Author: Isaac Imaka

In our may edition, I wrote an article titled “Busoga Rural roads and why I accuse the peasant”. In the article I accused the peasants of reneging on their civic duty of holding themselves and those that lead them accountable for anything. I accused the peasants of selfishly working against the future and actively participating in the breakdown of the rural social services for short term gain. Early in November, I got a chance to be part of a group of ten Busoga progressives selected to travel to China to be part of the inaugural Young Rural Entrepreneurs Initiative. The…

As Club Harlem was closing in Atlanta, Ange Noir discotheque aka Club Guvnor was being birthed in Uganda. 1986. In Kampala, the National Resistance Army had just come to power, and freedom was fresh on the streets. People needed a place to dance and sweat off the war. That year, Run-DMC’s Walk This Way was peaking at number four on the USA’s Billboard’s Top 100 and Doug E Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew’s All the Way to Heaven had just been released. Yet on November 30, 2024, 38 years later, the club where 2Pac’s California Love was first played…

It is perfectly evident that such gospel could not be successfully watered down to a program of gradual political reform of the Roman Empire. And so far as Jesus organized any church it was only as a group of proclaimers of the coming kingdom. After the rejection and death of such a rebel against all earthly authority, that group started the life of proclamation, moved thereto by their triumphant faith in the resurrection of their great leader. This resurrection stamped the radicalism of Jesus as true. Hence the hatred of Saul of Tarsus. He was typical of the power-possessing class.…

Aliyinza, mother of toil! She died on 31 August 2024. She was 71. An hour before passing, she had talked to her eldest son, Fred Mugabira, on phone and reassured him that she had put whatever was worrying her aside and was focusing on her healing. “Ebyo nabivileku. Njakuba bulungi,” she told him in reference to the concern she was nursing about her sick grandson, Ethan Kirabo Nsibambi, who had, early in the week, had a fall in the bathroom and was sick. But as our late papa would say, it was a little too late. Her lungs had weakened,…

A couple of weeks back, the Gabula Royal Foundation co-hosted with Civsource Africa Foundation, the first leaders’ summit in Jinja. The three-day event was a mixed bag of firsts. A community walk, a charity outreach and a cross generational round the first interaction between young leaders from select civil society organizations and the past leaders of Busoga region. In retrospection about the event, I realized it was a personal reminder to the importance of giving your all through people. Early in life, I learned two things that, for now, keep me going: Never to set my expectations so high about…

At the end of April, Rt. Rev. Paul Hannington Suubi’s Pastoral letter to all Archdeacons and parish priests in East Busoga diocese circulated across social media. In the letter, the Rt Rev. banned partisan politics in church and all other church related programs. Reason: Partisan politics is divisive, yet Christians come to church to worship God and be spiritually ministered to. The letter does not only in fringe on the people’s right to political participation, it also disingenuous especially when the church continues to be an active actor in the politics of clientelism, receiving gifts in form of vehicles from…

In a random chat I eaves dropped at my local coffee shop as I picked my routine morning shot of black coffee, a man was lamenting, to his friend, the ordeal theyhad gone through as they traversed rural Busembatia, in Iganga district. “The sugarcane trucks have messed almost all roads; and then the one we had used; the local government had dug it up and left it to cars to do the pressing,” he narrated to his colleague. He continued: “It instead rained heavily, and the mud made the road impassable. All cars on the road got stuck. Busembatia is a…

The introspective debate must have started with a reflection about how come I had never seen an acre of sweet potatoes in Busoga yet Busoga claimed it was our staple food, then it me­andered to how come agri-production had reduced and to whether or not resurrect­ing the Busoga railway would help in switching on the agri-production lights to ignite the region back to development. It was those thoughts that led me, in late 2022, to the WhatsApp inbox of former Kigulu North MP, Edward Baliddawa Kafufu to pick his mind on an argument I was trying to build for revamping…

Ambassador Robinah Kaburara Kakonge, Uganda’s Ambassador to the United States of America and Non-Resident Ambassador to Paraguay, presented her Letters of Credence to President Santiago Pena of Paraguay on March 4th, 2024. The ceremony, held at the President’s Palace in Asuncion, Paraguay, was characterized by warm greetings and cordiality as President Pena welcomed Ambassador Kakonge to Paraguay and congratulated her on her appointment. Ambassador Kakonge expressed gratitude to President Pena for Paraguay’s representation at the recent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and G77+China Summits hosted in Uganda, emphasizing the strong multilateral ties between the two nations. She underscored the importance of enhancing…

My father, Nathan W Mugabira, peace be upon him, served, in his retirement, as Namulesa Village LC 1 secretary throughout my teenage years. Our home usually doubled as the village court; and there I witnessed grassroots based management, leadership, community engagement and the art of problem solving at play almost daily. One thing that stood out was a practice that whenever a new person joined a village, they would first report to the LC Secretary with a letter of recommendation or introduction from the LC of their previous host village. That letter spelled out key facts about the individual joining…