Prime
Of Janani Luwum Day and the week of NRA/M hypocrisy
Author: Joseph Ochieno.
What you need to know:
- The other day I watched someone from Kitgum attempting to justify why they ‘imperatively’ need to join in the scramble for NRA/M high table-crumbs while it lasts and I thought, ‘what would Luwum say’!
When I escaped NRA torture and went into exile in the late 1980s, among the few non-Ugandans I accidentally got in contact with was an Anglican priest who happened to have known Archbishop Janani Luwum personally.
Of his immediate reactions were that after the harrowing death of his friend the Archbishop and the subsequent deposing of Idi Amin a few years later, they (read the British) had thought that with Yoweri Museveni and his NRA, Uganda was soon to become the Vatican of Africa.
But hardly 10 years after the death of Luwum Ugandans were again fleeing the country and many, with different but, equally harrowing stories. He was distraught.
Now three decades, the priest has since followed Luwum in heaven and, we now have February 16 as Janani Luwum Day of remembrance – a public holiday in Uganda – it was, Tuesday gone.
As I reflected shortly before my prayers the night before, my mind flashed possible drama on the one hand and hypocrisy on the other, aware that Mr Museveni would be the chief celebrant.
He did not disappoint. On the day, he shocked the world (some Ugandans are used), when he said he was ‘expecting’ Mama Mary Luwum to join them at State House to mark her husband’s brutal death at the hands of Amin when in fact the poor woman had died two years earlier, worse a ‘condolence’ message from him was even on record.
If this is not the peak of insensitivity, or is it indifference to the plight of the likes of the Luwums’, then what is?
But that is not all, Mr Museveni claimed – quite rightly – that killing political opponents or critics means you are ‘insecure…guilty’.
Adding, you ‘....you criticise me, I also criticise you…’ and in some finale, suggested Amin’s army was headed by illiterates and that’s why they killed people.
Yet bang, hardly two days later and Ugandans faced a scene on Kampala streets the kind never witnessed during Amin’s regime – the torture of innocent civilians, politicians and journalists – who were merely covering and reporting a civil and political event, the petitioning of UN agency by opposition party NUP.
While social media and some media houses were full of NRA/M sycophants, praise singers and hangers-on heckling against the obvious, the following day at least Museveni’s army chief came out to ‘apologise’ for their excess, but I now wonder, is Gen David Muhoozi an illiterate or is it Museveni who is insecure – especially – since he is as illegitimate as Amin was; both entered State House by force and, in the latter’s case, continues to hold onto that building through brutal force like my friend Andrew Mwenda eloquently reminded Ugandans just the following day.
Mr Museveni’s loss of memory over Ms Luwums death might be a manifestation of his advanced age and that would be understandable. Yet I suggest, it is an indication of something more potently nuanced.
The other day I watched someone from Kitgum attempting to justify why they ‘imperatively’ need to join in the scramble for NRA/M high table-crumbs while it lasts and I thought, ‘what would Luwum say’!
My bedtime story before this piece was by Derek Prince on how to overcome evil. Quoting Romans 12:21, he suggests; you either overcome evil or, evil will overcome you; only two alternatives.
My conclusion is that there is no room for neutrality over evil. Hypocrites, you decide.
The writer is former UPC spokesperson
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