Winnie Byanyima
The executive director of UNAIDS is one of the four formidable women alongside Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen selected as finalists for the 2020 Global Citizen Prize for World Leader.
Byanyima has spent much of her adult life championing women’s and human rights issues in Uganda. She is the first-ever female executive director of UNAIDS, a UN programme to regulate and stop the spread of HIV/Aids.
A win for Byanyima means Africa would have retained the award after Nigerian deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Amina J. Mohammed, who previously served three Nigerian presidents and is acclaimed for presiding over a five per cent national reduction in HIV infections, and a 32 per cent reduction in maternal mortality, won it last year.
The annual Global Citizen Prize honours extraordinary people around the world who are leading the way to uplift the world’s most vulnerable people and end extreme poverty.
Julia Sebutinde
In another case of a first-ever woman, Justice Julia Sebutinde will continue serving at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which she joined in February 2012.
For those of you who were still only bedroom plans in the 1990s, Justice Sebutinde was that potent combination of beauty and the brains who carried on with such fearlessness that when she was appointed to lead a probe into corruption in government agencies such as Uganda Police, she made the toughest armed men weep like babies.
More than 20 years later in 2020 and Justice Sebutinde is still picking more flowers in her career path.
Dr Kizza Besigye
Power hungry, vendetta, vengeful, selfish … what wasn’t the son of Kifefe accused of being over the last 19 years? After all has been said and done over these years, Besigye emerged with his head high when he declined an invitation to a fifth duel with President Museveni. Several attempts by his party, FDC, to drag him in failed. Dr Besigye’s decision left his critics tongue-tied. Many who had left FDC citing Besigye’s many flaws can no longer use the excuses; they were left holding the can!
Dr Stella Nyanzi
The former Makerere University researcher has won in 2020 by a lot. The medical anthropologist was still caged in Luzira prison in January, when she won the Oxfam Novib/PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression 2020. The award, for her fearless criticism of the regime, was soon followed by the publishing of her 196-page book, No Roses From My Mouth. The book is a collection of poems typical of Dr Nyanzi, who had been jailed for publishing poems critical of the First Family on her social media page. She was still rejoicing from the book milestone when she won her appeal against conviction and 18-months sentence for cyber harassment. She then chalked it up all with another court victory when the High Court ruled that Makerere University should pay for violating its own staff appeals tribunal by failing to reinstate her – as the tribunal had ordered. Justice Lydia Mugambe of the High Court Civil Division, ordered Makerere to compensate Nyanzi, promote her to the rank of senior research fellow, pay all her salary emoluments, and reinstate her in her job. She is contesting for Kampala Woman MP now.
Winners or losers?
President Museveni in Covid-19 heat
Museveni’s response to Covid-19 pandemic was widely hailed. After ordering nationwide lockdown in March, President Museveni would rein in security operatives who were high-handed in their enforcement of Covid-19 rules.
LDUs, who had gained so much notoriety for flogging citizens, were taken away from the streets for refresher training. Museveni also kept the citizens briefed regularly despite criticism that he was gobbling up the moment to himself.
Going into elections, his decision to avoid crowd campaigns but simply visit local leaders has also been a sobering one.
However, the flowers we give him soon wilt in his hand because his party is engaged in mass rallies in total disregard of health protocols against the respiratory disease.
By the way, we have not forgotten the rotten beans for Covid-19 relief as officials kept the good donations to themselves and only sent the ones they did not like to a handful of Ugandans.
Dr Jane Ruth Aceng
Dr Aceng led a team of medics in the government’s response against Covid-19 in a way that endeared her to Ugandans. She was so motherly and graceful. You could see that her concerns were more than genuine.
With so many roses given to her in appreciation, many Ugandans were disturbed when Dr Aceng decided to use her pandemic-generated fame to enter politics. They said she was already doing well as a minister without necessarily being a politician.
In a way, they were saying their good minister would be soiled.
It was not before long that the Lira Woman MP candidate was recorded leading a procession of women who violated Covid-19 standard operating procedures and later giving out face masks -- the latter seen by many as scoring political points.
Losers
Mwesigwa Rukutana
This mustachioed minister asked a judge to go report him to God, then told a cabinet colleague Evelyn Anite that he knew “how to put girls to good use”.
He is accused of turning guns on his political opponents too.
Facing off with Naome Kabasharira in the Rushenyi County NRM primaries, Rukutana was recorded grabbing a gun, apparently, to fire at his opponents. The junior labour minister was charged with attempted murder, assault, malicious damage to property and threatening violence, charges that were later amended to include aggravated robbery.
Evelyn Anite
This one does not even know how to lose. You wonder what frown to give someone who runs to the President to “explain that the new NRM gateway to Koboko is in bed with Bobi Wine and that we need to quickly change the mobilisation strategy in the area.”
This, after Bobi Wine endorsed her conqueror Dr Charles Ayume in Koboko Municipality. For someone who claimed she had accepted the outcome of the NRM primaries in which Dr Ayume trounced her to pulp, it is astounding that she still goes around finding excuses or ways to vilify the winner and his voters.
Eric Sakwa
No RDC was in the news as much as Jinja’s Sakwa in 2020. But they say a frog that keeps jumping out and about instead of sitting quietly in the wetland will be swallowed by the mafia.
Sakwa found himself being yanked from a radio station and driven to an impromptu court convened specially for his case, and jailed.
He was charged with manslaughter and though released on bail, remains interdicted from office after stepping on too many toes while executing his RDC duties.
Chameleone
The singer was denied the NUP endorsement he was counting on to boost his Kampala mayoral bid. He has traversed the political camps quite a bit, ending up feeling a little lost and out in the cold when NUP refused to shelter him under their umbrella.
Opposition
Covid-19 is real. And it is getting worse. Yet it is disheartening to see Opposition politicians playing to the gallery by engaging in politics for crowds in total disregard of health protocols.
There are Opposition presidential candidates we have not seen wear even their own party branded mask. The message they send out to their supporters when acting like that is grave.
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