Understanding Pastor Ssempa - Bobi Wine row

Lyrics. Interpretation of Bobi wine’s Engule song sparked debate among religious and political leaders

What you need to know:

Rendition. Empty tins make a lot of noise which will very often make you laugh. Visit this page every Sunday to encounter Empty Tin and his warped ideas.

One day, many years ago, the teacher faced a barrage of questions on contradictions in the Bible. Failing to explain the apples, snakes, Eves, and ladders, he announced that the Bible was written to be believed, not questioned. Must have been hearing things, that one. Things like the Holy Ghost speaking through him. The teacher subdued his students. Just like that.

Fast forward, there is Ssempa. He has said some stuff about Bobi Wine’s song, Tuliyambala Engule, and the nation is in overdrive to try and understand this guy who grins like a gigolo on duty and talks like a cricket shrieking in the cold. For a man who makes something so simple like a grin and a speech sound so complex as for us to bring in gigolos and crickets, it simply means he is an enigma unto himself.
Now, Empty Tin also felt it cardinal to try and understand Ssempa beyond crickets and whatnot. So we headed to some of our society’s most valuable persons for what they hooked in Ssempa’s salvo.

Omar Mandela
This guy plagiarised a Kenyan franchise with such perfection that Ssempa’s attempt to plagiarise God is stuttering like Bad Black. Café Javas seems the thing now. We walked over to Omar Mandela knowing Ssempa has had coffee here before – like it seems everyone else does.
“Look, this place is teeming like a UNFP tent serving refugees. Yes, Ssempa who? Ah! That one! I guess he was one of the clients but we don’t play loud music here so what he is hearing may be coming from space,” he said. “Is Ssempa a scientist? I’m told scientists are hearing radio signals from a billion light years ahead so maybe Ssempa is hearing things?” he added.

Tamale Mirundi
He refused to comment, saying the detail of Ssempa’s verbal salvo can be found in his next book. He promised to start the book as you read this and finish before you are done with this column. Meanwhile, he veered off and praised Museveni and Rugunda and Janet and... then he forgot and commented about Ssempa.
“You want to understand Ssempa? Fine, just imagine that America sent some man named Armstrong to the moon. He went alone. He used a rocket or something to take off. The rocket had never landed there and no one had ever. So there was no terminal for the rocket on the moon. But Armstrong somehow landed there. He was alone but still managed to take his own picture, like Mwenda’s photo credit with Obote family in Zambia. And then after that, ask yourself how did Armstrong return on earth? Did he like walk to the exit of the moon and sky-dived to earth since the rocket wouldn’t launch from the moon? And...”

Sheilah Gashumba
We were gone before Mirundi was done. We understood nothing about Ssempa so off we went to Sheilah Gashumba. The lithe TV girl, on recognising the journalist in us, shouted that her father had not laid a finger on her recently so she had nothing to tell. We tried to explain that we weren’t there to record her crying decibels at the beating of her dad, but she wouldn’t have it. “I’m in Dubai and Fik [Fameica] is in Kampala. End of story. I don’t recall dating any Ssempa, so leave me alone, okay?”

Janet Museveni
“My husband was sent by God and only God can remove him. Let no one lie to you, God speaks through His people and what He told me is simple and clear. If Ssempa is saying the same then well and good but if he said anything else then he should maybe be taken to Butabika to check if he still has virginity in his brain.”