Aboneka Writes

    By Michael Aboneka Jr Acid violence or acid attacks continues to rise in Uganda and unfortunately, not much attention has been focused on the vice. There are over 400 known/reported cases of acid attacks in the last 10 years whose effect has been severe leaving lifelong scarring, physical disfigurement, and in some cases, permanent disability including blindness and immobility and death. Many survivors spend more than a year or more in the hospital after their attack, undergoing extensive and expensive treatment and surgeries. About 84% of the incidents are related to conflicts in romantic relationships, 10% to business conflicts, 3% to property conflicts and 3% are related to other reasons. 70% of the victims are women while 30 % are men.  These attacks continue to skyrocket and if we do not take deliberate measures, many lives will be claimed by this iniquitous act. Government has the fully responsibility to protect its citizens and therefore, it must be seen intere...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr Hon. Muhammad Nsereko sought leave of Parliament to table an amendment bill to the Computer Misuse Act in February 2022 and has now tabled the bill on the floor of Parliament. In my view, there is nothing new that the new law is seeking to cure and I am waiting to read the Regulatory impact assessment and the justifications thereof beyond public debates.  From the proposed long title of the bill, objectives and the clause on defects in existing law, it is not clear and specific enough of what mischief the bill intends to cure. The amendment seeks to largely protect the right to privacy, prohibition of unlawful access to data and spreading of false information which are already protected by existing legal frameworks such as the Constitution, Children Act, the Human Rights Enforcement Act 2019, Penal Code Act, Data protection and privacy Act 2019 among others. All these provide layers of protection that the bill seeks to do and by large, the amendment wil...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr The accidents are on the rise like never before and it is important for us to interrogate the major causes. In just one week, we have lost over 80 people and 200 are injured. In 2021, over 37,000 died and over 10,000 injured due to serious accidents and over 17,000 in minor accidents and the trend is worrying. According to the Annual Crime Report 2021, there were 17,443 road accidents reported in 2021, an increase of 42% from the 12,249 reported in 2020. that 3757 of the accidents were fatal, 9070 serious and 4616 were minor leading to 18035 victims leaving 4159 dead. Further, it was reported that Boda-bodas killed five people every day totaling to 1,918. This is a worrying trend. According to WHO, 1.3 million people around the world die due to accidents each year and leave between 20 and 50 million people with non-fatal injuries. More than half of all road traffic deaths and injuries involve vulnerable road users, suc...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr One of the cornerstones of democracy is meaningful public participation in all decision-making processes. For long, we the voters have struggled to get the government to listen and later give us feedback. It is sad that our servants, who are working on a 5 year social contract, are instead dismissing our opinions and asks. This is unacceptable! When they want votes, they will traverse all the corners of the country and beg for votes, albeit with empty promises and when the citizens have asks, they are dismissed with contempt! Why would voters demand for a borehole for 15 years, but in vain? Why must I demand for street lighting repeatedly and have no single response from the Minister responsible? Why must we cry over commodity prices and the only response is dismissing us to cassava for bread and paw-paw leaves for soap? Why must we cry out for exorbitant school dues and unnecessary school requirements and there is slow response? Why then, did we vote? Why d...

By Michael Aboneka Jr In the midst of the push to get every Ugandan Vaccinated, the government has tabled an amendment to the Public Health Act. The Public Health (Amendment) Bill 2021, among others seeks to make vaccination mandatory and also introduces a fine of Ugx 4,000,000 or imprisonment of six months or both for failure to comply. This is unfortunate as one wonders whether there will be an end with prosecution. We cannot achieve massive vaccination by threatening to imprison Ugandans who have failed to do so and Uganda will be the firs country to criminalize vaccination. It is important that the masses are well educated and sensitized about the vaccination so that they can make informed decisions and consent to the vaccination. Be that as it may, forceful vaccination undermines the human rights-based approach in dealing with management of pandemics, epidemics and other outbreaks. One wonders, if one has served their jail time, what happens to them and the community? Will they be...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr I know that we all love our tribes, and it is a good thing for cultural identity. This is fine, we must be united in our diversity. The problem though is that most of us have instead disadvantaged others because they are not of our tribes. None of us applied to our parents to be born in a certain clan or region or tribe and this means that above all, we are human beings who should embrace, support and work together regardless. This is the reason why Nepotism, sectarianism are criminal offences rooting from the principle of non-discrimination. Majority of us are employing our siblings, relatives just because they are our own and not based on merit and by this, we have disadvantaged people who are competent and deserve the jobs and placements on merit. It has gotten worse to the extent that the offices in this country have replaced the official language, English as provided for under Article 6 of the with their local languages; which again is not bad but you c...

By Michael Aboneka Jr We have hurt others and been hurt by many and there has not been an opportunity to confront the past to tell the truth, apologize and reconcile. There have been lingering undertones of anger and depression based on actions and inactions of some over the others. We have had incidents of flaring tribal sentiments unfortunately fanned by the so-called comedians who have now made it a habit to tribalize everything under the watch of our children. We have had incidents of loss of life, property, dignity, and recently gruesome torture where the perpetrators glory in the acts and are not remorseful at all and many Ugandans have not healed. As a country, we need to be honest to each other, look into each other’s eyes and speak truth to what hurts us and have the other party respond by apologizing and making amends for the wrongs. There were efforts for the national dialogue which has never materialized, but these efforts should be revived into an honest national truth tel...

