Ministers and MPs also watch porn – Fr Lokodo

Society is perverted. Fr Simon Lokodo, the minister for Ethics and Integrity. PHOTO BY ALEX ESAGALA

As minister for Ethics, what was your reaction to the sentencing of student Brian Isiko to two years in jail for stalking Kabarole Woman MP Sylvia Rwabwogo?

I applauded the courts of law for being hard on stalkers because there are a lot of [cases] of intimidation that we have received. Ladies are being threatened. We also had fears that Isiko was being used by someone else to hurt the MP.

So the fact that he was picked is a curbing effort for anybody else not to think that they are above the law and can do such an ugly thing and walk scot-free.

Isn’t there a way Uganda as a society could have managed such a case without going the extreme way of sentencing the student?

Measures are normally put in place in order to balance the weight of fault or misdemeanour that is committed.

Yes, it is true that one of the ways that could have been followed was to call this boy and put him in camera, help him come to his wits and have him commit that he would never do such a thing again, especially if he did not have ill intentions or if he was not pushed by some other factors to do that.

But what is being inferred by the MP and her friends is that this person had ill and dangerous intentions. So it is an interim measure.
It is not that every murder takes life imprisonment, but when you know that there is a murder here which bears intent and will to hurt and maim, then you give the verdict which is commensurate with the level of guilt.

If it is a misdemeanour or a slip of the tongue of a perverted action, in this case of a youth who did not know the consequences of his behaviour, then the best way should have been stop a bit, call him aside, give him counselling and maybe he says he did not intend and we throw the case out.

But in this case, he was obstinate and it was only after getting the verdict that he said ‘I am apologetic’ pleading that the verdict be minimised.

There is also the case of Lillian Rukundo, a UCU student who was remanded over broadcasting pornographic material and a blogger who was arrested over the same. What explains this surge in the trend of Ugandans being caught on the wrong side of the Anti-Pornography law?
We have to know that, unfortunately, our society has got perverted and has landed into the modern degradation of the human person.

It is the First World story where pornography is the order of the day, where promiscuity is the order of the day. And now, we have picked it. Technology has brought it to us and instead of digesting and applying it with reservations, we just took it in.

Now, our people have landed in and unfortunately, they have landed in very, very aggressively. And before we got to know, we got an alarm from the population that there is damaging consumption of pornography among students, pupils and youth. It is now the order of the day. And even in social and entertainment places, this is now the order of the day.

Instead of people going to watch educative films, what they do is to go and watch people performing on stages and doing it so immorally and with high levels of obscenity. And people are there being entertained, even people of high calibre. Sorry to say, even people of high standing positions in government; even ministers, even MPs.

So you are saying the problem of pornography is so prevalent in our society to the extent even MPs and ministers watch and enjoy it?
That is it. That is it. When you reprimand them, they say that you are interfering with their optical nutrition.

They insist that that is privacy. That why should you come and check what I am watching on my phone or in my room? And they go to the extent of saying that morals are not legislated against.

That these are things that should spontaneously flow from the behaviour or culture of a person. But still this is not African or Ugandan culture.

I know, as minister of Ethics, you would not want to name and shame ministers or MPs who are involved in such?
Well, let me not throw my brothers in the dark but I have reprimanded some of them. Privately but also on forums.

Like on the WhatsApp groups of MPs?
In WhatsApp groups but also in gatherings. I say that I hear that you are doing this, this is not dignified of you as a Member of Parliament. What kind of exemplary life and testimony are you showing to the people you are supposed to legislate for?

Has the Anti-Pornography committee performed to satisfaction?
It is trying its best. It has done a lot but a lot needs to be done because they are limited by capacity and resources. The best would be to expand not to remain within the nine-member committee.

The idea was to drive this fight against pornography even to the lowest level of society settings, to the districts and sub-counties and even the parishes. And especially to concentrate in the urban areas.

We are in Kampala but a lot is happening in Mbarara, Jinja you name them – all these urban areas have been infested by this malaise and the committee cannot be everywhere.

Fr Lokodo’s take on Key issues

On implementing the law
A call came to the ministry of Ethics saying, ‘what are you doing, you are supposed to govern the moral ethics of this country in respect to this phenomenon that is overwhelming society’.

So we then came in with this proposal of the Anti-Pornography Bill. It went to Cabinet and dragged a bit because others were saying that is privacy and why are you intruding into constitutional matters.
But eventually, Cabinet passed it and it had a very loud welcome.
Now we have an Anti-Pornography Act which criminalises consumption, production and disposal of pornographic material. And these people [Isiko, Rukundo and the blogger] are victims of the Anti-Pornography Act.

But even after passing the Act, we did not have enforcement because the Committee which was supposed to enforce was not in place since Finance was not giving us money for this committee.

Finally, this committee is in place and it is fully-fledged with its nine members and it’s doing its work. Rukundo was picked by this committee and we are looking for a man called Jack Pemba and his girlfriend.

On improving performance of the Anti-Pornography committee
We are going to start by sensitisation, going on radio and TV, meeting people of high-calibre in terms of information dissemination so that they can help us reach out to their subjects.

The best is to give the Committee empowerment so that they can be able to detect the pornography trafficking in time which they are capable of because they are already liaising with Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). The Commission has already provided them with data on how they can block sites that transmit this.
The other is to be able to storm, break in and bring to book those who are perpetuating the practice.