Prime
Justice Owiny Dollo has entered the monkey dance
Author, Nicholas Sengoba. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- None other than the Chief Justice His Worship Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, a kinsman and bosom friend to the late Jacob Oulanya took exception to this show of ‘bukopi’ like very many other people.
Baganda use the word ‘omukopi’ to describe a social misfit or a person who has no sense of occasion.
Such a person will go to a funeral and start laughing or talking football and politics totally oblivious of the pain of the bereaved. When the late Speaker of Parliament Hon. Jacob L’Okori Oulanyah fell critically ill and was taken to Seattle in the USA, a small group of people waving placards staged a demonstration around the hospital. They were not amused that a Ugandan government official was getting preferential treatment at the taxpayer’s expense (about Shs 1.7 billion to charter the plane that flew him there,) yet health facilities back home were in a deplorable state. To them, this was the best time and place (at the bedside of a man fighting for his life,) to demonstrate against bad governance and poor service delivery at home.
Some of them wore red berets and shirts which are associated with Uganda’s NUP party. NUP is now the official largest opposition grouping in Parliament. In the last election, it won most of the elective offices in the Buganda region which drove some people to the conclusion that NUP is a Buganda tribal party.
Steven Akabway, the former Electoral Commission Chairman once told us about ‘Musumba logic.’ That Musumba wears a necktie to work every day. If a man with a necktie in the trading center is involved in a fatal accident, Musumba’s household should mourn because Musumba wears neckties!
None other than the Chief Justice His Worship Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, a kinsman and bosom friend to the late Jacob Oulanya took exception to this show of ‘bukopi’ like very many other people.
Owiny-Dollo’s reading was, red t-shirt and red beret equals NUP. NUP equals Baganda. He then launched a tirade against ‘some stupid lumpens who are spoiling the good name of the cultured Baganda people.’ He berated leaders in Buganda for not condemning this abomination because they are subdued by the political opinion leaders in the region. This he says is taking Buganda to the abyss.
He warned that there will be a time when Baganda will try to market a national leader but find a hard time because of such behavior.
Seemingly to Owiny Dollo the grounds on which a Muganda would stand to protest against Jacob Oulanyah’s treatment abroad is because he is an Acholi. Otherwise the protesters should have done the same when their ethnic (sic) leader was taken to Germany for medical treatment aboard the Presidential jet.
We have been informed by the Katikkiro of Buganda that the Kabaka of Buganda flew to Germany by KLM Airlines. Judges are not ordinary people in many senses. They are part of the cream of society like the nobility. That is why they enjoy many privileges unlike the rest of us. But these come with a lot of responsibility, the cardinal one being self-restraint.
ALSO READ: Backlash over Dollo rebuke of Buganda
If a judge openly exposes himself by joining the talking heads, there will be some sober people who will put him in the dock to answer all manner of questions. How as a judge, did he come to the conclusion that the protesters in Seattle were Baganda? Did he give them a hearing or did he need one look to pass judgment which is contrary to the norms of natural justice? Did he interview them one by one to get their details? Does wearing red mean one supports NUP? Does being a member of NUP like Hon. Derrick Nyeko from Northern Uganda or Hon. John Baptist Nambeshe from Bugisu automatically makes one a Muganda?
There have been other protests against Ugandans seeking medical treatment abroad like Judith Babirye who had gone to hospital to deliver a baby. Should it be concluded that justice Owiny-Dollo did not come out strongly against this bukopi because she is not an Acholi? Why didn’t Owiny-Dollo Speak out when Novelist Kakwenza Rukirabasaija was denied his passport by court as he sought medical treatment abroad, after torture allegedly occasioned by Ugandan government security agents? Didn’t he notice that Kakwenza like Oulanyah is entitled to better health services which Uganda does not provide at home? Would it be fair to conclude that whoever did not support Kakwenza flying out for therapy, wanted him to stay and die in Uganda like the stupid lumpen Seattle protesters wished for Oulanyah?
Why is Justice Owiny-Dollo only worried about Buganda failing to market a political leader, nationally? Isn’t he inadvertently falling in the political scheme which violently denied NUP to market itself countrywide in the last election hence winning majorly in Buganda? It would have been interesting to hear him saying that other Ugandans would boycott trading with Baganda, marrying them, reject rides from Baganda boda boda riders, taxi drivers, or services provided by guards, house help, teachers, doctors and nurses. Not buying from or selling to them their produce because a few lumpens protested against Oulanyah’s treatment abroad. Should he answer this he will know that the opinion of politicians and leaders is at times just that, their opinion. If Owiny-Dollo has now decided to speak out against despicable behavior in our society, can we assume that he is going to go bare knuckles against the government security agents when suspects are delivered in courts with torture marks? Will he condemn their leaders like the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces who happens to be the President, accusing him of keeping quiet when his armed charges like the stupid lumpens in Seattle are sinking the country’s image into an abyss?
It is said that if you don’t want to be touched by monkey tails, you should not enter a monkey dance.
When a judge decides to go liberally casting aspersions, making asinine and infantile remarks, he has bought himself a first class ticket to the ballroom where monkeys dance. The judge has jumped into the arena where fallacious logic - the sort of logic that equates NUP to Baganda -reigns supreme. Here he will rub shoulders with all manner of people who want to be heard without hearing others because they think they are always right.
And now with social media, he will keep the company of the lumpenproletariat for whom decorum and decency are alien traits. By the time they are done with him, his horsehair wig will have more monkey hairs than the back of a healthy primate.
Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues
Twitter: @nsengoba
