Anger cannot secure our future
I remember writing in this paper a comment beginning with the exclamation Eyawaye Ma yee! I was basically agonising about Ugandan leaders who are “Titled for entitlement”.
That time I was commenting on Gen Matayo Kyaligonza and the then Deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana’s unbecoming behaviours of entitlement to break the law, even if it inconvenienced other Ugandans.
Recently, a day before the political troubles in Kampala, I asked a question to all Ugandans as to why we are so angry with each other, yet we crave for peace in Uganda, but without the other. We cannot have peace without the other, particularly by wishing the Opposition or the government away.
I said such peace by wishing the other away is not real peace. It appears we are so used to bicupuli (fake) that any peace will do for us, even if it spells doom for the nation now or in the near future!
Until we address this anger, we will fail to secure a future for this nation. You cannot secure a future for this nation by ending the life of another Ugandan. The onus is on the government of the day.
The NRM rode into power on the olive branch of bringing a fundamental change in Uganda. This it has largely done until the issue of entitlements slowly sneaked into our politics in recent years.
How many Ugandans need to be crushed, or killed to secure this future? Crushed and killed people cannot build a nation.
Amin tried, Obote tried and others tried. For a whole Minister for Security to boast that we (the police and army) have a right to kill you, is the first of its kind in the world.
The evidence is clear, two days later and 50 lives less, there is ‘peace’ on the streets! Let us work on this anger and exercise more humanness, empathy and lawfulness.
For the government to rush to compensate those lost lives without justice, as if Ugandans go about producing children that anybody can kill for money, is not nation-building.
No one wakes up to send his children to protest so that they are killed to enrich the family.
An anonymous person once wrote “the fault is great in man or woman who steals a goose from off a common; but what can plead that man’s excuse who steals a common from a goose?”
To the Ugandans who think they have a right, listen to me. “There is a grave for Ombau (the fearless one), who died maintaining his right of way. His right was clear and his will strong. But he’s as dead as if he’d been wrong”.
It is time for us to look at this our anger, both young and old alike, lest we destroy each other. But those of us who have seen the rise of the sun for much longer, it is ours to allow the youth to also do what we have done. That will truly mean securing their future as others have secured ours.
Oh Uganda, May God uphold thee!
Rt Rev Dr Obetia works at Uganda Christian University (UCU) Mukono
[email protected]
