Ugandan politician rubbishes the Bahati [Nazi] Bill 3

Not all Uganda’s politicians are blinkered, and here is one who makes the case for the Bahati [Nazi] anti-gay bill to be thrown out of Parliament in its entirety. I don’t think you will see a more erudite and considered case for permanently getting rid of this bill from a Ugandan politician:

Money quote: from Morris Ogenga-Latigo:

The truth is that homosexuality is a social phenomenon that hinges on both a person’s genetic constitution and the social environment to which one is exposed, and is as old as humanity. Contrary to the lies peddled by defenders of the bill, homosexually-oriented people have always been part of our African society.

In my Acholi community, they were never outrightly rejected but were instead quietly helped to cope. Even the story of Kabaka Mwanga and his martyrdom of Christians has a homosexuality twist to it. It must also be made clear that homosexuality is completely different from sexual abuse by perverted and mentally deranged men who sexually molest babies, lure and sexually abuse young girls and boys (the Mubiru way), rape fellow men, or even practise bestiality.

Rather than the compassion, love and care in normal same sex relationships, theirs is abomination and heartache that no culture on earth tolerates. Secondly, the bill as it is ? “Anti-homosexuality Bill” ? is no more than a piece of hate legislation.

We now wait with bated breath for Uganda’s other political leaders to respond to this bill. It will be the ultimate dereliction of responsibility for leaders such as Beti Kamya, Mugisha Muntu, Janet Museveni, Beti Nambooze, Semujju Nganda, Ken Lukyamuzi, Olara Otunnu etc. to let this bill pass (or not) without their views on it being put on record. If it is a good bill for the country, let’s hear their counter arguments to Ogenga Latigo. If not, let’s hear their support for him.

The remaining alternative is for them to maintain their silence – not a criminal offense but a sign of moral cowardice surely.

Over to you honorable members of Uganda’s ruling elite.

Related articles

• Time for Uganda’s major players to pronounce themselves on the Bahati Bill (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• Rebecca Kadaga trapped between a rock and hard place! (sebaspace.wordpress.com)

Time for Uganda’s major players to pronounce themselves on the Bahati Bill 10

Want death/jail for homosexuals: Rebecca Kadaga and Cecilia Ogwal

We already know that Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni doesn’t like the Bahati anti-gay bill because he has said so publicly. Yes, it was wrung out of him by a persistent foreign press but Museveni is on record about his views which are that homosexuality is not new in Africa and, more pertinently, that he doesn’t want anything to do with this bill. His motivation for rejecting the bill is debatable of course – but that’s not our concern right now.

Don’t favor the bill: Kizza Besigye, Erias Lukwago, Yoweri Museveni

One of Yoweri Museveni’s long term advisers, John Nnagenda, is also on record condemning the bill because he, rightly, realizes that it is a bill against love.

Janet Museveni: denied any part in writing the bill

We also know that the outgoing leader of the opposition, Forum for Democratic Changes’s (FDC) Kiiza Besigye would have decriminalized homosexuality if he had had the chance because he is on record saying so a month before the last elections which he lost to Yoweri Museveni.

Speaker of the House, Rebecca Kadaga, recently let herself be railroaded by personal political ambition into the anti-gay camp when she was ambushed by Canadian Foreign Minister, John Baird. She engaged in an undiplomatic spat with Baird which was not her creation, but which nonetheless ill-advisedly drove her into the cynical embrace of failed Ugandan politicians and criminal convicts.

Mike Mukula seems to see ‘jail time’ as an improvement on the bill

Right now she is,  to quote from Macbeth,  “stepped in so far that should [she] wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.” Dokolo woman MP, Cecilia Ogwal needed no needling to go off like a fire cracker against homosexuality recently – something she had every right to do, and which put her sentiments on record.

A few years ago, around 2009, current mayor of Kampala, then member of

Always dapper: Mike Mukula (NRM’s Chairman in Uganda’s East)

Parliament for Kampala, Erias Lukwago went on record and explained that he thought the law was unnecessary but it was politically too risky not to support it. I for one read that to mean that he doesn’t support the bill.

