{UAH} 40 To 35

By Sekalo Muhammad 

I faintly remember people singing Political Party songs during the 1980 Elections like "D.P egumire,ata leo egumire ata kesho egumire mina kufa egumire...","Eeeh Eeeh Eeeh Eeeh Eeeh Maama na UPC,the Congress Party of the people" etc.

Daddy was for Conservative Party(C.P).But he was given several UPC T-Shirts during the campaigns.They were red in colour.They had Apollo Milton Obote's head in front and a Palm at the back.Daddy instead just shelved them in his suitcase not wanting to be associated with a Party he never supported.That DP won but that the Election was stolen by UPC and UPC came to power.Museveni and several other people protested the result and went to the bush around 1981,40 years ago.

Later,Daddy realised that just keeping theT-Shirts was equally dangerous as the State could label him anti-government.Because youths had joined the Rebels and rejecting UPC apparel would mean sympathy to rebels,Daddy himself being a youth then....Jamiru was killed,Kayoma(not real name),Huzori(not real name),Taaba(not real name) escaped back into the community.Many had bullet wounds as government soldiers had attacked their camps just days after enlisting and with no military experience,they were the victims....So he took the T-Shirts to Jino Osoga a tailor from Arua and made for us smaller T-Shirts cut and sewn "inside out" for our daily use😂😂😂.

This was early in my Primary school life.The war raged on.We used to run from school or home to neighbouring villages for the safety of our lives once government soldiers attacked.

It was a difficult 5 years involving abductions of people,arrests,tortures,UPC Youth wingers' impunity,brutality of soldiers,night robberies by soldiers and rebels,Panda Ggali,peace talks in Nairobi,Tito Okello Lutwa's 1985 coup,a rotten economy,shortage of supplies like sugar,galloping inflation,bombardment of Police stations,deaths and shootings,etc.

Till 26th January 1986 that the dark days seemed to have ended.Its 35 years today since.

I will be 65 this March and Iam a living testimony who can tell how many steps we have moved both forward and backwards.

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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