Franciska Akello: Teso’s first female legislator

I was born in 1936 in Magoro Village, Katakwi District but later moved to Ntoroma where I grew up and got my education. My father was a teacher and I was the first girl in the family. I must have been lucky because many girls at that time never went to school and those who did never went far.

I owe this to my parents who saw the value of educating a girl at that time. It’s only my father who was educated, but my mother, despite not being educated, believed in the value of modern education, though both were very strong on traditional education.

I first went to school in 1945 but soon after, my mother fell sick for two years, I had to take a break from school to take responsibility of a mother at that age of nine.
During that time, my father stopped teaching to become a parish chief back in Katakwi; this did not go well with the missionaries who had educated him. The priest at Ntoroma persuaded my father to leave his job to go back to teaching.

After settling in his new teaching post my father took my mother to Ntoroma for medical attention and I had to stay with her there; that is how I resumed studies. I had to take my mother to hospital first before going to school. Fortunately, my father was my teacher and whenever I was late to school, he would understand why.

While in Primary Three, I was hit by a strange disease which paralysed me. The mission hospital in Ntoroma could not sort out my problem. It was not until my maternal grandmother came to take care of me that I got a reprieve. I would sleep with her in the kitchen close to the fireplace to get warm. One day, she examined my leg and looked for a solution.

The next morning, she went to the bush and returned with some green shiny leaves towards sunset. She put them on fire and smeared the hot leaves on the affected parts of my leg every morning and evening. Three weeks later, I was able to walk normally and a German brother who had said I would remain lame for the rest of my life could not believe it.

However, during this period of sickness, I didn’t miss out on education. My father brought me the class work at home , when I regained my normal health I went straight to Primary Five. In Primary Five, the parish priest, Fr Krhosteman, decided that the two most bright girls Martha Amodoi and I be transferred from a mixed school to a girls’ boarding primary school in Ngora.
In the first term in P.5, we were taken to Ngora Girls. Those days we used to call it going overseas because we had to cross Lake Bisinia then called Lake Salisbury - a branch of Lake Kyoga.
At Ngora Girls, everything was new, all teachers were female save father John Eneku who taught us Religion. Life was so routine. We would go to church very morning and the feeding was poor with millet bread and greens dominating. Although we were not allowed to raise complaints, I took a bold step and did so.
One early morning, I went to class to write a letter to my father detailing what was happening at school. As I wrote the letter, a teacher sneaked into class and stood behind me and read what I was writing. By the time I realised it was too late. She took it from me and walked away.

On the assembly that morning, my letter was the topic; the headmistress - a White nun - had got the letter and she read it to the entire school. She then asked whoever had written it to stand up. I hesitated, on the second calling I stood up shivering. When I stood up she told me to go to her office. I was expecting the worst.

In her office, I started crying as she tried to calm me down, asking me to tell her all that I had experienced since joining the school, because in the letter I had concluded by asking my father to come and take me back home.

After that incident, the nun spent some weeks in the kitchen investigating what I had complained about. She later called the matron and cautioned her. That was the beginning of my fallout with the matron until she was transferred. One evening before her transfer during supper she served me food for more 20 people and told me to eat it.

I was now endeared to the headmistress who changed my routine. I worked in the convent kitchen where I got my breakfast every morning. From cleaning the kitchen I became the nun’s pet. They called on me to escort them whenever they were going for visits to other convents like Nkokonjeru, Kamuli, Tororo and other places where they had missions.

Luckily, when we sat PLE I was the best pupil followed by Amodoi the girl I had joined the school with.
In 1951, we had visitors from Ireland and they nuns called me after breakfast, saying the visitors would like to see the life and role of a typical African girl.

They took me to a home and I did all that a girl is supposed to do in the home like collecting millet from the granary, winnow and grind it on a stone, fetch water, collect firewood, and all home chores, while they were filming. It was not until I went to Ireland in 1959 that I first saw the video.
When I completed primary, the choices for girls were limited to teaching and nursing.

I opted to go for teaching. At that time you could go from Primary Six to a teacher training college, to become a vernacular teacher. With my performance the nuns said no, Amodoi and I were offered scholarships to join Junior Secondary School within Ngora in 1952.

However, instead of three years we did it in two years after skipping a class thus in 1953 we did the Junior Leaving Certificate, and went on to join Mt St Mary’s College, Namagunga in 1954 as the first girls from Teso courtesy of Soroti and the Central government.
After secondary education in 1956, I joined Namagunga Teacher Training College for two years. Before I got my results I was asked to go and sit in for a nun at Bukedea Teacher Training College who was going on leave. I stayed there until 1959 when my official appointment as a tutor came.

One day in 1959, the principal called me to her office, saying I had been offered a nine-months trip to 11 European countries courtesy of UNESCO. However, UNESCO was to meet only travel, meals, and accommodation expenses. I had to meet the cost of personal effects.

Touring Europe
The Vatican was my first stopover; the person who met me at the airport said my programme would include an audience with Pope John XXII at his summer residency. I spent two days touring the Holy See going to the Cestine Chapel where the popes are elected from. I was shown the Pope’s bedroom but not allowed to enter it and many other interesting places there. I went to eight other countries in six months and I was really exhausted. I missed going to Spain and Portugal, returning home in December 1959

LEGCO
One Sunday morning, a few months after my return from Europe, I was attending mass when one of the nuns came and whispered to me to come out. She took me to the District Commissioner DC Soroti, Mr Rutega, who had come to take me to Kampala for a swearing- in ceremony. I wondered what swearing-in ceremony.