But what are the rest of Uganda’s major politicians thinking about Parliament’s drive to criminalize ‘love?’

What does Uganda Federal Alliance’s (UFA) Beti Kamya think of the bill? Kamya has in the past waxed indignant about the sovereignty of Uganda’s Parliament but it’s not clear that she has ever clearly stated what she thinks about the merits/demerits of the bill itself.

Views on the bill unknown: Beti Kamya & Muhoozi Kainerugaba

FDC”s  presidential aspirants, Mugisha Muntu and Nandala Mafabi? I have asked Nandala Mafabi on his Twitter account about his views but am yet to see any response.

The Democratic Party’s (DP’) Betty Namboze? The National Resistance Movement’s (NRM)’s Mike Mukula, Janet Museveni? The army’s Muhozi Kainerugaba (also son to Yoweri Museveni)? He is not a politician but his name keeps on popping up as a potential president. He is also the de facto head of Uganda’s intelligence services so it stands to reason that his views on this bill are pertinent as, presumably, it will be part of his remit to collect ‘buggery’ data without which it will surely be impossible to prosecute homosexuals.

John Nagenda: This is a bill “against love”

Mike Mukula touts himself on his Twitter account as a 2016 presidential aspirant. Mukula seems to be suggesting that the bill will be more acceptable if the death penalty is removed and replaced with jail time. I have asked him why ‘loving’ should be penalized with jail time and I hope he will respond.

Museveni’s wife, Janet, hasn’t indicated so openly what her future political ambitions are but she is mentioned now and then as a possible shoo-in for 2016 should her husband, lo behold, give up the leadership mantle.

What are all these honorable and notable people’s views on the Bahati anti-gay bill? It is surely time for them to tell Uganda and the world what they think.

Why now?

Presidential aspirant: Mugisha Muntu

Simple. It is very likely that the bill will be passed by Uganda’s 9th Parliament. While no one should question the legitimacy of Uganda’s Parliament to debate even a heinous bill such as this one, it is important that politicians of whatever hue let their people know where they stand on it.

Beti Kamya and Muhoozi Kainerugaba, for instance, are not Parliamentarians. Yet they are leaders of sizable constituencies in Uganda, and so their views on a matter that seeks to criminalize homosexuals, their parents, doctors, priests and counselors should be made public.

So:

should gay Ugandans be jailed for 14 years simply for being who who they are? Should they instead be executed? Should parents, friends, counselors, priests, doctors snitch on whoever they find out is gay or risk a 3-year jail term? Should there be a separate law at all to target homosexuals in a way that heterosexuals are not targeted for crimes that either sexual persuasion can commit?

These are the questions our leaders need to answer once and for all.

We wait …  with bated breath …

Related articles

• A letter to Rebecca Kadaga – from a supportive gay Ugandan (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• The case for Kadaga 2016 (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• Canada’s Baird gives Ssempa and Bahati a new lease on life (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• Let the Bahati Nazi Anti-Gay Bill be passed! (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• A freshly rejuvenated Ugandan homophobic lobby goes to work (sebaspace.wordpress.com)

Uganda at 50; people or things?

Like porn actors, Ugandan politicians make too much exaggerated noise so its’ best to watch them with the sound turned off (Richard Mann/Mary Okurut/Castro Supreme)

Though the title might suggest that this is going to be a political polemic, it really isn’t going to be like that at all. For one, though I know I am, ahem, a genius political analyst, politics usually bores me quickly because once I figure out what the undercurrents are, I get mighty chafed at anyone who might try to spin it to their advantage.

To me politics is sort of like watching a porn movie – fascinating for about three minutes and then you find yourself fast-forwarding to the end when you realize that it is exactly the same stuff you saw the other day, albeit with different actors. Because politics in the real world politics can’t be fast-forwarded, I simply choose to tune out the din and focus on more wholesome pursuits.

