AS UGANDA'S CYCLE OF ELECTORAL VIOLENCE HYBERNATES TIL NEXT ELECTIONS!

Photo: Feeling sad after finding no mangoes to pluck from the mango tree next to Uganda's independence monument.

Today Nigerians elect their leader, I wish them all the best. I noticed that ever since Uganda's 1980 general elections, Ugandans have been complaining of rigged elections one after the other to this day, all characterized by a phase of extreme violence, while Ugandans are obviously incapable of seriously improving and burglar-proofing elections in this country for the last four decades. So much so that our elections are still archaically conducted in plastic basins in the 21st century just like Obote first prescribed in 1980. Yet for the record, we already know the solution to corruption and public theft. Besides the enactment and implementation of serious legal deterrences, it is common knowledge that the less human interaction we have in any public service processes, including in elections, the less corruption and theft there is. That is why for decades, technology has been reliably curbing corruption in public service and made elections credible around the world. Why haven't we put in place advanced transparent electoral technology (like the one in South Africa for example that includes live and public electronic national election result tallying whose data is fed into the system directly at each polling station and the result immediately displayed for the world to see including online on the Electoral Commissions website)? In stark contrast, when it comes to election season in Uganda, we are still in the 1980 Obote II curse, including in the extreme violence, terror, censorship, intolerance and brutality faced by the people of this country, and all this has been happening in a cycle every five years without fail. We all know what is coming but are waiting to just complain and be victims. I am talking about this today, in the public interest, and in public, three years in advance of the country's next general election, with ample time for all stakeholders to wake up, sit down around a table, debate the matter comprehensively, and decide on progressive action. But just wait and see emitwe gino!

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