A year ago, President Museveni instituted a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While the pandemic caused a radical shift into digital and technological for learning and work spaces for mostly urban children, those in rural areas, without access to electricity and Internet were the most cut off from continued forms of learning.
Since 1996, every time Uganda approaches an election period, talk of opposition fielding a joint candidate, to defeat candidate Museveni, comes up. In the 1996 presidential elections, UPC and DP fronted Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere under the Inter-party Cooperation. In 2001, the Opposition rallied behind Dr Kizza Besigye under Reform Agenda. In 2016, there were attempts to field one presidential candidate to face Mr Museveni under The Democratic Alliance (TDA) but this collapsed because the Opposition political parties once again failed to agree on who should be their joint candidate.
The IPOD platform should be seen as an opportunity for dialogue and a platform for leveraging equal playing ground for all political parties. The IPOD should be the starting point for the unification of our political agenda.
A few weeks ago Ssemujju Nganda announced his bid for the speakership race joining the incumbent Rebecca Kadaga and Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah. Ssemujju of course needs no introduction in our politics.
Uganda’s election cycle suffered a violent phase with thousands of deaths during the campaigns and dozens of people abducted by the State armed forces. The government continued to deter freedom of expressions, assembly and awareness. The regime has continually bedevilled the events surrounding the General Election in Uganda.
On February 10th 2021, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee made a report to parliament recommending extension of tenure of parliament to seven years and called upon government to commence the process of effecting the same. This was a rather extraordinary recommendation because the Private member’s bill by Ndorwa West Member of Parliament Wilfred Niwagaba to which the committee was responding did not propose so.
Although the countries looked at keeping the learners home in order for them to be secure, schools have for long been a safe haven of vulnerable girls
In a press conference before the election day, Security minister Elly Tumwine warned everyone that whoever was planning to engage in chaos, the police, the army and other security agencies would be ready to deal with them
In the wake of slowed Internet speed and a switch off of social media platforms, many Ugandans resorted to Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to continue public debate and political participation ahead of the voting day on January 14.
Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba has recently been trending on twitter thanks to his jabs at the National Unity Platform presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.
