It has been a harrowingly long seven days for participants of viral sex videos allegedly leaked without their consent. The Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Patrick Onyango, in response to the videos, has urged women to avoid having sex in public places like toilets.
According to the New Vision, Onyango wondered, “Why don’t you go to the bathroom?”
Could bathrooms be the missing link in thwarting the viral wickedness of sex filmed in toilets, shared without consent? Rose Lily Akello, the state minister for Ethics and Integrity, decried the increasing “immoral and unethical behaviour trending on social media” in the aftermath of the sex videos.
In 1998, the government set up the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity (DEI) to coordinate national anti-corruption measures and rebuild ethics and integrity. In 2013, DEI launched the National Ethical Values Policy in response to “persistent degeneration of moral behavior, unprofessional conduct and the general unethical and dishonest behavior in both public and private affairs in Uganda.”
The policy is based on our national anthem and national motto and aims to “promote and preserve the rich cultural identity and values of Uganda in order to enhance national development within a harmonious environment”.
Dear reader, the policy lists our national ethical values as; Respect for humanity and the environment; Honesty, uphold and defend the truth at all times; Justice and fairness in dealing with others; Hard work for self-reliance; Integrity, moral uprightness and sound character; Creativity and innovativeness; Social responsibility; Social harmony; National unity; and National consciousness and patriotism.
Dear reader, here you are stunned that our nation has ten ethical values yet you as you only knew the DEI for prayer breakfasts, raging against the immoral Nyege Nyege and the anti-pornography machine (media reports indicate the machine was never bought even though parliament approved the money).
These ten national ethical values, despite our thirsty penchant for policing the sex lives of the exposed and the disagreeable homosexuals, remain on paper. We feign disappointment with social media influencers caught in the nude while ruthlessly displaying the utmost disregard for each other on our roads creating exasperating gridlocked traffic.
We are trigger-ready with bribes, offering them with no qualms because that is the method to the madness of how things work here. Those who expect to get by without greasing palms are derisively scorned. When our leaders are arrested over corruption, we thrash ourselves and beg the president to forgive our person as we line up to receive free T-shirts, money and lunch at carefully choreographed public events to shore up the First Son of impunity.
Let us not even whisper about voters who consistently vote for regression. Voters are wild but our elections are wilder. Our leaders draped in white extravagantly display luxurious cars and palatial homes that rival Acacia mall; we pretend to look on nonchalantly while secretly longing for a place at that heavy-laden table labeled, “It’s our turn to eat.”
How can we sow these national values? One way is education. In 2018, the ministry of Education and Sports and the Office of the Inspector General of Government proposed the inclusion of ethics as an examinable subject in schools. However, the minister of Education and Sports, First Lady Janet Museveni warned that teaching ethics and integrity was no walkover as those who would teach ethics ought to walk the walk.
According to the Daily Monitor, the First Lady cautioned that teachers who were too focused on their personal hardships could not ably teach ethics and integrity. She commented, “…A teacher is supposed to transform wherever they are. But our teachers are mourning about where they are going to wash their hair…If everybody is going to live near a salon, how will the majority of our children who are still in those areas (hard-to-reach) access education, health?”
As Ugandans say, Maama Janet is playing in the answer. Good intentions dressed in angelic white garments are not enough; the inner hard work of walking the walk is essential to this delicate craft of the ten national ethical values. Thus, those charged with spreading the cheer of the national ethical values, face a higher standard.
Therafa, irony sighed deeply when our vanguard of ethics and integrity, Minister Akello, was fingered along with several other high-ranking political leaders in the now-boring mabaati/iron sheets scandal.
Dear reader, the parliament speaker, also one of the high-ranking leaders cited in the scandal, tired of the mabaati episode. On June 22, during a parliamentary session, she scolded opposition parliamentarian Ssemujju Nganda, pronouncing the mabaati subject utterly boring.
Possibly the most boring things ever stolen in Uganda. Who could have imagined that one juicy perks of power is plain boredom? Fortunately, for the boring mabaati, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions exonerated the bulk of the leaders cited in the boring mabaati scandal, like Among and Akello, the leaders of any wrongdoing.
Dear reader, do not be deceived by the alluring boredom. Our parliament, in support of DEI’s mandate, has a wonderful forum: the Parliamentary Forum on Ethics and Integrity. One of its objectives is to “lobby leaders to support policies which promote morality and ethics as well as a common national agenda.”
“Well, isn’t that patriotic?” our ten national values ask.
smugmountain@gmail.com
The writer is a tayaad muzzukulu
Source: The Observer
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