As a gay man trying to eke out a life in Uganda 50 years after she was granted independence from Britain, what does it all mean to me?

Women protest police brutality: In 50 years Uganda hasn’t had an orderly transfer of power

Strange as it might sound to some, I don’t feel put upon by this government because I am gay, far from it. My sex life and sexuality are private matters and thus the idea that I have to live in a kind of secretive way where being gay is concerned suits me down to the ground. We are all mostly a product of our upbringing and I thus have no problem with matters of sex and sexuality being as murky as they are in Uganda.

Too many Ugandan politicians are so old and tired you can’t pay them to stay awake through anything

That’s why I have explained in the past that I don’t subscribe to gay pride parades, discussions of sex and sexuality on radio … that sort of [very Western] thing. That we don’t have the kind of sexual openness (some might say permissiveness) in Uganda that you see in San Francisco doesn’t bother me one bit. Open shows of affection, street love fests, sexuality parades etc are neither desirable nor useful in our African settings in my view.

I recall my first tentative steps into the gay world, when I walked out of my home and went to look for other gay men in Notting Hill, London. It was like a walk to the execution but, more than 20 years later, I wouldn’t exchange that experience for anything. It made me who I am today because I knew then beyond a reasonable doubt that if I could find the determination to go through with that terrifying ordeal to find other men who felt the way I did, it was indeed what I wanted to be. I have never looked back since. Every gay man and woman should experience running that gauntlet as they try to find themselves. Nothing, other than fire, can baptize you into the gay world better, I don’t think.

A tale of contrasts: the president’s $48m luxury jet vs. medical provision in Northern Uganda

That’s partly why I regret that Uganda has no gay bar to speak of. That should really be the next challenge for the gay community in this country. The bar cannot be on rented premises because that will be easily shut down by putting pressure on the landlord. If it is, however, on land that is owned by a gay man or woman, that would call for a battle royal reminiscent of the Stonewall Riots in 1969  if the authorities tried to frustrate it. That is the kind of fight I would be willing to engage in – one brought to otherwise peaceful same-gender loving men and women who are minding their own business. Then it would be time to take to the streets and airwaves in vociferous protest, if necessary in full undress.

Hospital bed where you might rest if you fly out on the presidential jet to give birth in Germany vs Uganda’s maternity ward at Mulago Hospital

Away from my relatively inconsequential life, I am perturbed that my Ugandan brethren have put up with the current government for the last 26 years. Okay, I get it that you can be married in a giddy euphoria to someone who turns out to be an ogre. But why would you stay married if you know what a good marriage should be like and it is clear yours doesn’t even come close? Fear of being lonely? Or is it the Stockholm syndrome where you resign yourself to your fate and even find solace in liking your captor?

Given the state of Uganda’s public schools, hospitals and roads, how could the cabal that runs this country be welcomed anywhere without being pelted with eggs and flour? Well, of course eggs and flour are too expensive for the average Ugandan so that might be a possible explanation.

Uganda’s schools: guess how many politicians send their children to government schools such as the one on the left!

Still, are Ugandans really so docile that they will continue to tolerate the wanton corruption running from the top ministers, civil servants and technocrats through every facet of daily life? When are we going to demand that our leaders stop thinking about only themselves?

Ugandans are dying, will continue to die, in preventable road accidents at staggering levels. Mary Karooro Okurut is on record exhorting the country to pray that evil spirits be exorcised from accident black spots

50 years after Uganda gained independence, it seems far more focus has been paid to erecting swanky buildings in the middle of Kampala (many of them secretly owned by Uganda’s rulers) than on providing quality public education, healthcare and practical measures to insure against needless loss of life. 50 years on, Uganda’s leaders seem content to lead the country in a direction that places emphasis on  ‘things,’ while ignoring human life and dignity.

One woman dies every minute during pregnancy or child-birth [in Uganda]

Call that what you will … in my book that is a state of affairs that leaves me with a lot of trepidation about the future.

