What would an ununiformed, unarmed district police commander be doing alone in a deserted part of Gulu town in the wee hours of a Wednesday morning?
That is the question many in Gulu are asking after Joseph Ayiki, the acting Gulu district police commander was shot in the leg by a security guard at TAK Centre, a recreation facility in senior quarters in Gulu town known for hosting weddings, parties, art events and for housing an art and craft shop.
TAK is just next to the Acholi Inn hotel own by the commander of the reserve forces, Brig Charles Otema Awany. The facility is also a stone throw away from the office of the Gulu Resident District Commissioner.
Mr Ayiki was shot in the leg in the leg by a security guard from Exposs, a private company hired by the management of TAK centre. The incident happened at 3am on Wednesday morning. The DPC had according to unconfirmed accounts jumped over the fence of the facility.
David Odwa the director of TAKS centre said he could not explain the shooting since his recreation centre had closed by 10pm.
The DPC was first rushed to Gulu hospital before being taken to St Marys Hospital Lacor where his condition is said to be stable.
The security guard, 28 year old David Olanya has been arrested and detained by police in Gulu following the shooting.
The police has been struggling to offer a plausible explanation on how a district police commander could be shot under such a circumstance.
The Aswa river region police spokesperson Jimmy Patrick Okema said Ayiki sustained injuries on the right leg and added that investigations have commenced on the shooting.
But he could offer no more explanation besides telling the Daily Monitor newspaper: “I cannot tell what he was doing there, it needs him to tell us let’s wait for him to recover he will explain what happened,” said Jimmy Patrick Okema.
Theories Swirling; was the DPC?
Unless it is hosting events, TAK always has a handful of people most will have long left by 3am.
On Tuesday evening Post Bank had had a party at the facility. But by 10 pm, the event had ended.
A the back of the colonial building that was once a golf house(TAK centre sits on the former Gulu golf ground) are some self-contained huts. Not many know about the facility, but the few who do, enjoy its facilities.
On the night of the shooting, a senior police officer was reportedly in one of the huts, according to some accounts.
Was the Gulu DPC looking for comfort in the warm huts? Could he have been drunk as some accounts suggest? Was he on a clandestine mission? Or on his normal patrol duties as the police has been quoted as saying in some sections of the media? If so, why was he alone and unarmed?
Many questions but few answers to the intriguing affair on how a security guard shot a district police commander in a usually deserted part of Gulu town.