Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe: A symbol of feminine triumph

Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe

What you need to know:

Controversial as her life story might have ended up, nothing takes away from what the first and so far only female vice president of this country represented for the Ugandan woman and general political atmosphere, writes John K. Abimanyi

By 1955, in USA, it was only 35 years after women had earned the right to vote across the country. The US was, and still is, the most advanced country in the world. This therefore works to portray just how slow the world in general was in coming to accommodate women into civic duty.

On July 1 of that same year, in Iganga, Eastern Uganda, a girl was born into a country where women were also not yet eligible to vote. That privilege would wait for another seven years, when Uganda attained independence (and only for women older than 21 years). But Speciosa Wandira Naigaga Kazibwe would grow up to witness women in her country start to take part in elections, first as voters, and then, as candidates for political office.

She then capped it all when in 1994, she was appointed Vice President, the first woman to rise to the height in both her country, and Africa as a whole. “It was the perfect icing on the cake for empowerment of women,” wrote Mary Karooro Okurut, who worked as Dr Kazibwe’s press secretary, upon her resignation as vice president (VP) in 2003.
Kazibwe, now a presidential advisor on micro-finance, became the symbolising face of progressive women in Uganda and in Africa. Hers was a front line face when the journey that women have made towards emancipation was mentioned. Her career became a learning board for women to know they could make it anywhere. Her personal life too, which publically played out a nasty divorce, pointed women into the direction of not tolerating abusive relationships.

Dr Frederick Kisekka-Ntale, a social research fellow at Makerere University’s Institute of Social Research, says Dr Kazibwe opened the gates for other women in Africa to rise to similar postings. She showed that women could be taken seriously in positions of power, he said. It is thus not surprising that three years after she quit her post as VP, there was a female presidential candidate in Uganda in Ms Miria Obote. Also, Africa today has a female president in Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The percentage of women members of parliament increased from a third in 2003 (0.3) when Ms Kazibwe retired, to nearly a half (0.46) by 2009, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s International Human Development Indicators released in November 2011.

Kazibwe joined politics straight out of school. She started out with the Democratic Party and later worked as the women’s representative in Kampala District under the National Resistance Movement where she consquently served in the National Resistance Councils before becoming minister.

However, it was when she was pushed onto the frontline, at the head of the women’s fight for emancipation as a female vice president, that most of her advocacy work for women empowerment was most manifest. And it is here that she wielded most influence.
Her role as first female vice-president on the continent led her to wield influence beyond her motherland. She, together with the Organisation of African Unity (now African Union), and the United Nation’s Economic monitoring firm, started the Ethiopia-based African Women Committee on Peace and Development (AWCDP) in 1998. The organisation aimed to “increase the effective participation of women in peace and development issues on the continent.”

A woman who spoke plainly, Kazibwe seemed to have the guts to say, on behalf of other women, things that they wanted men to know, but which, they simply shied away from. And often, such utterance bordered on the very comical, making her draw criticism for misusing her post by addressing trivial issues. She attacked Muslim men who married four wives, saying they did not satisfy their wives, leaving them no option but to cheat.

She advocated for male circumcision, leaping in defence of women’s health as she said “un-cut” men were dirty and exposed their wives to disease. In 2002, Kazibwe filed for divorce from her husband with whom she had four children. The reason? Wife-beating.

The revelations opened a lid on the domestic-abuse-characterised life many Ugandan women live (even the educated and rich like the then vice-president was). Most importantly though, she showed the rest of Ugandan women how and what should be done in the circumstances. “I am a reference book for other Ugandan women. Everyone thought my life was perfect. I had a husband, a career and money; my children were doing well at school and university, and yet I was miserable in my marriage because of the abuse,” she said at the time. “I finally had enough of living the life people expected me to lead and decided to break my silence about what was really going on,” she added.

And by so doing, “Ms Kazibwe identified with women in villages who are condemned to bullying husbands,” the Daily Monitor newspaper commented. She went further, seeking to encourage women to face abusive men with a brave face by advising them to learn karate as a way of fighting off any attacks. Kazibwe’s voicing for women emancipation rarely missed when given the opportunity at the many international conferences where she represented Uganda. She bragged about the fruits that affirmative action had achieved in Uganda while abroad, mentioning the extra number of women parliamentarians, among others, and hence drawing attention to Uganda as a land where the women emancipation had bore fruit.

But just as her star shone on high, it was clouded for allegation upon allegation of misuse of public funds. Chief among the accusations were that she embezzled $3.4m (8.8b) meant for construction of valley dams. She is also criticised for having gone for an expensive PhD at Harvard University, all at the taxpayers’ expense. These claims stained her banner. Instead of being looked back at as the reign of the very first African vice president, her tenure is instead looked back as scandal-ridden. Dr Kisekka also says Kazibwe came off as elitist in her fight for women empowerment and in the end, did not benefit ordinary Ugandan women much.

At heart, Kazibwe remained a carefree girl. She was a free-spirited being who publically boasted that she was still attractive despite her age (over 40s). She complained that artificial insemination violated animal’s rights to have sex and complained that African men do not know how to make love, and who, while talking to teenage students, told them that “sex is sweet” but they had to wait until the right time to enjoy it.

Looking back to the time of her birth, Kazibwe should be pleased to have lived through a time that has seen the fortunes of women, at least politically, turn around in her country. And in the end, despite all her failures, Kazibwe, who rose at a time of other prominent women like Winnie Byanyima and Miria Matembe, stands as a symbol of how far Ugandan women can go in politics.

Kazibwe’s points of advocacy
- An end to exploitation of women.
-Redistribution of wealth between men and women, and, women’s inclusion in accessing income and property.
- Equality in education and economic opportunity between men and women.
- Political empowerment of women, since economic goals require the power to make political decisions.
- Women’s independence from men, not as a form of competition with men, but as a tool to realise their full potential.
- And end to domestic violence against women, especially that of husbands battering their wives.