Some pastors and their flocks!
Jul 14, 2007
JOHN NAGENDA<br><br>An elderly Muganda woman was heard to exclaim: “Nga ba Paasita bakutte wansi newaggulu!†It is almost impossible to translate without going into a few sentences but the gist is that the Pastors are swarming up and down all over the place.
JOHN NAGENDA
UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST... INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE
An elderly Muganda woman was heard to exclaim: “Nga ba Paasita bakutte wansi newaggulu!†It is almost impossible to translate without going into a few sentences but the gist is that the Pastors are swarming up and down all over the place.
A few examples shall suffice. “Pastors are involved in sodomy of the youngâ€; “Pastors batten on the poor of Societyâ€; “Pastors sell God’s favours to the gullibleâ€.
This week there was the peerless allegation of a pastor who allegedly bought electrical gadgets to make people in his close vicinity (when he was hooked up) to tremble and fall at his feet during his sermons. Now, where have we seen and read of this happening recently? Perhaps, just maybe, it explains a lot! I had already spent hours trying to work out how some well-known people in the pastor trade had slithered to the floor not once but thrice in quick succession. Really, has it come to this, and would God sanction it?
Obviously I would never dream of saying that such allegations can be upheld against all pastors, who must surely be as diverse as any other grouping. But it takes but one member of a clan to bring that clan into disrepute. And some of the evidence sounds convincing on the face of it.
A very well written three-part series in Sunday Vision (catch the last part tomorrow) is about the hard sell of certain pastors to force cash and goods from their gullible sheep, in return for “favours from Godâ€.
It is nauseating; but these enticers will find in the Bible that one sin God will never forget is “taking His name in vainâ€; in this case coercing in His name. Hell, without remission, awaits; have they, of all people, forgotten? The whole place seems riddled with them, and their numbers seem to multiply in rabbit-like fashion. Then we have read about those who feast on poverty-stricken boys and girls. It is the easiest way for these youngsters to get somewhere to sleep, and food to eat, and, if lucky, funds for school.
The Monitor told a heart-rending story of boys who were allegedly preyed on by a highborn pastor, whose grandfather, on his mother’s side, was Kabaka of Buganda. This pastor at least has since resigned. If these victims make it to school, it is unfortunately not the end of their suffering.
Rumours abound of a foreign-born pastor on the Entebbe Road, past Zana in Bunamwaya. He seems to have built the school for his evil purposes. True or false? Government has put in place an investigating committee; let it root out all these criminals.
Gadgets to fool the gullible are bad enough. Ensnaring defenceless children and the youth, of both sexes, is a nightmare scenario deserving no mercy or forgiveness.
***************
Your columnist yields to nobody in his affection for President (for once a president always a president) Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa.
I have known him for many a year, and many are the jokes we keep exchanging. I doubt he has ever intentionally hurt another person, be it foe or friend. It is true he was exceedingly rude about President Museveni and indeed the National Resistance Movement itself, impugning base motives to both.
But this was when he was in New York, eking out a miserable living, and very ill at that. There are many stories from that interlude, but one will suffice. A man said to a friend: “You know I keep meeting a madman on the subway (underground train) who insists he has been president of Uganda.†How the two laughed! In the end Binaisa decided to wend his way home, and asked Museveni for help in winding up his American sorrows.
This was swiftly done and the prodigal uncle was received warmly; the fatted cow amounting to his being granted his full honours and benefits as an ex-president. Not only that; President Museveni was very much present some years later to witness Binaisa’s “blissful†(as Binaisa termed it) wedding to a new bride.
It is untrue that President Binaisa has been treated “like a village headsmanâ€, and the relevant Permanent Secretary has convincingly repudiated this. That the Public Service is sometimes strapped for funds is a truth widely acknowledged. Binaisa knows it, and also that most other countries would not have accorded him the warm reception he has received.
It is upon him, and his dignity and seriousness, to judge whether his recent outburst was worthy, or deserved by the hand that happily feeds him.
**************
I wonder to whom Kampala Mayor Hajji Nasser Ssebaggala repairs for advice! His latest idea of advertising himself on Kampala’s rubbish bins is bound to prove catastrophic. It is rumoured to have cost Uganda shillings 300,000,000 (not far from US $200,000) of somebody’s (not his) money.
You question how many better uses the colossal sum could have been spent for the under-funded capital! Mr Ssebaggala, as the saying goes, “hails from the peopleâ€. I am given to understand that is why he uses the title “Seyaâ€.
But will these needy cheer him on for this wanton and self-serving misuse of their funds? On the contrary. My “ears†from the more forsaken parts of the capital tell me that they have started referring to their man as: “Oh you mean Misita Kasasiro� (Mister Rubbish Bin).
