OPEN LETTER TO YOU

At this moment, I am sitting in a small bar cashing in shillings. To make it clear for those who can’t understand me, I am at home. I hail from Ruhaama, the constituency of first lady Janet Kataaha Museveni in Ntungamo district.

Last semester was dominated subtle situations though I managed to achieve unexpected triumph. From financial to mental and social hurdle, I wish to express gratitude for your support friends.

Asiimwe Dickens, you came close to becoming my financial father even when we are all students. You responded to all my financial call since mid April until Saturday when I departed. You have never called me or text me for refund. Many thanks and may almighty God reward you abundantly.

Ssali Godfrey, I would stupid enough if I don’t recognise you’re financial support not only for this semester but since we joined Makerere University two years ago.

Ariyo Stephen and Beetina Joseph you also became an integral part of my life as I walked through a thorny semester.

Azarwe Simon, Elias Beinomugisha, Brian Atukwase, Bwengye Elia and all you who I can’t remember right now, I extend my heartfelt thanks to you. Nurturing me into a right thinking member of society has not been a just walk over.

Davidson Ndyabahika and your room-mate Bwesigye Ahabu, I can’t forget your financial and academic support.

I can’t foresee the future but I am optimistic, you will respond positively to more calls and I also hope do so. Frankly, you have taught me the virtue of assistance and how vital it is. As Barrack Obama says together we can.  

Had it not been your support, my last semester dreams would be shattered now. To exemplify this, think about your support; further think about a situation that you repudiated my calls. Where would I be???

 Karoli Ssemogere and Julius Mucunguzi, thanks for inspiring me to swot up targeting something big. Step by step, I hope to succeed.

Finally, to you my social network friends, I treasure your role toward my intellectual development. I always find myself interacting with intellectuals. It is because of you that I think and reason like a learned friend. I am anticipating learning more from you.

Thank you all and may GOD BLESS YOU

NAADS REBIRTH IS AROUND THE CORNER; WILL IT BE OF USE TO THE WANANCHI?

In the state of the nation address, president Museveni promised that government is fully committed to restructure National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) in the coming financial year. He clarified that NAADS which has been given huge resources to execute its activities, spends most of the shs 203 billion we each year on salaries and seminars, they only spend shs 57 billion on buying materials for plantation and breeding.

Recently, not once, president Museveni praised veteran UPDF officers for demonstrating exceptional delivery of services to intended beneficiaries centrally to fleecing practice of NAADS officer. With just 5 billion shillings, UPDF have delivered more than what NAADS offices distributed to wananchi. Now everyone has cognised the chanted corruption and embezzlement that brought programme to its knees.

The struggle continues. 13 years later, NAADS is still far behind its objective which was to assist poor male and female farmers to become aware of and be able to adapt to improved technology and management practices in their farming enterprises so as to enhance their productive efficiency, their economic welfare and the sustainability of farming operations.

Travel to the country side, you can only glimpse at NAADS demonstration farm posters. If you make a stopover to have a stare at a farm, alas, it will be nowhere. If you enquire, responses will be in spiritual tongues-long and unclear. And a clever chap must easily understand that such a demonstration farm no longer exists.

We must thank our industrious president for tirelessly touring ghost NAADS projects. Let me specify here; when Museveni accompanied by first lady toured our parish, they inspected fish ponds belonging to a local ‘Mzee’ and these ponds have never been liaised to NAADS.

Government is about to rock door of the second NAADS phase (July 2010-June 2015), under the Agricultural Technology and Agribusiness Advisory Services (ATAAS) project. Its estimated cost at least $450 million. Agricultural research and research extension is the main target of this segment. It will be thwarting if government open third phase of NAADS without visible achievements from the first and second phases.

It is imperative as government plan to restructure NAADS to either turn it into a campaign platform of delivering political goods or a training medium which will equip farmers lifetime skills, information, technological development and market linkages.

It will also be imprudent to hand NAADS to political failures than technocrats. However, president Museveni seems ready to hand the project to UPDF who have surprised him with high level of competence. To me, technocrats can do a praiseworthy job than UPDF soldiers.

Innovated NAADS must pay ultimate attention to mechanisms of delivering services-high quality seed and training to farmers and people living with disabilities (PLWDs) than bourgeoisie and politicians. The latter groups have always been chief beneficiaries of NAADS from all corners.

Dream to modernise agriculture has been one of NRM’s ultimate target and NAADS presents a chance to catalyse this vision through equipping all Ugandans with skills and better quality seeds. This can easily enable agriculture modernisation to take off and poverty eradication, increasing tax base, GNP, and so forth can straightforwardly be achieved in a shorter period.

