Olara Otunnu speaks out on marriage
Dec 02, 2014
The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party president Dr. Olara Otunnu has said the public should leave him to discuss his marriage issue with his uncles and aunties.
By Umaru Kashaka
The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party president Dr. Olara Otunnu has said the public should leave him to discuss his marriage issue with his uncles and aunties.
In an interview with New Vision at the party headquarters in Kampala, the former diplomat said he does not complain about Ugandan women whom he described as “beautiful, wonderful and gracious”.
“Why don’t you leave that (marriage issue) for my aunties and uncles to discuss with me? They will discuss that with me as family only, but you at your level assume that your concern is above all about the state of the country—what kind of leadership Uganda needs?” he said.
He noted that there is no direct relationship at all between being married and being a good leader.
“Marriage is a wonderful thing in its own good right; let’s not confuse it with leadership. I hope when people marry they marry because they are in love, because they have met with someone they really like and can live in happiness with, not to impress people politically, not for purposes of gaining votes, what a horror! What a terrible idea!” he stressed.
Asked when he plans to have a wife, Otunnu, who has studied at Oxford and Harvard Universities, had a flying humanitarian career with the United Nations and moved places and became famous, said: “I will let
you know when I reach that bridge. But in the meantime it should not be your preoccupation.”
Otunnu, who returned to Uganda from self-imposed exile in 2010, told journalists at a press briefing in 2012 that “for me having a wife, we should all take responsibility, since in the African culture, searching for a suitor is community business”.
“So, I ask you the audience and my critics to wake up and take your responsibility to find me a suitor soon,” he added.
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