Opinion: Leaders must be channels of love, not hate

By Sam Evidence Orikunda

While attending a small function that had only 70 people in it's audience of which most of them were secondary school students, I was shocked to see a district leader focusing much on the cheeky fights than telling the young people what they were supposed to listen to.

It is obvious that this leader had not prepared his speech, neither did he consider helping the young ones grow to be responsible citizens and achieve greatness which would have been important to them.

His mind was filled with anguish, hate and complaints forgetting that the children he was addressing had nothing to do with what he was telling them, some of them even had no idea on those stories.

In these days where the students are approaching their exams, they expected to listen to guidance on how they can pass exams so that they can make their parents and schools proud.

They also need some career guidance on what to do next in case they came out victorious. Some also need some advise on how to go about the long holidays they will go to after the exams.

Interestingly and unfortunately, their leader who their parents voted for overwhelmingly was not ready to offer any of that advise apart from chest thumping in front of them and speaking lots of irrelevant questions as the children innocently listened.

He was so mean to the extent that if any of those children is asked what they learnt from that leader who took enough time on the microphone none of them could even say one or two points because it wasn't there anyway.

That leader wasn't any different from another leader who was also given same platform to address the young people. From giving life stories to assuring the innocent children and a handful of their teachers how nobody has capacity to defeat them in an election.

The young children watched in awe and some of them clapped because they had no choice. For us who were also following, were forced to wait for long hours of these speeches until late at night.

Thank God some little money came out of the pockets maybe to help in supporting these young people, maybe they could base themselves on that particular point to say that their clapping and listening wasn't in vein. They could also say that it was out of generosity and love for them.

However, another person might have a different view on the same. As all this drama continued to happen, the children's minds were poisoned.

Children learn by copying and they will now carry that kind of fights to fellow children, the parents at home and the people in their communities.

Within no time the entire community will be poisoned with useless cheeky fights that have kept our areas lagging behind in terms of development.

Those same children who have ambitions of becoming leaders in future will most likely behave the same and the problems the community is suffering today will be extended to the future. A leader should be a channel of hope, love and reconciliation.

A leader should take time to think before standing in front of any audience to speak because the people of whom we represent are wise enough to judge and make conclusions at the end of the day. However, it appears some leaders are not afraid of shame.

As we head to 2026, most leaders are already engaged in serious fights with some of them being unable to greet each other when they meet at public functions.

Some can't even share a sit or even mention the name of the other. Looking at them, you see a face of hate and enmity. This enmity is going to even grow as we head to the time of electioneering.

The people who follow those same leaders are already engaged in serious fights and conflicts, with people spending days on social media exchanging insults as if one has stolen the cow of the other.

These ones also recruit their colleagues in the fights and before we get to know the whole community will be up in arms.

This is the against the ideology of the National Resistance Movement which is very clear about the Unity of the people of Uganda.

President Museveni has always said that the tribes, the faith and different language we speak isn't important and should never be a reason to divide us as Ugandans and Africans. But the togetherness and the unity of Africans is more important and should be dwelled on if we are to uplift Africa in terms of development.

The president has always said that any leader who engages the people of Uganda in sectarianism is an enemy of progress and an enemy of that same community because the results of of sectarianism are very dangerous to the well being of the people.

It's because of selfishness and egocentrism that those leaders front the idea of sectarianism otherwise nobody would have time for it.

The fights are obstructing development in the districts because if the leaders cannot sit together and plan for their community then there will be no chance of the development to take place. The people of whom they represent will always complain for lack of services because their leaders are lost in cheeky fights.

As I said in the previous article some civil servants also take advantage of the cheeky fights to deny services to the people.

These ones take advantage of the situations to misuse public funds and nobody will question them because the leaders will be busy fighting while others will be having the ones supporting them at the district and who they will never allow to be touched or asked any questions.

Transparency calls for answering of the accountability questions so that the people who pay taxes can get value for money know where their taxes go and how it is used.

In instances where the public is not satisfied with the explanation then leaders should be put to investigation and if found that they broken any laws they should be arrested and charged as that act as examples to the rest.

The National Resistance Movement, should pick an interest on the fights that are happening in the lower administrations and forge solution for them.

There should be a mechanism of bringing to oder the politicians who deviate from the historical mission of the NRM which is to bring services closer to the people but instead engage the public in unnecessary politicking and fights trying to create their own power bases.

Like now, government is enrolling the parish development model but a leader who is NRM leaning will hold a microphone and instead of telling people how they can benefit from that program will instead direct guns to a fellow leader and the two exchange insults.

A lot of time will be wasted in trying to prove a point against a fellow leader which time would have been used to enlighten Ugandans on how they can benefit from those good government programs.

Why should we hold the titles we hold today if we cannot do much in getting people out of poverty?

Why should someone be addressed as leader if he's given a chance to speak to the young children but cannot mention anything that will help those same young people in future but rather take time to throw tantrums?

We should be ashamed of ourselves and ask God to forgive us and now put all our energy on what we are supposed to do for the people. We should also remember that it is God who makes people great.

There's no individual that makes another person great unless God has accepted it. Therefore, the source, the author and the owner of power is God.

The writer is a deputy RDC Kyenjojo District.