I read Ofwono Opondo’s article in New Vision: “Courts, social media frenzy: need to tame elite political arrogance.”
Was it a deliberate effort by editors to make him come off sounding like one who has lost his mind or is out of touch with reality? It’s understandable at his age, which I don’t know, but I assume advanced, that his cognitive function has declined.
How else can I understand editors publishing his wild assertion that there is “no basis in law” for the welcome intervention of the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, Norbert Mao, “to mediate the ongoing conflict between Uganda Law Society (ULS) President Isaac Ssemakadde and High court judge Musa Ssekaana,” as it is reported in the media.
Really, there is no basis in law for mediation? Nearly 40 years later, when the jury is out on the National Resistance Army and now the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), Ofwono is still stuck drawing comparisons with the armies and the police forces during the administrations of the late President Amin and the late President Obote.
No sir, the UPDF has its own record now, sufficient for it to be critiqued in its own right. In emulating armies of past regimes, trying civilians in military courts, the UPDF erred. This is the decision of the Supreme court.
That the UPDF is seemingly dragging its feet and not fully complying with the decision of the Supreme court makes it appear as past armies Ofwono characterizes as being “law unto themselves.”
Does Ofwono truly believe lawyers Eron Kiiza and Ssemakadde are “chilling lonely” in “underground locations”; eliciting imagery of the late president of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, hiding in tunnels, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hunted him down?
Talk about putting one’s foot in the mouth. Describing an official government prison, Kitalya, where Advocate Kiiza was incarcerated, as an “underground location.” As for Senior Counsel Ssemakadde, the official stance of the ULS is that the president is on duty; not “hiding from the law”; but rather from rogue judicial officers operating outside of the law. And this is the very subject of Mao’s intervention to mediate.
His colleagues are fully behind him and a significant section of the bar who voted him their president stand with him. Their latest action in keeping the plight of their president alive in public discourse and minds, well received series of X conversations, under the theme “Breaking the chains: hands off Ssemakadde,” to which thousands have tuned in from around the world.
Far from Ofwono’s false assertion that the “world is so quiet and serene”, insinuating a falsehood that Kiiza and Ssemakadde are all but forgotten. Nope, they are not. I do not think that there is a day that goes by that the two are not subject of public discourse. Being arrogant, uncouth and in “pursuit of pseudo fame” as Ofwono accuses is not automatically a crime.
It is for what you use your arrogance, ‘uncouthness’ and ‘pseudo fame’ that could be a crime. Reason why, Ofwono, in contradiction, reveals himself similarly fallible, as many a human being is, as he reminisced and effusively showered praise on “the best rabble rouser, NRM cadre, mentor and comrade, Maj Roland Kakooza-Mutale.”
For those victims of Kakooza Mutale and of the thousands of Karachuna, young men of Karamoja, civilians, allegedly tortured and wrongfully subjected to trial in military court, the last thing on their minds is “respect and decorum of courts of law.” Respect is earned.
If courts of law are enabling injustices, those such as Male Mabirizi, Kiiza and Ssemakadde, who call them out and hold them accountable are what clients of the bar need, in their quest for justice and to be made whole.
Ofwono would do well to take his own advice as he shared sometime back.
“After thirty-eight years on an ever-rolling stage, where the cacophony surrounds you, it is probably time to switch off the telephone, radio, television, newspaper and social media noise.”
And enjoy the peace and quiet at his “ancestral Mulanda, adapting to Alungamosimosi, Kapelebyong in north most Teso,” enjoying retirement, where he has “not had the time to know the names of the new Kampala Capital City Authority executive director.”
The author is a lecturer and member of Uganda Law Society