He told me not to waste time but that I would ask questions while on the road. Along the way, he said my name was proposed by Raymond Malinga, a former inspector of schools, and nominated by Governor Fredrick Crawford to go to Parliament.
The first time I entered Parliament, I didn’t know what I was going to do there. I was sworn in by the Speaker John Griffin on April 1, 1960. Mr Oriokot, an MP from Kaberamaido, briefed me about parliament procedure and then handed me to the ladies, Sarah Ntiro and Joyce Masembe (Later Kalema when she got married). I was the third woman in the LEGCO. They helped me to settle down. The closest I had been to debating was while in Namagunga .

I first stayed with Sarah Ntiro before securing room at Rubaga social Centre on Rubaga Road. My other mentor Cuthbert Obwangor was staying in Mengo Kisenyi. Soon after swearing, I was given a loan to buy a car, and I got a Morris Mini. I got a Muganda driver who taught me how to drive.
Notable people I will never forget in that Parliament were Cuthbert Obwangor, Milton Obote would talk without reading from any book. John Babiha talked about animal husbandry. John Kakonge and Adoko Nekyon had just returned from India; they were very eloquent young boys. I was the youngest Member of Parliament at that time aged 24 years.

One of the lasting memories I have for the two years I was there is that people debated real issues and showed they understood what they talked about. We were not talking about personalities.

In the LEGCO, I was a nominated member. When Ben Kiwanuka became the prime minister in 1961, I stayed as a member of DP until the 1962 when I decided not to stand in the interest of the party.

Back to teaching
From Parliament, I went back to teaching at Magale S.S in Mbale for six months before going back to Bukedea in 1963, but within that year, I got a short course scholarship to go to America to study teaching methodology. While in America, foreign students were scheduled to meet President John. F. Kennedy at the White House.

Unfortunately, a day before he lost his baby, we visited the White House and met the secretary of State. From the US, I stayed in Bukedea for a short time before moving to Bulinda Girls’ School in Kalisizo for a year.

In 1966, I joined Makerere College for a diploma in education, with Setenza Kajubi as my tutor. It was a sandwich kind of course, one year at college, one year doing practical and back to college for another year to complete.

From Makerere, I went to Nyondo TTC, Soroti Secondary School and in 1970 I got a Commonwealth scholarship to Leeds University in the UK for a one year course in Teaching English as a second language.

Upon my return in 1971, I was posted to Moroto TTC. The coup had just occured, floating dead bodies welcomed me at Awoja bridge as I headed to my new post. In Moroto dead bodies were littered all over the place. I wondered if this was the kind of independence that we demanded from the British.

After five years in Karamoja, I was taken to Arua TTC for a year before going back to Teso at Ngora Bishop TTC in 1975 until 1979. Life at Ngora was hard not only because of the economic war, but there was scarcity of everything. I used to squash sugarcane in a mincer to get sugar.

Sometimes I would crush sweets for them to act as sugar. I also started getting threats to my life. I started leaving the house soon after dark and those who stayed behind were advised not to switch on the lights.

To Kenya and back
In July 1979, I went to Kenya, looking for a job opening. Unfortunately, I never got one and I decided to come back. The bishop of Tororo transferred me to Nyondo TTC in Mbale where I worked with Father Ngobya. Later in 1980, I got word that there was an opening at Arap Moi Secondary school in Kakamega. That is how I ended up in a self-imposed exile for the next 14 years.

When I returned in 1994, I looked for teaching opportunities in vain. Many of the people I had worked with earlier had retired and others were dead. It’s only Paul Ssemogerere who was around that I knew. So I went to his office to help me process my pension since I had retired.

A month after I had forwarded my forms I was told the person who had handled them died and I had to start afresh.
They kept tossing me back and forth for a long time. One officer asked me if I had filled in the green form and I told him I didn’t know the green form. He asked me where I was from and when I told him he laughed and showed me money from his wallet to show me the green form.

I was not willing to bribe them. I decided that if I deserved the pension I should get it and if I didn’t deserve it, let it be. I walked to Wandegeya from 1994 until 2004 when I gave up on my pension. Fortunately, my relatives and my two sons are taking care of me.

Her reflections of the past and present

Working with Kiwanuka
Had Benedicto Kiwanuka become president, we would have had the most upright presidents in Africa. He was too holy to be a politician. Most of the time whatever he said was towards humanity. He was intelligent and very approachable and humble. When he returned from the Lancaster conference, he told those gathered for the dinner hosted to welcome him back that “Baganda will regret, you have called me a coward but, what you were asking for was unrealistic, let us get one thing (independence) first and then we work out other modalities after independence.” I really enjoyed working with him.

High and low moments
My lowest moments are the political changes in the country; what I am seeing is not what I expected from independence. I also regret the standards of education today; they are a shadow of what they were. It’s high time we thought harder on getting the right leaders; we have a leadership crisis in this country. The highest moment of my life was when I went to Parliament I felt I was on top of the world.