Outrage as speaker visits shrine to thank ancestors for her second term win

 Uganda’s National Assembly Rebecca Kadaga     Photo: chimpreports

The speaker of Uganda’s National Assembly Rebecca Kadaga has caused controversy and sparked sharp criticisms after she was spotted last weekend visiting a shrine in her rural home to thank ancestors for her re-election.

Ugandan men are baying for her blood, with an MP and her fierce critic threatening her with a curse of death for engaging in an ungodly act. Male members of parliament are criticising her, as if engaging in thanksgiving prayers is a heinous crime in Uganda.

Traditionally, the speakers who came before Kadaga were men and they were allowed to serve two terms. But Kadaga is not a man, so after she completed her first five-year term, and having done a wonderful job that earned her the respect of all shades of political opinion in the house, her party wanted to replace her with a man.

The fight for her to secure her party’s nomination was tough and nasty.The party has an overwhelming majority in the House, so whoever it endorses, automatically becomes speaker.

Kadaga found herself in the fight of her life, as her Deputy Mr Jacob Oulanya seemed to enjoy the backing of the powers that be in the party. Eventually Rebecca seemed set to wallop Jacob and the party relented and endorsed her.

After taking oath to steer Parliament for the next five years, the relieved and jubilant Rebecca headed home to her ancestral lands of Busoga to pay homage to her ancestors’ spirits. Television cameras followed her and caught her, walking through stones up a hill to visit the gods in some cave.

Ungodly act

Of course with the influence of Christianity, we write gods with a small ‘g’ as opposed to God of Christianity whom we write with a capital ‘G’. And the uproar started almost immediately. Self righteously, the men asked how Citizen Number Three, a whole Speaker of the August House and head of Legislature, can start worshiping African gods!

It’s tough being a woman in Africa, and extremely harsh if you are to head one of the branches of government. When six or so years earlier, the then Vice President Gilbert Bukenya was photographed entering a traditional shrine (minus shoes of course) the men thought it was hilarious.

A prominent Catholic, Prof Bukenya publicly went for Holy Communion the following Sunday and many other Sundays after that, with nobody noticing any contradiction. Also, when prominent male Ugandan Christians who only have daughters finally manage to get a son out of wedlock, the priests and bishops happily preside over the thanksgiving prayers.

But a daughter of the soil wins the third highest job in the land from the jaws of a leopard, and she cannot be allowed to thank her ancestors’ gods in peace, banange!

Our national motto goes: “For God and My Country” but it looks like we need to define this God. The least my sister Rebecca should do now since she is speaker of the Legislature, is to ensure that we revisit this whole thing of God in the public affairs altogether. They say Uganda is a secular state, so what has God got to do with our motto?

If we always call sheikhs and bishops to pray at national functions, why don’t we also get a traditional priest to accompany them? Can you imagine our male politicians have been openly fraternizing with traditional priests defending their right to be African. But when a sister so does, all hell breaks loose!