Was Bebe a hero or villain?

By Andrew Ndawula Kalema AFTER years of playing hide and seek with border security, luck finally ran out for Busia’s chief smuggler Godfrey Ngoloobe, alias Bebe, on June 9, 2002. The 27-year-old career smuggler was shot dead at Mbajja village, Lunyo Sub County in Busia district, while trying to drive through a road block staged by SRPS (Special Revenue Protection Service) soldiers. News of Bebe’s death raised an emotional storm in the dusty eastern border town, where smuggling is a way of life. Hundreds of curious people gathered around Busia Police Station, waiting for the slain smuggler’s body. They needed to see for themselves, before confirming the rumour. When it was finally handed over to one of his lieutenants, Abdu Wandera, Bebe’s body was driven across the border in a long convoy made up of hundreds of well-wishers to a Kenya hospital for treatment. Thousands, including political heavy weights like Hon. Aggrey Awori turned up for the burial on June 14 in Masafu sub-county, 8km from Busia town. Depending on who you ask in Busia, Bebe is variously described as local hero; a Robin Hood of sorts, or a hardened criminal and the brain behind a big smuggling racket. To the SRPS, he was a troublesome criminal who deserved to die – a view not shared by the locals. To them, Bebe was some kind hero, an extremely rich but generous young man, who shared the proceeds from his cigarette-smuggling racket with the poor. But he was also in the habit of overrunning SRPS checkpoints. Born May 25, 1975, in Masafu sub-county, Bebe grew up with his maternal grandparents. His mother was a student at Trinity College, Nabbingo, when she got pregnant. She returned to school soon after delivering Bebe, leaving him in the custody of her elderly parents. It is the doting grannies who gave him the name ‘Bebe’, their own version of Baby, a name which stuck to the end. Like many young people in the area at the time, Bebe dropped out of school in P 7, to join the lucrative smuggling business. That was in the later 1980’s. He started by smuggling a few packets of wheat floor and sugar from Kenya and distributing it in Masafu trading centre. Later, he switched to fuel, before settling on Super match cigarettes. From smuggling a few cartons of cigarettes, Bebe graduated to big time smuggling, involving goods worth millions of Kenya shillings. He set up a reliable network of suppliers – “friendly” custom officials, informers and distributors. According to sources in Busia, Bebe had worked out a special arrangement with the Kenyan suppliers, who would supply him with cigarettes on credit. They diverted trailer loads of Supermatch cigarettes destined for Somalia, to somewhere close to the Ugandan border. From there the cigarettes would be loaded into a fleet of saloon cars, to be driven into the country under the cover of darkness, using panya routes. Bebe had in place a team of informers, referred to as bitooke, posted in each trading centre along his smuggling routes. He equipped them with mobile phones, which they would use to warn him about the SRPS movements. He even had a draw bridge hidden near a certain river along his smuggle route, with boys on hand to put it in place when he needed it, and to remove it immediately after he had passed. While on mission, Bebe would travel in a convoy of three to four cars, led by the reconnaissance car, and trailed from a distance by a back up car. He would only use new cars with the engine capacity to out-run the SRPS soldiers in their diesel-engined double cabin vehicles. By the time of Bebe’s death, SRPS had confiscated seven of his vehicles, which are still parked at Busia Police station, a move that did not seem to affect his business. Driving through panya routes in Busia, Iganga, Mukono and finally Wakiso districts, Bebe and his team would end up at his city warehouse on Gayaza road, from where they would distribute their contraband in high-density population areas like Kalerwe. A very elusive man, Bebe’s identity remained a mystery to most security people. Sources in Busia say, security people shot at and injured a number of small time smugglers, who they mistook for Bebe. Bebe would look up the victims and foot their bills. Once security in Busia was tipped off about a meeting between Bebe and two Kenyan businessmen in a popular hotel in Busia town. The hotel was surrounded, but Babe was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, he had sensed danger and sneaked off, posing as a driver of one of the vehicles parked outside the hotel. When not on duty, Bebe would move around Busia town, riding on a Bodaboda bike, a big floppy hat covering his head and most of his face. People who knew him intimately described Bebe as slightly built, quick on his feet, and as sly as a fox. Several times he was lured into traps, but somehow sensed danger and escaped at the last moment. He loved moving around bars, buying booze for people, although he preferred drinking in the privacy of a hired hotel room in the company of one of his several mistresses. He preferred holding business meetings inside his car, while seated behind the wheel with one door open and one foot on the ground. That way, he could make a quick getaway, either on foot or with the car, depending on the situation. As part of his security detail, he would also carry around several millions of Uganda and Kenya shillings in his car boot, to bribe himself out of tricky situations. That money came in handy on a number of occasions when Bebe needed to escape from ‘lawful custody’. Apart from the house along Gayaza road, Bebe owned a number of houses in Iganga, and was in the process of constructing a storied commercial building either in Kampala or Jinja. Tired of being on the run all the time, Bebe had vowed to quit smuggling as soon as the building was complete, and he was sure he had a stable source of income. With three wives and six children (three boys and three girls) to support, he could no longer afford to be reckless with his life. Bebe actually seriously considered quitting smuggling last year and even wrote a letter to district authorities asking for an amnesty of sorts, but his colleagues dissuaded him from handing it over. A free spender with over 100 dependants who looked up to him for cash to pay either school fees or graduated tax, he was also worried he would not be able to maintain the lifestyle he had got addicted to, once he joined lawful business. The other fear was that as chairman of a 24-member association of smugglers, quitting was simply out of question for security reasons. Already, the association has lost eight members in the last couple of years, six of them in motor accidents while fleeing from the long hand of the law, while two were killed during fire exchange with SRPS soldiers. Actually, one of the several theories circulating in Busia town about Bebe’s death is that the youthful smuggler was betrayed by one of his colleagues. On the day he was killed, a reconnaissance vehicle had gone through the route and found no SRPS checkpoint. The fact that one was put up within a very short time, suggests that probably the SRPS were well informed about Bebe’s movement. Sources within the SRPS admit they had been monitoring Bebe for some time, though they did not know he was the one behind the wheel of the car they were shooting at, until they identified his dead body. Immediately after Bebe’s death, a list of suspected SRPS informers was drawn up, with intention of eliminating them as a way of avenging Bebe’s death. But since in Samia culture you can only avenge a man’s death after his burial, district authorities took advantage of the grace period before his burial, to beef up security in the district. But instead, the smugglers decided to extend an olive branch. A day after Bebe’s funeral, a number of well-known smugglers met with officials from the SRPS to map out a way forward. “We are using several tactics to stop these people from smuggling. one of them is to provide them with alternative source of income,” said Major Ndahura, who is in Busia to assess the situation on the ground and come up with workable solutions. Major Ndahura is convinced that with time, the smuggling culture will die out in Busia. “If the price of coffee drops, you try another crop. You don’t just stick on coffee just because it is part of your culture.” Maj. Ndahura says.