Tacca’s dissection of my Xmas sermon 

As is characteristic with Tacca whose pre-occupation is to shoot down anything religious, in his weekly Sunday Monitor,  January 14th,2024 article, he hurriedly beat the deadline of ensuring that he had a subject to address. 

Never mind that the editors always advise against polemic articles and relatedly Bichachi is quoted in Monitor on November 1st  2019 saying that a good opinion piece should address a unique subject and be grounded in facts, Tacca’s article was short on context of my sermon and particularly facts about Ankole Diocese, Ankole region and the person of the Bishop. 

The thrust of Tacca’s argument revolves around his submission of my sermon being reactionary and an embodiment of fatalism.

Reactionary simply defined is, ‘strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political and economic change.’

Although Tacca equates the African to illiteracy in his opening sentence, I recommend to him a 300 page book I wrote following researched articles in the New Vision and Monitor entitled, ‘Uganda’s educational, religious, political and social economic tapestry’ found in Uganda Bookshop and which Monitor newspaper featured. I am wondering if he could still use the term reactionary. 

Secondly, he plunges into how the government gave Ankole Diocese a tractor and a wet mill processor using tax payer’s money, inferring preferential treatment.

The facts are different.  Despite possessing 223 acres of coffee on church land, 138 acres of coffee and 285 vanilla small holder farmers supported by the Diocese, Ankole Diocese was the eleventh COU Diocese to get a tractor and yet might have the biggest acreage of coffee and vanilla.

Mr. Tacca may need to know that Ruharo hill road network is one of the few un-tarmacked religious hills in Uganda, yet he says we have better roads than others. 

Important to note is that Ankole Diocese was awarded a URA taxpayer’s award 2023 for remitting 300million as PAYE from Diocesan workers and 3billion from it’s Christian University Bishop Stuart University, Millennium Sacco 2012 Ltd and Revival Radio.

On the subject of fatalism, Tacca opines that I am oblivious of Uganda’s suffering since independence including Obote, Amin and now Museveni eras. 

My well-considered opinion based on facts is that currently Uganda beats almost all other East African and Central African countries apart from Ethiopia (Mwesigwa: 2022:246).

Despite their short-falls, Amin’s Uganda taught us some lessons and he too made moderate achievements; likewise Dr. Obote regime among others, is credited with massification of Secondary education and Health facilities. 

My perspective and context of the bright future of Uganda goes beyond particular actors or political systems but is informed by theological thought process that is alien to Tacca.

It does not exclude political actors who desire change but is cognizant of the facts that if God is for ‘Uganda’, who can be against ‘Uganda’? (Rom 8:31). 

In fact, in my sermon I addressed the anxiety some Christians in Ankole Diocese express that, ‘What will happen to the modest developments I have registered when I retire?’

I normally say, I am an optimist who sees the glass as half full and not half empty. The same reality can be viewed differently depending on one’s perception. 

As a patriot, I love Uganda more than all it’s actors and influencers and every other day, including with respect to a recent visit by a Tanzanian senior cleric with whom we compared notes, Uganda beats many countries in many fields, leave alone the Western European wrongly hyped social-economic and political indices. 

Uganda’s future, I am convicted theologically, is bright and not doomed as Tacca would want us to believe.

Even concerning his criticism of my evasive approach to the subject of corruption, Tacca will be pleasantly surprised that according to my book (Mwesigwa: 2022:231), I addressed the subject by arguing that the highest paid citizens are often corrupt.

The sixteen articles on politics in the book which are articles that I wrote in Monitor and New Vision challenged status quo but also gave credit where it is due.

I am surprised that someone who gets a copy of Monitor, perhaps daily, is not aware of regular contributors, at least I am aware of his anti-religious crusader articles.

Rev. Dr. Fred Sheldon Mwesigwa (PhD.) is an Associate Professor of Religious Education