Ugandan Pastors in Gay Intrigue 3

Brian Ntwatwa: recorded lurid gay details

You couldn’t make this up if you were a writer for a Nigerian television soap opera, what Ugandans call “Ekinigeria.” According to the New Vision report on the court testimony, Brian Ntwatwa recorded audio tape evidence implicating Pastor Robert Kayanja in homo-sodomy. Kayanja is a prominent pastor with connections to Uganda’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, and very deep pockets that he has used in the past to offer to renovate entire police precincts in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city.

Brian Ntwatwa is supposed to be one of the victims of the [attempted] pedophile homo-sodomy by Robert Kayanja. In unclear circumstances, Ntwatwa ended up in Pastor Solomon Male‘s office where he recorded lurid details that are now the focus in a defamation law suit brought by Kayanja against Solomon Male and others.

There are a number of legal problems for the defense where this audio recording is concerned. The first one is that it was recorded by one of Robert Kayanja’s enemies, Pastor Solomon Male [pronounced ma-le], in his office. It is not clear whether Male read Ntwatwa his Miranda rights (you have the right to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you as evidence in court …) or whether Male indeed had the authority to record this “confession.” As the case currently stands, the audio tape is helping the prosecution side far more than the defense which of course wasn’t the intention of making the recording.

In any case, Solomon Male apparently took it upon himself to ferret out the homo-sodomy evidence against his rival and enemy-in-Christ, Robert Kayanja, He set up the audio recording and, voila, Brian Ntwatwa sang like a canary into the Dictaphone. Why, one must wonder, didn’t Solomon Male simply ask that Ntwatwa accompany him to the police station or to a lawyers’ office where the “confession” would be taken in a legal environment?

“Male edited things according to his version. These were concocted lies. Recording with Male was a lie to tarnish Pastor Kayanja’s reputation. He never attempted to sodomise me,” Ntwatwa said.

The second problem with the audio recording is that shortly after he recorded it, Ntwatwa was taken to the police where he recanted everything he said on it, claiming instead that Solomon Male, Michael Kyazze, Martin Ssempa, and the other accomplices (for they must now be looked at as such) promised him a visa to the United States and $20,000 which is why he agreed to go along with the “lies” on the 45-minute audio tape.

Homo-accomplices? Michael Kyazze & Martin Ssempa (inset)

Had this been any other country other than Uganda, one would have thought that the recording would have been inadmissible as evidence given the manner in which it was procured. If it passed that test, it beggars belief that the defense is still being given a chance to take ‘a second bite at the cherry’ when Ntwatwa has already testified in court that what he said on the tape was a tissue of lies force-fed to him like a foie gras duck by the men who now stand accused of tarnishing Kayanja’s pristine reputation.

So, we now have the ludicrous spectacle of defense lawyers trying to badger what should have been their star (now hostile) witness into admitting that he is telling lies in court but wasn’t telling lies when the recording was made!! Can it get any more bizarre than this?

It is because of dramatic cases like this that AfroGay regrets that he is not a legal eagle. Imagine all that entertainment in the course of one’s work day, day after day. Ha, Ha, Ha.

Related reading:

1. State ordered to produce Kayanja in court
2. Kayanja shows up in court over sodomy case
3. Anti-Kayanja plot was hatched at prayer meet
4. Martin Ssempa – the ball is in your court
5. Police get Kayanja off the hook – charge pastors

Related articles

• David Kato – one year on (sebaspace.wordpress.com)

Ugandan Pastors Attack Each Other Over Sodomy

First let’s get a few things clear.

I know, and many people know that a number of people have claimed that Pastor Kayanja has engaged in gay sexual activity over many years. It has also been claimed that Pastor Kiweweesi of Kansanga fame has been witnessed with young men whose relationship with him remained as mysterious as the reason he threw a wedding in a 40,000 seater stadium (and failed to get even a 10th of the seating capacity to attend) when a more modest venue would also have done very well.

