Muniini K. Mulera

Borderless living at Uganda’s borders

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJanuary 23, 20180 comments

In January last year, on a visit to my ancestral home in Kahondo-ka-Byamamarembo, I invited my cousins to join me on a climb of the rugged, rocky mountain that towers above Nyamitooma village, the burial site of Rakeiri Keiramibwa, my maternal grandmother. More than fifty years ...

May Ugandan MPs and clergy find the courage of the Three Wise Men

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaDecember 18, 20170 comments

Ruling politicians in undemocratic countries love to tell other people to avoid political comment. Yoweri K. Museveni, the Ugandan ruler, has made it a specialty, forever warning cultural and religious leaders to stick to their stuff which, according to him, does not include ...

Mugisha Muntu and the search for clean politics

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaDecember 5, 20170 comments

When Mugisha Muntu, the former president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), called a press conference last week, there was wild speculation and expectation that he was going to announce the formation of a new political party. Having worked themselves up to believe their ...

Besigye/Amuriat victory sets FDC on a clearer path

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaNovember 29, 20170 comments

Mr. Mugisha Muntu After a gruelling but free competition for its top position, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has elected Patrick Oboi Amuriat as its president. I congratulate Mr. Amuriat and wish him great success and God’s blessings in his pursuit of his clearly stated ...

Kadaga’s political suicide may not be as fatal as Kategaya’s

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaOctober 3, 20170 comments

Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of the Uganda Parliament, who is said to have had thoughts of becoming president of Uganda, committed political suicide last week. By doing so, she reminded me of Eriya Tukahiirwa Kategaya who shredded his political legacy by jettisoning a core principle ...

Charade behind lifting Uganda's presidential age limit

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaAugust 21, 20170 comments

Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni, who will be 77 years old at the time of the next elections in 2021, wants Article 102(b) of the Constitution amended to give him legal cover for his plan to continue to rule his realm. His public claim of disinterest in the matter is a ...

Kisiizi Hospital tragedy a wake-up call for all of us

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaSeptember 20, 20170 comments

Mparo farms after the floods - Photo by Ezra Sebahire, Sept. 17, 2017 In recent days, the springs of the great deep have burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens have been opened all over Uganda. Landslides and floods have exacted painful disruption on hundreds ...

The Doctor who would like to be Jennifer Musisi’s driver

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaAugust 28, 20170 comments

Dr. Silvia Awor, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gulu University, followed an academic track at Class A institutions. High school at Mt. Saint Mary’s Namagunga; Medical school at Makerere University; and Postgraduate fellowship in obstetrics and gynaecology at McMaster University, ...

Congratulations Mr. Kenyatta, but it is not yet Uhuru

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaAugust 14, 20170 comments

Damacline Marube, a Kenyan woman who lives in Nairobi’s Mathare Valley slum, lost her daughter on Friday. The little girl, Stephanie Moraa, nine years old, was felled by a bullet in her chest. Her killer was almost certainly a Kenya Police officer, charged with bringing peace ...

Banyakigyezi meeting in USA about poverty alleviation, not partisan politics

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaAugust 1, 20170 comments

A Munyakigyezi boy in January 2017. Non-partisan Where two or three Banyakigezi gather in the name of their region, questions are raised in some quarters. What are the sons and daughters of the mountains up to? What is their political agenda? On whose side are they? This ...

No contradiction in being political but non-partisan

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJuly 25, 20170 comments

Can a group or organization be politically active but non-partisan? Is it possible for people who support different political parties to engage in healthy, nonpartisan political discussions? Is it possible to ban partisan content from social media discussion groups while promoting ...

African rulers and their choice of death abroad

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJuly 18, 20170 comments

Uganda’s current rulers and their associates spend millions of public dollars on their healthcare abroad, complete with comfortable digs for their bajanjabi (attendants) and pocket money for a little shopping before returning home. President Yoweri Museveni puts the ...

Banyakigyezi Convention in Florida USA to strategize on empowering youth and communities

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJuly 3, 20170 comments

ICOB seeks to give them a secure future To the unaware, a headline in the Daily Monitor of April 27 was alarming. “Banyakigezi global chapter splits,” the headline reported. The reader was then treated to a report about the resignation by Dr. Francis Runumi from the ...

Lift the age limit

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJune 19, 20170 comments

Uganda’s educated youth are restless. They want to inherit power and responsibility now. Many see anyone above 60 years of age (some say 50 years) to be too old and too tired to be entrusted with what they consider to be “their” future. One understands their restlessness. ...

Reconditioned politicians and democratic feudalism

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaJune 13, 20170 comments

They are back! Yes, Hillary and Joe, as in Clinton and Biden, some of the permanent fixtures in American presidential politics, are back on the campaign trail. Early days, of course, but Hillary – First Lady of the USA, former Senator from New York and presidential candidate ...

Twenty years of writing and murdering the English language

By Muniini K. MuleraTingasigaMay 30, 20170 comments

It was Charles Onyango-Obbo who invited me to write a weekly column in The Monitor, a Ugandan daily newspaper. He had been a regular reader of my letter to Tingasiga, published in The Ugandan Newsletter, a quarterly pamphlet that had been founded in Toronto in 1988 by, among ...