The roommate to Joshua Ajuna, who died of suspected suicide at Nsibirwa hall last week opens up on the matter, saying Ajuna was well two days before his death.

“I left Joshua in good health and found him dead two days later,” says Dennis Tumusiime, who reveals that they parted ways well two days before the death.

The two roommates were close friends for over ten years since form one at Uganda Martyrs College, Namugongo.

Tumusiime says he was shaken to discover his roommate dead in their room.

“Joshua’s last words to me were ‘okay, we shall meet’. When we met again, I was shocked to find him dead,” narrates Tumusiime, who left Ajuna in good health two days before when he went home in Bweyogerere on Friday. But upon returning on Sunday evening, he found a dead body in the room. He immediately reported the matter to police.

Police findings

According to police, Ajuna’s death is linked to suicide. Detective Jackson Amali of the Makerere University police station says “police found a suicide note from Room 69 at Nsibirwa hall where the deceased used to reside.” Joshua is alleged to have used chemicals to commit suicide.

His face was found suffocated in a polythene bag and a bottle of alcohol was also recovered from the same room. However, police says it is still carrying out more investigations.

Douglas Ssenyonga, the Nsibirwa hall Custodian suspects that Joshua died on Saturday and not on Sunday when the dead body was discovered “because that is when the suicide note was signed.”

“We got to know that Joshua is dead on Sunday when his roommate returned from home, his body was picked by police at 10:00pm and taken for a postmortem,” he added.

The suicide note dated 15^th September 2018 signed by the deceased says “I did this for personal reasons and my parents would call me a coward if I didn’t.”

Tumusiime disagrees that his roommate’s relationship issues with the family or the girl friend led to suicide. He however thinks that it could have been in Joshua’s plans to take away his own life but says police stopped him from sharing some information that would undermine investigations.

The Nsibirwa hall custodian who has worked in Makerere University for over 18 years says this is not the first time such an incident is happening. He advised the University administration to consider giving guidance and counselling to troubled students in halls of residence as this would prevent such unfortunate incidents.

Who was Ajuna?

Joshua Ajuna was a fourth year government-sponsored student at the School of Forestry, Makerere University. He attended Uganda Martyrs College Namugongo for his secondary where he attained 8 in 8 at ‘O’ level and 18 points at ‘A’ level. He died at the age of 25 and was laid to rest at his ancestral home in Bushenyi.