Aboneka Writes

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 canno

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