Violent evictions brew hatred and anger
Stick wielding goons run after Kampala mayor Erias Lukwago and other city leaders who had visited Nakivubo Park Yard market.
What you need to know:
- If such situations are not properly handled, they brew anger and hatred against those in power and this should be avoided because Uganda belongs to all of us.
- TV cameras showed images of people wailing, wondering how they were going to service their loans and one university student who was running a restaurant at Park Yard market with her mother to raise tuition fees crying that her education was at stake.
Barely 10 days into a one-month ultimatum, the powerful minister of Kampala, Beti Olive Namisango Kamya, had given for parkyard market occupants to vacate the premises, the victims and other concerned Ugandans woke up to find the area sealed off.
What followed next were graders razing the structures down.
Listening to the cries of the crestfallen victims you could feel pain and agony they were subjected to and a sense that government was acting inhumanly to the people it is supposed to protect in the name of a developer.
Just drawing your attention to the number of developers government has given land ranging from Namanve Industrial Park to the famous Shimoni Demonstration School, not much can be seen in regard to development. The Shimoni pupils were relocated to Kololo to the disadvantage to low income earners.
Shimoni land which was given to a developer has remained undeveloped apart from the tall incomplete building that was erected and fenced off for years.
How sure are we that the ParkYard developments will take off and not end up like the Shimoni?
It’s painful to see government treat its own citizens like that. What a shame no wonder the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga described the action as a ruthless eviction and demanded the government chief whip Ruth Nakibirwa explain the debacle.
This is not the first time those who hold power have rendered citizens helpless.
It’s high time government showed a human face to the people otherwise, the tears of the helpless will one day haunt those who exercise power without mercy.
I wonder how the powerful minister Kamya will face the electorate if she opts to contest in the 2021 general elections in four years to come. Probably she would think that they would have forgotten.
You can imagine the lives of families which have been put at stake due to this inhuman eviction.
TV cameras showed images of people wailing, wondering how they were going to service their loans and one university student who was running a restaurant at Park Yard market with her mother to raise tuition fees crying that her education was at stake.
Surely is this the best way to govern society?
If such situations are not properly handled, they brew anger and hatred against those in power and this should be avoided because Uganda belongs to all of us.
Franco Eggassu,
[email protected]