By Michael Aboneka Jr As we are still grappling with access to services, especially legal services and justice, there is a proposal for increase in court fees and one wonders what the exact motive is when we are just in the depth of discussions concerning the legal aid bill and most importantly a legal aid fund to ensure every Ugandan can access justice. Over 8 million Ugandans live below the poverty line  (they cannot afford UGX 3,500 a day) , which has further been exacerbated by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Before COVID-19, it was also still difficult to access justice due to several challenges but the most important being the costs involved. The role of the state is to create wealth for its citizens and protect them and their wealth too. As citizens, we give the government two things, the votes/mandate, and taxes and what we expect is effective and adequate services. The Judiciary is one of the most crucial arm of government and without it, the country can be in a mess! It is therefo...

Day one : Site visit with a swarm of engineers and Kadogos. Road closed for hours as the "engineers" clad in reflector jackets to make serious assessments of the extent of the damage! Day Two : The Kadogos return with paint/chalk and draw big squares and rectangles around the potholes while sipping on Munanansi , a local pineapple juice brew while singing away some local vibes. Day Three : The Supervisors return to ensure the markings of the Potholes done by the Kadogos are proper. Off they leave in their white double cabins, around five of them. Day Four : The Kadogos return to "trim" the Potholes into perfect squares and rectangles, only to find the markings swept away by rain. So they do the markings again. Day Five : The Kadogos return to do the actual  trimming of the Potholes with one cutting machine and a peak axe. Day Six : The Kadogos return with some "soil" which they later dump at the site and off they go leaving the road messy! Day Seven : The ...

By Michael Aboneka Torture is criminal, illegal, and unconstitutional in Uganda. Freedom from Torture  and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment   is a non derogable right under  Articles 24 and 44  of the Constitution of Uganda and the State of Uganda is party to several regional, international protocols against torture such as the African Charter under Article5;  International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights , UN Convention against torture; much as Uganda has since not signed the optional protocol to allow unlimited access to places of detention; which is also suspect.  Uganda has gone ahead to criminalize acts of torture under the the Prevention   and Prohibition of Torture Act (2012) which provides for a sentence of not more than 15 years imprisonment or a fine or both  on conviction of torture; the Human Rights Enforcement Act which allows an action against any individual for the violation of human rights, the Penal Code Act among oth...

By Michael Aboneka Jr The Ministry of Works and Transport officially opened the Kampala Entebbe Express which is only accessible at a fee. The total project sum of this road is  USD 479,172,020  for 49.6km   and has been reported to be the most expensive road in the world. I use this road frequently and yes; it is good infrastructure as it eases movement. However, there is no single light post on the most expensive road in the world. The entire stretch after the toll gates is engulfed in darkness like an abandoned road. It is dangerously dark and hence forcing motorists to drive in full beam throughout which is also fatal.    How can the most exp ensive  road in the world lack lights? Or it was designed this way, not to have lights at all; or was it a design error? I have on several times called upon the Ministry  f or Works  and Transport  and the Uganda National Roads Authority to consider fixing lights on this high...

 By Michael Aboneka Jr I do not know why the Ministry has for this long refused to take charge of the vaccination in a proper manner. I have time and again requested the ministry of health to take charge of the vaccination of Ugandans. We have all seen road blocks mounted on most of the major roads apparently under the command of RDCs who I presume are not acting on the directives of the Ministry. The Ministry has not come out to either claim they are in charge or condemn the actions.  Several passengers have been forced out of the cars, and subjected to forceful vaccination without proper orientation and counselling which is in total violation of the medical practice. Further, we are not sure whether those doing the forceful vaccination are medical personnel or not. In instances where one has not received their vaccination cards yet or forgotten it home, they will be forced to another round of vaccination per check point! The health condition of passengers being for...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr For long, schools have been left to determine their own set of rules including school fees and other sets of rubrics which have been normalised even though they are out rightly illogical and unacceptable. Many have argued that schools like any other business are in a free-market economy and therefore are entitled to charge exorbitant fees and demand for requirements that are unreasonable. It is now over 2 years since schools have been officially closed and much attention and time has been drawn to discussing how they recover their loans and survival and little about reforming our education sector, especially the curriculum. We should have spent the 2 years discussing the ideal education for our economy, regulation of the education sector including fees charged. It is also the Government's duty to provide quality and affordable education services for its citizens in the acceleration to the attainment of SDG 4 on quality education. The Schools have now officia...

By Michael Aboneka Jr The vaccination against COVID-19 has been ongoing amidst debates on many issues such as free will and consent, accessibility, possible expiry among others. The government and private actors have been also drumming up Ugandans to get vaccinated but little about teaching the masses about the vaccination so as to undo the already fixated mysteries around the vaccine. We have continued to see massive forceful vaccination of persons to the extent of the local leaders taking the law in their hands by ejecting unvaccinated passengers from public vehicles and forcing them to take the vaccine, albeit not even tested first. Many have continued to deny Ugandans services for lack of a vaccination card and all this is being done in the absence of a legal framework and at the watch of the Ministry of Health, which is sad.  One wonders whether the Ministry of Health is in charge or not. I have personally called upon the Ministry several tim...