NAADS final assessments will after 25yrs, its estimated duration and that will be in 2026. About 12yrs from now. If this project totally fails, shall we again inscribe project papers to move around begging donors for funds???.

Email: johnblanshe77m@gmail.com. Tweet:johnblanshe_m

 

                   

EXAMINATION FRAUD AT MAKERERE UNIVERSITY

It is examination time at Makerere University; as usual the season can’t go without malpractices. My un-manned aerial vehicles have landed on crucial information. On Friday 23^rd this month, Bachelor of Commerce External second year students got a statistics paper before sitting for it. This now became a past paper.

Luckily, the management came to about it via a section of grieved students who reported the issue. They reported it because they requested those who had it to share it with them and they refused.

What they (management) did was to cancel that paper and set another one for students. The paper which was supposed to commence at 8:00 started at about 11:00.

There many hows and whats we need to ask about University Management and it policy on eradicating malpractice.

But really how come that at Harvard of Africa as we usually term it a student accesses a paper before sitting for it??. This question is complicated I can’t dare to answer it

Before the management boosting around and threatening to expel students who cheat, does it know that there are lope holes in its system?

I was struck beyond imagination by my source when I asked details about cheating. My source asked me whether I want to expose them; automatically I said yes, she argued that if I do so, I would land them into a pot of hot water since they would be trailed. The best I could do was offer her protection.

More so my source heard rumours around that they B.com students accessed another paper today (Sunday) before sitting for it though she could not verify it independently. She promised to feed us with valid information possibly soon.

Ssali Godfrey, I emotionally thought about slapping you when we sent you on Friday (same day when this fatal exam hoaxing took place) to discuss the same issue of exam malpractice on Radio One. It was a total sham for you to defend Makerere University   saying that there is no cheating.  I am sure you know more. No wonder they branded you as Tamale Mirundi who can defend a black pen arguing that it is red. I will not slap you-I forgive like a father forgiving his son but what you said was sham.

I don’t condone cheating but condemn it.

Shame on you Makerere University Management

John Blanshe M is a second year Journalism and Communication student at Makerere University 

PERPETUATORS OF WAR IN SOUTH SUDAN MUST BE REPRIMANDED

In recent times, some parts of Africa have witnessed violence on a scale that has shocked its people, drawn international condemnation and, in some cases, resulted in a call for intervention by the international community.

 Recent atrocities in the Central African Republic and South Sudan have made news, but there have been other violent eruptions in Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya and Mali. The African Union (AU) has been criticised for not doing enough to address impunity on the continent and for failing to expressly condemn and reject impunity.

In 2013, the African Union Peace and Security Council took an unprecedented step. For the first time in the history of the regional organisation or its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, the Peace and Security Council established a Commission of Inquiry.

 It is investigating human rights violations and other abuses committed during the armed conflict in South Sudan, the African Union’s newest member and the world’s newest nation.

Against a backdrop of criticism by some African leaders of the International Criminal Court’s focus on African cases and repeat calls for the African Union to take the lead in prosecutions, this is a ground-breaking development and a policy watershed.

The Commission has a challenging mandate, including investigating human rights violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict and the identification of those most responsible, who will be held to account. The commission will also make recommendations on ways to foster reconciliation and healing among all South Sudanese communities.

South Sudan’s conflict, which started as a power struggle within the ruling party, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM), now has ethnic undertones, pitting the two main ethnic groups against each other, President Salva Kiir’s Dinka and his former deputy, Riek Machar’s Nuer.

Both factions are alleged to have committed atrocities, including acts of ethnic cleansing and targeted killings.  Many South Sudanese, who endured decades of a brutal civil war between the south and the north, now find themselves back in the same situation. Thousands have fled to neighbouring countries or are displaced internally. The humanitarian situation is dire.

The Commission of Inquiry will be carrying out its work in the context of a grim, ongoing human rights crisis. Establishing the truth about what has happened and bringing those who have committed atrocities to justice will be a critical step towards bringing this fractured young nation together. The rejection of impunity cannot be simply a catch phrase; justice must be seen to be done.

The establishment of this commission rides on the back of major developments in the fight for accountability in Africa.  In 2013, exiled former Chadian President Hissène Habré was arraigned before the Extraordinary African Chambers, a hybrid court established within the Senegalese legal system, for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during his presidency. Multiple actors, among them the African Union, first recommended his trial by Senegal in 2006, demonstrating that the African Union can be innovative and effective in pursuing criminal accountability.

Efforts like these are not on the global radar screen but they are critical to the equally important objectives of seeking justice and accountability on the one hand, and peace and stability on the other; they are mutually reinforcing. There is no regional court with a mandate to try criminal cases – the African Court for Human and Peoples Rights is not mandated to do so. Few national courts currently have the jurisdiction or capacity to try such cases, including South Sudan’s courts.

