The country is mourning the death of a gallant son of Uganda that contributed much to the stability we are enjoying as a country and a number of other achievements he made to the country when he was still serving. Gen Elly Tumwine has been appreciated by a wide number of a Uganda as a patriotic soldier who put his country first in whatever he was doing. There’s also another side of him that perhaps most of us didn’t know about given the fact that we were exposed to his side of the military as a serving army officer.
The side of him that most of us didn’t know was his spiritual life. I confess that I didn’t know about General Tumwine ‘s love for God and oftentimes preaching at several events requesting people to be closer to God and always have time to thank God. This is enough evidence of a good personality in General Tumwine that we are going to miss as a country. It’s very rare to find military officers committed to Christianity or even publicly talking about God but for him he did it not once or twice but it was part of his activities. That means that he was aware that God is the overall protector of humankind and no wonder General Tumwine survived several calamities that could have claimed his life long time ago and that’s something that we should appreciate God for.
There are some Ugandans whose manners have been eroded and they’ve taken General Tumwine death as an event to celebrate. To them, the death of General Tumwine is a huge achievement to their political struggles and maneuvers. They however forget that there could be some people who support them or have ever voted for them but were related to General Tumwine or have ever been directly helped by the departed general and therefore celebrating his death offends them. Semuju Nganda a member of Parliament in Uganda shown no remorse about the death of General Tumwine recently when be was on Television.
In fact he said that Tumwine behaved as though he didn’t know about death and that it was just a matter of time meaning that Semuju joins the rest of the savages on social media who are celebrating the unfortunate death of the Ugandan hero. This is not the first time that this is happening, When the Late Jacob Oulanyah died some people celebrated. It has now become a norm that once someone in support of the government or within the government dies people take it as a blessing to them and a prayer which has been answered. They have successfully took aside the African values and norms of respecting the dead.
Fortunately, God did justice to all of us and made death mandatory to human kind. Its only a less understanding person that will openly celebrate another person’s death yet all human beings are bound to die. Nobody knows when and how. Even if someone goes before you but certainly your time is also approaching because we are never sure of seeing another day until God allows us. The political immaturity being portrayed by some Ugandans especially the youth in opposition leaves you wondering about the future of the politics of our country. One wonders if there will be cohesion , coexistence and tolerance in future like it has been today. General Tumwine though he supported the movement I never saw him exchanging words with the opposition, He simply disagreed with those who confronted the security personnel with aim of causing danger and havoc to Uganda ‘s stability which he laboured for.
The political savagery of celebrating people’s death ought to be addressed and the opposition politicians must come out and give guidance to their followers who have discovered fun in their dehumanizing actions. They should either publicly disown them or teach them to act as human beings and also as true Africans. For us in Africa even when someone has done all sorts of bad things you shield them when they die. I have not seen any religious leader who holds a microphone at the funeral to criticize the dead or accuse him of being bad in the society. Even if the person was a famous drunkard the priest will try and look for their good side and that’s what they will talk about because at funeral. we believe that it’s God who gives the final verdict on every individual and therefore we leave everything to him. In any case we are supposed to know that we are not any better, each one of us has made one wrong or two that the public could talk about when we die. Therefore even those in opposition are not clean, some are known criminals.
The political immaturity of openly showing hatred to the someone you disagree with politically and ideologically should stop. Elections should never be a do or die. It should be a constitutional process to choose our leaders. In any case we do not participate in elections as a mandatory that we must win. A candidate should sell his ideas to the electorate and convince the people to embrace those ideas and then the person wins and becomes a leader. In instances where someone hasn’t won the elections they should embrace the one who has won, congratulate him and back him to work for the people, I think that’s the true democracy that we should all practice. The Civil society and other religious leaders should come out and condemn this wild behavior of some political players of celebrating death because it further imparts hatred and might to be a danger to the Ugandan society. It might also bring conflict that will affect the well being of the citizens. if Indeed the Civil society is committed to be the custodians of unity, peace and fairness of all the people in Uganda. However as all that continue to happen Ugandans are watching, they know who is portraying characters of a good leader and the one who will butcher them in case he or she gets a chance of leading this country.
The writer is a deputy RDC Kyenjojo District
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