AfroGay has heard regularly [read a friend of a friend of a friend] that homosexual activity is rife in Pastoral circles. I heard about Pastor Kiwewesi’s homosexual exploits as far back as six years ago but, not one to mind other people’s business, generally ignored the rumors. Earlier than that, though, a friend of a friend of a friend (you catch my drift) described an encounter he claimed at the time to have witnessed in London between Pastor Kayanja and a rather good looking and flamboyantly gay Ugandan young man which the friend of a friend of a friend swore on a dirty and chipped axe had been sexual. Again, I chose to mind my own business and took in the rather juicy story with a pinch of salt.

Now, The Monitor and New Vision have waded into the controversy and my mind has gone back to all those years ago. Boys are crawling out of the woodwork to regale gleeful listeners about their sordid encounters with influential pastors and, predictably, the damage limitation has gone into overdrive. By coincidence, no doubt, Pastor Kayanja has offered huge sums of money to renovate the police post at which some of the allegations against him were filed. Nice work if you have the money to be so charitable to a specific police post.

As with the allegations against Father Musaala by Georgina Oundo, I have never been a fly on the wall in any of these people’s dark rooms but it is certainly interesting that Kayanja should single out Old Kampala police post for his newly found philanthropy at a time when that police post is in charge of the case that has been leveled against him. Poor Father Musaala of course had no money to donate to the Red Pepper or Martin Ssempa (Ssempa gets so much money from US based backers that the Vatican bank would have to be brought into the fray to make any kind of financial impression on him) so he was out on a limb when a desperate Georgina started squealing his guts like a canary. And with just Georgina’s word against a man on the back foot, the damage done to Father Musaala is likely incalculable.

What all this says very clearly is that money talks. Kayanja has opted to throw money at his problem and if the response from the police is anything to go by, his strategy is working. Pastor Kiwewesi did the same, turning the tables on the man who accused him of buggery (Why is it always buggery? Couldn’t these guys just say that he eyed them amorously, made love to them or caressed them lovingly as they were dressing up in the vestry?) and accusing him of theft and all sorts of other underhanded things. In that case, too, the police chose to believe Kiweweesi’s version rather than the man claiming to have been buggered on many occasions by the good pastor.

Like with Father Musaala, it is all rumors. But these pastors have deep pockets as well as influential friends which is why they are sitting pretty and the police is doing the apologizing on their behalf. Pastor Kayanja has the First Lady of Uganda, Janet Museveni, eating out of the palm of his hands and it is rumored that she spoke to the people who mattered when truck-loads of smuggled wine were intercepted twice within a space of 12 months at his palatial lakeside mansion and the charges were fudged and eventually dropped without an investigation, and instead a lowly security guard was accused of masterminding the multi-million smuggling operations.

But since it is rumors that have essentially turned Father Musaala into a fugitive, AfroGay feels free to indulge in some rumor mongering of his own. I once heard from a rather dispassionate voice (someone who had no reason to lie) that a fellow pastor had once walked in on Pastor Kiwewesi [not that it is relevant to the discussion but the name Kiweweesi crudely translates into 'the act of amorous petting' in English] in flagrante delicto with a young man. The shocked pastor bolted out of the vestry but decided to wait in the the Church to confirm whether his eyes had played tricks on him. The figure who emerged from the vestry was indeed a [now fully dressed] young man who proceeded to beat a hasty exit. Pastor Kiwewesi [also now fully clothed] followed soon after. That is not the only story of Kiweweesi’s gay exploits that AfroGay has heard about from sources that will remain unnamed but, as the Timex song goes … this is only rumors.

And since it is rumors that have essentially put Father Musaala on the defensive, to the level where his entire body of work could be destroyed by uncorroborated gossip, AfroGay feels it fair to continue indulging in a little more tattle telling of his own. The confidante who related the encounter in London with Pastor Kayanja sometimes embellishes stories in the telling. But his description of being pursued and eventually being had by Pastor Kayanja had such a ring of truth to it that one cannot help but wonder. For one, Pastor Kayanja kept on frantically calling this young man, and the young man knew rather intimate details of Kayanja’s brief itinerary in London, including where he was staying, how long, what his free time was and so on. Secondly, there was no other obvious reason why Kayanja would want to hang out with this young man since they didn’t seem to have anything else in common. So, while I still treat the narrative about Kayanja’s gay exploits with this fellow in London with a pinch of salt, there is enough circumstantial evidence to make it plausible that the two had moments of passionate embrace that was more than just Christian fellowship.