 To overcome the challenges that may arise from the recommendations of the Commission, the South Sudanese, the African Union and their partners must be creative and be committed to achieving justice for the victims. A peaceful and unified South Sudan must have the confidence to confront this dark moment of its history and ensure justice for the victims.

This commission must do the best to book those who have been behind escalation of violence. Sadly, there will never be a day when those perpetuating ethnic violence shall be murdered, sleep hungry or even sleep in shanty camps.

It will always be innocent South Sudanese to suffer as war take strange steps forward. Last week, Machar and Kiir went to Addis Ababa and signed a peace agreement which lasted for hours. Though both later claimed to have been forced to sign it, my opinion is; none of them is patriotic or pathetic for fellow citizens.

South Sudan is not a personal property of Kiir or Machar, neither does it belong to Dinkar nor Nuer, it belong to south Sudanese as both of them endured struggle for independence.

South Sudanese deserve to live peacefully hence any one perturbing their peace must be brought to books of law. Alas, they must be punished.

No 'Mugaati', Makerere Students refuse to endorse Museveni sole candidature

By Davidson Ndyabahika and John Blanshe Musinguzi

MAKERERE

While attending the General Assembly on 13^th May 2014, at the University Freedom Square, Makerere university students who had attended in overwhelming numbers reportedly due the text messages that filled the students’ phone inboxes the previous night that carried headline “#NRM CASH BONANZA FOR MUSEVENI SOLE CANDIDATURE” went back frustrated when they did not receive any thing in return.

The assembly began with some sections of the youth with mixed opinions about the current crisis entangling NRM as they waited for the guest speaker.

The party crisis entails allegations the Amama Mbabazi is nurturing presidential ambitions come 2016. Amama Mbabazi doubles as the party’s General Secretary and Prime Minister.

 However these students silenced on grounds that it would be working towards the disunity and togetherness of the Party and that someone contesting would compel the party to disarray that would allow room for opposition to gain popularity among the masses.

The assembly attracted a number of students from various political parties like the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Democratic Party (DP) and others. Among the notables from opposition party members who were in attendance was Rt. Hon. Chark Benson the Guild Speaker to the 80^th parliament and a member of FDC, Niwabimpa Amon current chairperson FDC Makerere chapter, Tushabe Muhairwe Mwanaweka Edgar, former FDC Makerere chapter chairperson, Atuhaire Brian unstoppable, former General Secretary.

NRM loyalists accused opposition members of greed and that they had come to look for soda.

Singh beg students to support sole candidature

Mr. Singh Katongole who was the chief guest confessed that he is in full support of the Popular Kyankwanzi resolution for president Museveni sole candidature come 2016. In his speech, Mr Katongole praised Mr. Museveni for the security, professionalism of army and police, education, East African Community and above all hosting the 2007 CHOGM.

“... because of the good security, Mr. Museveni enabled Uganda to host the Queen of England for CHOGM in 2007 and many things are going to be achieved for Uganda.”

To justify his reason to support the sole candidature, Mr. Singh added that more investors are coming to Uganda because of favourable investment conditions created by Museveni.

  “... Investors are asking Museveni, are you coming back in 2016 so that we can invest more?” he said.

Endorsement fails

While most of the students who had turned up for the general assembly were anticipating to receive the purported facilitation (Mugaati), they lost patience at the last minute when Katongole finished speaking and in his vocabulary missed a word “facilitation- transport and water”.

Students who were angered started firing questions at the NRM boss why they insist on giving money to people to support sole candidature. In his response, Katongole said that they (NRM) are not selling the sole candidature of president Museveni but giving facilitation allowance to supporters who come from far for meetings.

However, he later said he had not prepared facilitation for students but promised to bring it (money) together with the NRM t-shirts and caps for students.

“I did not prepare adequately, the next time I come I make sure you are facilitated with transport,” Mr. Singh Katongole said.

Student respond

Alex Kwesiga a student of Bcom External said that they cannot support sole candidature when they are hungry. “We are aware that other people have received money to support the resolution of sole candidature of Museveni and we know ours is there. Let them bring it before we say yes.”

“We are so disappointed that for a whole party which has been in power for 28 years, a National Treasurer came here without Mugati for us. We are totally disappointed. No Mugati, no vote for Museveni” said Godfrey Ssali a second year student of Journalism and Communication.

“It was a shadow event indeed. They are best in failing their promises and disguising intentions. I fear dinning with someone about to be condemned, no one will see it coming, and every big snake will swallow itself,” said Jak Nam president of African Students Association Makerere.