gone to effect an eviction on a piece of land contested between two parties.