But … it is all rumors. And perhaps it is not a bad time to pass around excerpts of the lyrics to Timex’s Rumors:

How do rumors get started? They are started by the jealous people and they get mad about somthin’they had, and somebody else is holdin’/They tell me that temptation is very hard to resist/ …

You can check out the rest of the song here.

 

I Am Embarrassed To Be African!! 3

I am embarrassed to be African.

Do you know why I am embarrassed to be African?

The hypocrisy of people like Mataka, Matama, Alotim, Boo etc on the New Vision Discussion Board. I am embarrassed to be African because of people like Janet Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, and almost every person in a position of responsibility on this wretched continent.

Alotim and Boo (both northerners who write regularly on the New Vision Discussion Board) deserve just a line or two by anyone and I am going to restrict my embarrassment about their types to the atrocities that have happened in their homeland, largely with the connivance of the leaders of northern Uganda since it is impossible that Kony could have lasted more than 20 years without tacit support from the soils he drenches with blood. That the leaders of northern Uganda have such scant interest in the lives of their own people embarrasses me no end.

I am embarrassed about someone like Mataka and Matama who I have come to understand as a microcosm of why Africa is a backward continent and, most pertinently, why it doesn’t deserve the sympathy Aid agencies and international donors pay it. In fact, I see why the Chinese have got it right on Africa – this is a continent happy to be ruled by savages and to practice savagery against each other openly; why should the Chinese concern themselves about human rights when the locals themselves pay scant attention to each other?

Let us start with the simpler hypocrisies … you know those little things that someone like a homophobe like Mataka might think make him a superior person to me. The spread of Aids/HIV is still at pandemic levels in Africa simply because of heterosexual African men. They make the laws across the whole continent and you can see the regard the men have for women, for instance in Uganda, when it takes them more than five years to debate a bill that would give women more rights over property ownership, their bodies, and therefore more control over men’s brazen disrespect. Yes, the Domestic Relations Bill has languished in Uganda’s Parliament because it attacks the very comforts Ugandan men like Mataka don’t want to give up; open philandering, laissez faire attention to the women they impregnate like dogs and the hapless children they beget. But do you hear Mataka or Matama waxing indignant about how that is immoral? No, instead they are calling for legislation against homosexuals’ rights! Simply put, despite their hollow claims here, these African men have as much interest in women’s rights in Uganda as they do for gay rights.

Fela Kuti

Even in Saudi Arabia, where the religion supposedly aids men in their lustful ways, Muslim men cannot just marry a fourth and fifth wife as brazenly as they do in sub-Saharan Africa. But a renowned West African musician, Fela Kuti, went to his grave in 1997 and left behind a school of ‘more than 27 wives’ and countless children. The man died of Aids. But the headlines were so consumed with his musical prowess and a million people went to his funeral, totally ignoring the legacy of spreading deadly diseases.

In South Africa, they are about to elect Jacob Zuma, a rapist if not a deliberate spreader of HIV/Aids, to the highest office in that land. A convicted child murderer, Winnie Mandela is all but guaranteed a position in South Africa’s next government despite having served no time for her despicable crime against a child. But what are African men like Mataka and Matama concerned about? Men who have consensual sex in their own privacy. And someone expects me to take seriously these guys who ignore the evils that are openly rampaging across the continent in favor of consensual actions that no one even sees? Hell, no!

I am embarrassed that these African men deign to lecture anyone about morals. Morals??? Which morals exactly? The morals of female genital mutilation? How on earth can anyone not be mortified that there is still a set of people on this planet in 2009 who are still discussing spreading innocent girls’ legs apart and cutting their clitorises out? Why haven’t Matama and Mataka exhorted Martin Ssempa to ask his funders in Denver, Colorado to stamp out that terrible practice? Because it is happening to girls far away and girls are generally not their concern.

