Sunday morning in Kashenyi trading centre started with shops opening. By afternoon, it ended with tear gas.
Residents of Kashenyi ward, Ishaka Division, Bushenyi-Ishaka Municipality found themselves cordoned off from a crime scene inside one of their own buildings. The body was Abias Asiimwe Baryayanga, 58. Former Chief Finance Officer of Bushenyi District. A landlord. A neighbor. A man from Kyandango cell who, by all accounts, went to collect rent.
He did not come home.
What Happened in Kashenyi
Police found Baryayanga’s body on Sunday, 18th April 2026, inside a rental unit he owned at Kashenyi Trading Centre. The attackers had hacked him. Then burned the body. Then hid the remains in the ceiling of one of the rooms.
It was not a robbery gone wrong. It was hidden. That detail changes everything.
You don’t hide a body in the ceiling unless you plan to stay in the building. Unless you think no one will check. Unless you know the landlord works alone.
Four suspects are now in custody. Police fired live bullets in the air and used tear gas to stop an angry crowd from taking the law into its own hands. The crowd wanted the suspects. The police wanted a case file, not a mob funeral.
Both sides lost a man that day.
Who Was Abias Asiimwe
In Bushenyi, people don’t just remember titles. They remember how you handled money.
As Chief Finance Officer, Baryayanga signed vouchers. He released district funds. He said no to many people and yes to a few. That job makes you enemies you never meet. It also makes you a target when you retire, because people assume you left with the keys to the safe.
He didn’t. He left with a pension and rental units in Kashenyi. Like many retired civil servants, he put his gratuity into bricks. Rooms for rent. Monthly collections. A quiet old age.
Uganda’s middle class has a formula: work for government, survive the politics, build rentals, die respected. Baryayanga followed it. The formula failed him at the last step.
The Danger of Being a Landlord in Uganda
Every town has this story. A landlord goes to ask for arrears. He is told “come back tomorrow.” He comes back. He doesn’t leave.
Rent in trading centres is not like rent in Kololo. There are no agents. No receipts. No security. It is a man, a book, and a tenant who had a bad month. When the month becomes three, the book becomes a problem.
Landlords walk into their buildings alone because asking for your own money is not supposed to be dangerous. But Shs 50,000 in unpaid rent has killed before. Not for the money. For the shame, the argument, the “you think you’re better than me” that comes after the knock.
Baryayanga’s case is extreme — hacked, burned, hidden — but the start is common. A retired man, a rental, a Sunday, a door.
Why the Crowd Came With Fire
Kashenyi residents didn’t bring stones because they love violence. They brought them because they know the next steps.
Suspect arrested. Taken to Bushenyi. Court in two years. Bail. Adjournments. Family sells a cow to “follow the case.” The file grows old. The anger stays young.
So when police arrived, the crowd saw a choice: trust the process or finish it now. Tear gas answered for them.
This is the second tax Uganda pays for weak justice. The first is crime. The second is the mob. Both cost lives.
What Four Arrests Don’t Fix
Four suspects in custody is not closure. It is a question.
Were they tenants? Were they hired? Did they act on a debt, a grudge, or instructions? Was this about Shs 200,000 or about files Baryayanga signed in 2018?
Police will tell us what they can. The ceiling will not talk.
But the bigger leak is trust. If a former CFO can be killed in his own building and hidden in the roof, then no one is safe collecting rent. Landlords will send boys. Boys will carry sticks. Sticks will cause new cases. The cycle writes itself.
The Lesson Kashenyi Didn’t Want to Teach
Be careful collecting rent. That is the sentence everyone will share. It is true and useless.
Better: Don’t collect alone. Don’t collect on Sundays when streets are empty. Don’t collect without telling someone where you’re going. Write names in a book and leave the book at home. Take a boda rider and make him wait. Small things that keep you alive.
Better still: fix the system so Shs 50,000 doesn’t feel like a death sentence to the man who owes it. Because poverty plus shame plus a panga is a formula Uganda knows too well.
Baryayanga was 58. He had retired from money to make money. He died counting it.
Kashenyi will bury him. The tenants will find a new landlord. The ceiling will be repaired. The tear gas will clear.
But a trading centre that watches a landlord burned and hidden in his own rooms does not forget. It just learns to lock its doors earlier.
