Wont Joan Kagezi's children be forgotten?

By Charles Okecha

The Easter week was fraught with grief as terrorists slew the Ugandan prosecutor Joan Kagezi and scores of students in Garissa University College, Kenya. The renowned news anchor Bbale Francis also died.

In moments of such tragedies many pledges are made to crackdown on the killers or tackle circumstances that caused such pain and to help the dependants/affected. Do these commitments pass the litmus taste of time and burden of responsibility involved? My prayer and plea is that Joan’s children be spared from dreadful syndrome of forgetfulness of the dead which seems to be a habitual pattern in Africa thus killing invention which relies on study of the work of the dead.

In Uganda, crimes and tragedies occur in succession and owing challenges related to shortage of funds, equipment and personnel, judicial processes and provisions of assistance take long or end prematurely. Culprits must be pursued quickly before their paths are obscured. Likewise pledges made by government and other stakeholders to assist the deserving should be made accessible and shielded from bureaucratic manipulation.

Personal experience reminds me that forgetfulness becomes inevitable when a person dies. We lost our parents at a tender age when we still needed them. They cherished Christian values of showing kindness and hospitality to church leaders, neighbours and strangers and hardly spent a week without entertaining guests. They also educated relatives but after their demise our home was reduced to a historical site which excited only strangers. By then salaries and pensions weren’t channeled through banks and the dead pensioner who worked in a public corporation was easily recognized and forthwith the tap was turned off. Corruption and embezzlement was anonymous and still at large and no institution could come to our rescue. Forgetting the past became our only remedy for moving forward.

An African student obtained sponsorship to study aviation in the United States. While pondering over the challenges of the new course, a passing vehicle brushed against his body without bruising him.

Suddenly police cars and ambulances assembled at the accident scene.

He was offered the best tender care he had ever experienced in his lifetime and leave to recover before resuming his studies. Unlike ours where road accidents, collapsing buildings, flooding rivers and diseases carry out routine destruction with ease, that proactive society takes care of tragedies not watching them happen again and again. They are quick to notice the plight of our sick and needy to our shame and dismay.

 

Ever since the 1998 terrorist bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi killing hundreds, the Kenyan government did little to bolster national security. The attack by disguise targeted American establishments but more Kenyans than the Americans died. Al Qaeda established a stronghold in neigbouring Somalia and indoctrinated youth recruits to form the Al Shabaab affiliate. It took the Garissa massacre, for president Kenyatta to authorize immediate conscription of 10,000 personnel that was promised after the 2013  West Gate attack. These past incidents were of lesser significance to government and parliament who concentrated on other matters leaving the country’s borders with Somalia vulnerable to attacks.

In 2011, South Sudan was created after a referendum for freedom from domination by the Arab north. Prior to that,  decade of civil war destroyed lives and property.  After two years, President Salvar Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar were embroiled in power struggle.

The Dinka and Nuer have forgotten to develop their country nearly 3 times Uganda’s size choosing to rely on the later for peace.

To  develop Africa, we must tame forgetfulness.