I have total disdain for Matama and Mataka when it comes to moralizing and this is why this isn’t about discussing homosexuality with them. I have no longer any need to do that with these hypocrites. I look at them in the same way I look at Minister Nsaba Buturo who clearly chooses to look the other way if the morals he is talking about are not about people who feed him. Respect for the privacy of people calls on me not to name names but even as I write this, Nsaba Buturo’s own fellow ministers have mistresses littered all over Kampala, don’t they? Where is the indignation there? How moral is that in the so-called superior African cultures that all these hypocrites love to trawl out whenever they run out of intelligent rebuttals? Or are African cultures superior only when men have all the advantages? Have these men ever stopped to think what the women who have to put up with cheating, lying and openly disrespectful African men feel? Or is it a sign of African culture that every other woman should expect her man to sleep with and officially take up with the Trollope that slings her knickers at him? I could name you any number of prominent men, some of whom do business daily with the fake holier-than-thou men all over Africa, who beat up their fourth and fifth mistress for daring to try and find a man who actually loves them. Again, respect for the women prevents one from being so indiscriminate but I dare either Matama or Mataka to claim that they don’t know any of these men first hand. But don’t hold your breath expecting them to call for demonstrations against abuse of women. They will not do it!

Can you imagine that these people think that consensual sex between men in the privacy of their home is worth spending millions on a three-day seminar, with guest speakers from California when they have never sponsored a single wife-battery or child molestation seminar on the same scale? But check the headlines. Uganda has more reported cases of child molestation, child sacrifice, wife battery and abandonment than it has of complaints due to consensual homosexual activity. Where is the outcry from people like Mataka when a country buys a private jet for the president at a time when there is zero medical provision in the country, women routinely die in child birth, doctors literally flee the country if they don’t camp outside the minister’s office in open mutiny?  Is he awake when the headlines scream that Shimoni land has again been sold to secretive investors when its original status has not yet been resolved? And these guys have the gall to speak to anyone about morality? Psst!

Let us be clear. I know these types who moralize about how superior African culture is because I have done my homework. They represent everything that is totally wrong with the continent of Africa. They are closet sinners in the Biblical sense and their close friends carry skeletons in the cupboard that would make Cambodia’s Pol Pot look saintly. But they are also cozy with ruling military juntas, dictatorial regimes, hypocritical preachers and megalomaniacal rulers, and will thus not bite the hand that feeds them. Most galling is that they are men – a position they have not earned since God made them so – and they hold the power over women, children and homosexuals simply because of that. They can, however, talk big because their position as men enables them to be as duplicitous as they wish, to the extent of profiting from war and then turning round and condemning those who wage wars.

In Mataka and Matama you see the very embodiment of African mal-administration, crooked politics and double standards; ‘pick and choose whom you victimize and ignore your own sins’ is their operational mantra. Mugabe is still president because of the mentality of people like Mataka and Matama. Somalia remains a quagmire because of their obstinate aspirations to male superiority.

These two guys represent the worst of Africa because they are also reasonably educated and, most importantly, are endowed with the powers of intellectual analysis that my grandmother in the village lacks. But my grandmother has more sense than Mataka for one and do you know how I know that? She is angrier about the wanton abuse of office by Museveni and his cabal than she is about homosexuality. She recognizes that homosexuality is a curiosity but will not expend energy on it because she is aware that she has known ‘odd’ people like that in her village all her life and they have never affected her life the way lack of drugs has robbed her of children, grandchildren and great children. And you know what … my grandmother doesn’t speak a word of English because she never went beyond Bible school.

I am proud to say that that illiterate woman is to me more literate than all of the Matamas and Matakas of Africa put together. And because I can still only look to an illiterate 90+ year old woman for leadership and commonsense on a continent that has spent so much money educating all these men to govern fairly for ALL, I am totally embarrassed to be African.