Leaders should behave honourably

It seems to me that some people who drive or are driven in cars with government number plates think they are above the law.
On May 11, we were coming back from the burial of Chris Akena in Maruzi Country, Apac District. As is the norm, when at the Kungu-Masindi Port Ferry crossing, the principle of first come-first-serve is applied and passengers usually wait patiently in queue for their turn to get onto the ferry.

On that day, because there were a number of people coming from the burial, the queue was a little longer than usual and had built up to about 15-20 cars as passengers very patiently waited for their turn to get into the ferry that takes a maximum of six-eight cars at a time. At about 4.30pm, a car belonging to an assistant minister in government came and overtook the long queue of cars whose passengers had been waiting for more than an hour for their turn.

When one of the passengers tried to calmly ask the minister why she had showed such disrespect, she nonchalantly waved the person away and instructed her driver who was starting to apologise, to quickly put up the windows and then she sent her bodyguard to try and intimidate the rest of the waiting passengers. The bodyguard told us there was nothing anyone could do about it, that the minister was above the law. The bodyguard mentioned that none of the people there could pay enough taxes to buy the kind of car her boss was driving.

Granted, she could have had very urgent business to attend to but in my view, she should have gone about this in a more civil manner. She not only showed a lack of respect, but also an extreme level of arrogance, gross impunity and pure lack of sophistication.

Incidentally, after she had bulldozed her way to the front of the queue and gotten on the ferry, she then instructed all the passengers she was with to stay in her car (whereas it is advised that no-one should stay in their cars when the ferry is crossing, for safety reasons). This showed that she did not care not only about her own life but also those of the people she was travelling with. Unfortunately, such individuals put the title of “Honourable” to shame.

Maurice Barigye,
mbarigye@gmail.com