They say they have prepared a slogan: “Rubbish to Rubbish†which they will eventually scroll on every single bin. Oh boy! Time to leave town, Mr Mayor?
UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST... INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE
An elderly Muganda woman was heard to exclaim: “Nga ba Paasita bakutte wansi newaggulu!†It is almost impossible to translate without going into a few sentences but the gist is that the Pastors are swarming up and down all over the place.
A few examples shall suffice. “Pastors are involved in sodomy of the youngâ€; “Pastors batten on the poor of Societyâ€; “Pastors sell God’s favours to the gullibleâ€.
This week there was the peerless allegation of a pastor who allegedly bought electrical gadgets to make people in his close vicinity (when he was hooked up) to tremble and fall at his feet during his sermons. Now, where have we seen and read of this happening recently? Perhaps, just maybe, it explains a lot! I had already spent hours trying to work out how some well-known people in the pastor trade had slithered to the floor not once but thrice in quick succession. Really, has it come to this, and would God sanction it?
Obviously I would never dream of saying that such allegations can be upheld against all pastors, who must surely be as diverse as any other grouping. But it takes but one member of a clan to bring that clan into disrepute. And some of the evidence sounds convincing on the face of it.
A very well written three-part series in Sunday Vision (catch the last part tomorrow) is about the hard sell of certain pastors to force cash and goods from their gullible sheep, in return for “favours from Godâ€.
It is nauseating; but these enticers will find in the Bible that one sin God will never forget is “taking His name in vainâ€; in this case coercing in His name. Hell, without remission, awaits; have they, of all people, forgotten? The whole place seems riddled with them, and their numbers seem to multiply in rabbit-like fashion. Then we have read about those who feast on poverty-stricken boys and girls. It is the easiest way for these youngsters to get somewhere to sleep, and food to eat, and, if lucky, funds for school.
The Monitor told a heart-rending story of boys who were allegedly preyed on by a highborn pastor, whose grandfather, on his mother’s side, was Kabaka of Buganda. This pastor at least has since resigned. If these victims make it to school, it is unfortunately not the end of their suffering.
Rumours abound of a foreign-born pastor on the Entebbe Road, past Zana in Bunamwaya. He seems to have built the school for his evil purposes. True or false? Government has put in place an investigating committee; let it root out all these criminals.
Gadgets to fool the gullible are bad enough. Ensnaring defenceless children and the youth, of both sexes, is a nightmare scenario deserving no mercy or forgiveness.
***************
Your columnist yields to nobody in his affection for President (for once a president always a president) Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa.
I have known him for many a year, and many are the jokes we keep exchanging. I doubt he has ever intentionally hurt another person, be it foe or friend. It is true he was exceedingly rude about President Museveni and indeed the National Resistance Movement itself, impugning base motives to both.
But this was when he was in New York, eking out a miserable living, and very ill at that. There are many stories from that interlude, but one will suffice. A man said to a friend: “You know I keep meeting a madman on the subway (underground train) who insists he has been president of Uganda.†How the two laughed! In the end Binaisa decided to wend his way home, and asked Museveni for help in winding up his American sorrows.
This was swiftly done and the prodigal uncle was received warmly; the fatted cow amounting to his being granted his full honours and benefits as an ex-president. Not only that; President Museveni was very much present some years later to witness Binaisa’s “blissful†(as Binaisa termed it) wedding to a new bride.
It is untrue that President Binaisa has been treated “like a village headsmanâ€, and the relevant Permanent Secretary has convincingly repudiated this. That the Public Service is sometimes strapped for funds is a truth widely acknowledged. Binaisa knows it, and also that most other countries would not have accorded him the warm reception he has received.
It is upon him, and his dignity and seriousness, to judge whether his recent outburst was worthy, or deserved by the hand that happily feeds him.
**************
I wonder to whom Kampala Mayor Hajji Nasser Ssebaggala repairs for advice! His latest idea of advertising himself on Kampala’s rubbish bins is bound to prove catastrophic. It is rumoured to have cost Uganda shillings 300,000,000 (not far from US $200,000) of somebody’s (not his) money.
You question how many better uses the colossal sum could have been spent for the under-funded capital! Mr Ssebaggala, as the saying goes, “hails from the peopleâ€. I am given to understand that is why he uses the title “Seyaâ€.
But will these needy cheer him on for this wanton and self-serving misuse of their funds? On the contrary. My “ears†from the more forsaken parts of the capital tell me that they have started referring to their man as: “Oh you mean Misita Kasasiro� (Mister Rubbish Bin).
They say they have prepared a slogan: “Rubbish to Rubbish†which they will eventually scroll on every single bin. Oh boy! Time to leave town, Mr Mayor?