By Brian Keitira.
On September 2, 2025, the crackle of flames at Katosi FPU Barracks in Mukono District sent a clear message echoing across Lake Victoria’s shores: the era of unchecked plunder was over. Lt. Col. Mercy Tukahirwa, the steadfast commander of the UPDF Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU), struck the match that reduced illegal fishing nets worth 600 million Ugandan shillings to smoldering ruins.
What began as a routine sensitization exercise blossomed into a landmark gathering, where soldiers and fishermen, once divided by distrust, united in a shared vision for sustainable waters.Dignitaries from across the region converged to witness the blaze: Mukono’s indefatigable RDC Hajjat Fatuma Nabukera, Buvuma’s Assistant RDC Moses Kizito Buule, and the Mukono Police community liaison officer proxying for the DPC.
NRM flag bearers Hon. Margaret Nakavubu and her Mukono South counterpart mingled with LC3 and LC1 chairpersons, while AFALU representatives underscored the event’s broader stakes. Fishermen from Koome Islands, Mpunge, Mpata, Katosi Town Council, Kisoga, and Ntenjeru arrived not in protest, but in solidarity-a historic first.
“These nets were chains binding our future,” one grizzled fisherman from koome intoned, his calloused hands steady as he watched the fire dance.
“Afande Mercy has snapped them, freeing us to fish as partners, not prey.”
For Katosi FPU Barracks, long synonymous with suspicion under prior commands, this was a revelation. Fishermen had long whispered tales of brutality, viewing soldiers as sharks in uniform.
Lt. Col. Mercy shattered that narrative with actions that spoke louder than edicts. Mere days prior in Kalangala, she had released over 300 engines and 150 boats, an olive branch extended amid the thorns of regulation.
“Forgiveness fuels our fleet, but the law is our anchor,” she proclaimed, her voice steady amid the rising heat.
“We educate, we empower, but we eradicate what endangers the deep.”
The inferno’s glow illuminated raw pleas from the crowd. Katosi’s deputy mayor laid bare the Mukene ban’s bitter toll-revenues strangled, families fraying like old twine. Without pause, Mercy pivoted to her sector commander, Lt. Frank Akandwanaho.
“Lift the veil judiciously,” she directed.
“Regulated Mukene fishing resumes today-abundance with accountability.”
Jubilation surged, a human wave crashing against the barracks fence. Accolades poured forth for her pivotal role in arranging the fishermen’s unprecedented summit with President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in Jinja, a dialogue once deemed as distant as the lake’s horizon.
Their appeals deepened, laced with the grit of generations. “Afande, whisper to the President: honor the fishermen SACCO pledge,” beseeched a Kisoga elder, his gaze fixed on the dying embers.
“Opposition’s mirages led us astray for years; now, we’ll back him like a net haul the tide-fervent, full-hearted.” (one was quoted saying that Akapande twakasoma bubi) Single mothers, the quiet architects of resilience, voiced unbridled thanks.
“We were adrift in want, scraping by on scraps,” one confessed, her arms laden with smoked fillets.
“Afande’s mercy lets us smoke, trade, and nurture-schools filled, hearths lit, lives lifted from the brink.” In gratitude, the fishermen presented two cows, their gentle moos a rustic hymn to harmony.
“These aren’t livestock,” their leader clarified, “but living thanks for a voice where echoes once sufficed. Brutality’s ghost is banished; brotherhood reigns.
“This conflagration was no isolated flare in Lt. Col. Mercy’s arsenal against illegality but it was the latest salvo in a campaign reshaping Uganda’s aquatic economy since her 2023 helm. Fish stocks, battered by decades of depredation, have rebounded dramatically under FPU’s vigilant patrols.
Capture fisheries production climbed from 152,000 metric tons in 2023 to an estimated 160,000 in 2024, with projections soaring to 183,000 by 2028.—a robust 3% annual uptick, bolstered by a 50% drop in illegal gear like monofilament gillnets since 2016, as noted in the 2023 Auditor General’s report. The fisheries sector is teeming with new life, including a 2025 Njeru feed plant that was opened by President Yoweri Museveni three weeks ago churning 100,000 metric tons yearly from 15,000 smallholders.
Jobs, eroded by overexploitation, have flooded back: the industry now anchors 3.2 million livelihoods. We should also not forget Mercy’s revival of the Mpondwe-Lhubiriha market in 2024 which restored 1,000 positions and increased local revenues from 50 million to 600 million shillings in Kasese.As the last wisps of smoke dissipated over Katosi, Lt.Col. Mercy gazed at the lake, its surface a mirror of renewal.
“We’ve torched the tools of theft,” she reflected, “to till a tomorrow teeming with plenty.
“All this happened while voices of fishermen were rising in a united plea for Lt. Col Mercy to carry their cause to the highest echelons.” Afande, be our voice”, urged a weathered elder of Kisoga.
Remind President Museveni to speed up the process of putting money in our saccos for fishermen, giving local council leaders boats and engines to ease monitoring of government programs. We shall also reward him on the ballot come 2026.
