The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | A worrying trend is upon us. Flammable snowflake leaders have made a mockery of shame. Shame no longer lives here. Instead, brazen impunity parades its wares.
Consider these three exhibits.
Exhibit 1: The Uganda Media Council is responsible for regulating media as mandated by the Press and Journalists Act. On May 8, the Media Council wrote to The Observer newspaper regarding an article on parliamentary corruption.
The April 24 article, ‘MPs bribed to save government agencies’, revealed that members of parliament (MPs) solicit hefty bribes from government agencies. Citing the journalistic tenets of accuracy and balance, the Media Council in its letter admonished The Observer’s coverage of parliament, “Parliament is the cornerstone of democracy…Upholding its sanctity ensures the integrity of the democratic process. It is therefore very important that Public Trust in Parliament and in government is maintained.”
Sanctity conjures up purity and integrity. What a feat to tar the sanctity of parliament where the speaker of parliament has used derogatory language like ‘bum shafters’ to scoff at her critics. We are still reeling from the online Uganda Parliament Exhibition, which proficiently demonstrated that there is hardly any shame left in parliament today (see March 13 article: Uganda Parliament Exhibition: An exhibition in shamelessness).
The Media Council might have missed this but in November 2023, the pesky The Observer newspaper published a telling expose, ‘The heavy price of annoying Speaker Among’. The article detailed the harassment and intimidation of political activist Habib Buwembo who had on several occasions publicly criticized Speaker Among.
The Media Council will agree that the media has a responsibility to expose societal vices such as corruption. Yet, we find ourselves in a bizarre position where the Media Council is tottering dangerously towards oppression.
In the last paragraph of the letter, the Media Council sent The Observer a warning shot, “You are also hereby put on notice that you have not registered the particulars of the Editor of The Observer newspaper…which is a criminal offence under the law.”
A conveniently situated ‘reminder’ – a subtle trick you save for the last to demonstrate your (stronger) hand while pretentiously playing a polite game.
Exhibit 2: Created by the 1995 Constitution, the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) exists “To protect and promote fundamental human rights and freedoms in Uganda for sustainable development.” Cognizant of our turbulent political history where human rights abuses
reigned supreme, the UHRC has a higher calling. The Commission website goes further and lists the UHRC values as, “1. Integrity 2. Transparency 3. Accountability 4. Fairness 5. Dignity of the person 6. Independence 7. Professionalism 8. Non-discrimination”
Yet the May 20 meeting between Mariam Wangadya, the UHRC chairperson, and Robert Kyagulanyi/Bobi Wine, leader of the opposition party, National Unity Platform (NUP), looked nothing like those beautiful UHRC values. Not even a slight resemblance. It might as well have been an exchange on the micro-blogging site, X, where arguments quickly descend into the gutter.
In 2018, Kyagulanyi petitioned the UHRC over the police ban on his musical concerts-to-date that ban remains in place. Kyagulanyi thus accused the UHRC of violating his right to a fair hearing, acting with partiality and a lack of independence.
One might expect that an impartial body mandated with overseeing human rights would take this charge seriously. Woe to that one! Instead, the UHRC chair took umbrage to Kyagulanyi’s claims and accused him of attacking the commission.
She also threatened to call security to arrest Kyagulanyi. It is a sad day when the head of a human rights commission cannot listen to a complaint about the conduct of that commission without bursting into self-righteous indignation.
The fictitious case study asked law students to interrogate a context of a parliament far gone in hubris with its fictional speaker pushing a bill to penalize malicious reporting about the speaker. The case study was hilariously bold in its imagination, casting the character of the speaker as an unabashed dictator.
In response to the vice chancellor, the acting head of the Law School stood by the exam, defending it as “ethical, adequate and meeting the standards of Makerere University.”
The vice chancellor’s letter reeked of suppression of academic freedom, which does not bode well for the country’s premier tertiary institution. On the purpose of higher education, a June 2020 article in The Conversation notes, “Universities exist to expand knowledge and create a civil society. They allow us to understand, challenge, collaborate, inquire, discover, create, design, confront and imagine.”
Underlining that universities serve as centres of critical thought and innovation, the article stresses that political agendas should not undermine academic freedoms. Therafa, what a pleasant surprise when the real parliament speaker distanced herself from the dictatorship of the fictitious speaker in the law exam and magnanimously urged Makerere University to “Let the children learn”.
The real speaker tweeted on May 22, “I hold the view that this is a free society in which freedom of expression is guaranteed and sacrosanct, including academic freedom protects academic freedom in the following terms: “freedom of thought, conscience, and belief which shall include academic freedom in institutions of learning.”
These words – a thing of beauty! Could this be the same speaker who condescendingly snubbed the Uganda Parliament Exhibition? Might this speaker also put out a few beautiful words in support of media freedom?
Exhibit 4: Dear reader, I said three exhibits but the allure of impunity is too tempting hence one more exhibit. YOU. Dear reader, you are the exhibit. What remains for citizens when national institutions pussyfoot around impunity and promote leaders who self-combust indignantly when called out?
The answers seem unreachable but let the actions of honest Ugandans refusing to cede to the corrupting influence of impunity encourage you. On May 26, netizen Michael Katagaya tweeted about one such Ugandan. Katagaya, exhausted from the drudgery of the day, withdrew money from an ATM but forgot to take the money with him.
Thirty minutes later when Katagaya, probably despondent and frantic, returned to the ATM, he found that Geoffrey, the security guard manning the machine, had kept the money expectantly waiting for the owner to return. Commending Geoffrey, Katagaya commented, “That’s a person you’ll put in charge of distributing iron sheets to vulnerable people and he’ll deliver every single piece.”
If you must be an exhibit, be Geoffrey – resist impunity.
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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER
