Music, fanfare, fashion light up Kampala city festival

Kampala.
People from all walks of life thronged the Kampala City streets yesterday for the third edition of the city festival.
The planner, Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA), promised the best festival and they did not disappoint.

As early as 7am, different businesses, who had worked through the night to set up their stalls and tents, opened shop to the public, who had since started trickling in.

By 10am, there were long queues of people at the entry points, and even larger streams of people strolling about the city streets from Kampala Road to Jinja Road, clad in a variety of festival fashions; dresses and caps they had purchased at stalls within. Some had their faces painted and other wore masks.

Gospel music, Muslims’ Kaswida and sounds of drums and trumpets, blared over thousands of revellers who turned up for the festival.

The Christian and Muslims’ stages at Sheraton Kampala Hotel and Parliamentary Gardens respectively were some of the exceptional stages that added a religious feel to the festival that had more than seven stages in total.

At about 9am, pedestrians lined up on Buganda Road, where the festival parade started through Kampala Road towards Railways Gardens where the main celebrations of the festival events were hosted.

Unlike in the previous carnivals, where Ms Jennifer Musisi stood atop City Hall floater, this time round, she was comfortably seated in an open-roof Mercedes Benz labelled “Nankulu Jennifer Musisi” at both sides of the number plates. Nankulu means “a female boss”. As expected, Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago was not part of the festivities.

Wearing an orange short sleeved dress and a light cream ceremonial hat fixed with a flower, Ms Musisi arrived in heavily guarded convoy.

The festival is a day KCCA set aside for Kampala dwellers to enjoy full liberty of their city, show their talents and associate with its leaders.

“We have a diversity of people from all parts of the world, make sure you walk around and make a new friend, and be part of this transformation process for Kampala,” Ms Musisi told revellers in a recorded video clip.

Addressing revellers after her tour of all the stages, the jolly looking Musisi, vowed to continually improve the organisation of the city festival as a tool for creating a sense of social togetherness among Kampalans.

“The city festival has been instrumental in creating a spirit of togetherness among Ugandans. It has also helped improved compliance among city dwellers towards payment of revenues and keeping the city clean,” Ms Musisi.

Organising the festivities cost at least Shs800m, according to KCCA, with some of the money contributed by private companies.
The festival also gave opportunity for big companies like Uganda Breweries, Huawei, Total, MTN, Airtel Uganda, City Tyres, Coca Cola, Mukwano group, and the Uganda Wildlife Authority, to advertise their products.

Unlike other days when police arrests whoever encroaches on the Constitution Square, yesterday the area was turned into a children’s park.

Mr Allan Kyobe, a publicist at Huawei, one of the sponsors at the festival, said they had been pleased by the turn up, adding that it was the best they had seen in years.

“We managed to get several people to check out and purchase our products, especially phones so I can say we are on the whole pleased. This was a great success,” Mr Kyobe said.

“This is better than what we had last year. There are companies selling all sorts of stuff everywhere cheaply and the performances are great,” remarked Ms Elizabeth Nakazzi, one of revellers at the event.

A Rift Valley Railways (RVR) train ferried people from the outskirts of the city to and from the event throughout the day.