A gold medal for Ugandan women

It's Women's Day today and there's no better time than this to celebrate our women. Africa has produced productive women leaders but ours in Uganda outclass them all. How like a beacon in the night they shone in the just-concluded elections! Not just those who contested and won, even those who worked behind the scenes to make the electoral process generally successful.

KCCA E.D. Jennifer Musisi is doing a stellar job

It's not easy being a woman leader in a patriarchal society but this has not slowed down our women. Whenever Deputy Police Spokesperson Polly Namaye came on television to defend police actions and advise on how to conduct ourselves during the elections, I admired her.  In one interview, she fielded tough questions from Emmanuel Mutaizibwa of NTV as he pushed her to concede that the police were reckless with the opposition but she maintained her cool. Her guts and articulation reminded me of another courageous lady, former Police Spokesperson Judith Nabakooba who's the newly-elected woman MP for Mityana District. 

I also admired Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi who was spokesperson of the Go Forward team. Hon. Amama Mbabazi is a shrewd and sophisticated politician, the fact that he chose her testifies colourfully about her abilities. Then there's Uganda Law Society president Ruth Sebatindira and Anti-Corruption Coalition iron lady Cissy Kagaba - two women that have not brooked about the electoral injustices. 

When renown televangelist, motivational writer and speaker Dr Myles Munroe visited Uganda in 2013, he said president Museveni's successor will be a woman. The more I look at women like Winnie Byanyima,  Jennifer Musisi, Maria Kiwanuka, Julia Sebutinde, Rebecca Kadaga, Janet Museveni and Rev. Joy Kwesiga to mention a few, the more I pray his prophecy comes true. 

Uganda has gone through a lot at the hands of military rulers, yet we are not short of women of strength, wisdom and action to cradle us in their motherly arms and take this nation to another level. Come 2021, let's take one of these priceless women of ours to State House. 

Happy Women's Day.

To fight or not

On election day, I received a call from a friend of mine. He was stuck in the bus park after he found the fare to Mbarara had more than doubled up. So he called me to send him some money to top up. For over an hour, I tried to send my friend some mobile money unsuccessfully until I gave up, exasperated. In the end my friend didn't get to travel, and didn't get to cast his vote. Just like that, the government had disenfranchised him.

Voting in Uganda. Some people didn't get the chance to vote

Later that day, I tried to log in to my social media accounts. Again it was a total fiasco. When I learnt about the blockade from the government, I got angry. I called one of my brothers who is a lawyer to ask what it would cost me to sue the government for its disgusting stifling of its citizens.

My frustrations hit fever pitch when I saw how the electoral commission handled the polls affair and how the police shamelessly conducted itself from voting day to Saturday when the winner was announced and after, paticularly its mistreatment of Dr. Kizza Besigye. 

I know the world is unfair and often we don't get what we deserve. And it's true that blessed are the peacemakers. But should we do nothing as injustice prevails? When should we ignore unfairness for the greater public good? 

My answer is that we should never brook or idly sit by while an unjust thing goes on. Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." 

More than ever is now the time to vocalise evil and act against it before the pent-up frustrations of the masses form a volcano from whose eruption it will be hard and long to recover.