AGATALIIKO NFUUFU: ‘It was 10 at night when I shook the dust of Uganda from my feet’

A plump, middle-aged woman appears on the TV screen, seething with anger. She grabs a big stick and starts hitting her teenage daughter with all her might. The daughter does not even bat an eyelid.

You would think she is being hit with a feather. “You are no longer my mother,” the teenager says calmly. “You are my co-wife.”

The woman has just discovered that her husband has been committing incest with his stepdaughter.

This is not a movie. It is fresh news that happened a few hours earlier in the afternoon. Time check: 10.00pm. Welcome to Agataliiko Nfuufu (Dustless News), the popular news programme on the government television station, Bukedde TV.

Ugandans hate dust. But the more they hate it, the more it torments them everywhere they go, and everywhere they stay. There is dust in their city, dust in their homes, dust in their food and dust in their lungs.

An hour after a heavy rainstorm, the sun comes out, the cars run over the unpaved roads and the dust hits you in the face. Promise Ugandans something dust-free and they will eagerly reach out for it.
No wonder the most popular media item today is Dustless News. No soap opera, political talk show or football league broadcast enjoys the quiet but solid popularity of this programme. It started last year after the ruling National Resistance Movement celebrated 25 years in power. Now, a year later, Dustless News is easily the most popular NRM product around.

Schoolteachers loved the dustless chalk, which saved them from coughing like smokers and going everywhere with chalk dust on their clothes.But 25 years ago, the NRM brought dustless chalk through some donor programme when the world was rushing to assist the young government as the country emerged from years of civil war.

But the school administrators hated it for it was so hard that it scratched blackboards and the dusters could not wipe it off easily.
Eventually dustless chalk lost out and we were back to a fully dusty existence. Over the past 25 years, many commissions of inquiry have been instituted into this and that public affair.

Numerous commission reports have been written and gathered dust on the shelves of dusty government offices. People are so used to reports gathering dust that when Bukedde launched the daily Dustless News report, it became an instant hit.

On an average night, Dustless News shows you police rescuing a few-hours-old baby from down a latrine as neighbours beat up its teenage mum, a small thief being burnt alive, neighbours in a punch-up over one of their wives or a drunken grandma fallen on the roadside, her wrinkled body covered with er… dust.

This past Christmas, Agataliko Nfuufu showed an angry widow with her two kids next to her husband’s corpse still dangling on a rope and asking why he should kill himself over a “small thing” like being denied conjugal rights on the big day after he sold off their mattress to buy booze.

Every day, the most unlikely people, from judges to priests, discuss the previous night’s Dustless News.

If you want to run for public office in Uganda, better position yourself as the dustless candidate.

adopted from the EAST AFRICAN

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com

GRAMMY AWARDS PREDICTIONS: Hip Hop and Best New Artist, Who will Smile on the Big Night?

The Grammy awards are definitely the biggest night in music. Every year acts in different categories are nominated to compete for the converted Gramophone.

As am writing this we are counting weeks to the Grammy awards night on February 12^th, it will be a Sunday as always.  Unlike the past five ceremonies, this ceremony is going to have a host in hip hop son LL COOL J (surprising how the Grammies are bringing back hosts while VMAs are ditching them).

And talking about the Hip hop son, he’s a two time Grammy award winner with a number of top ten billboard singles and movies to his name. Though that’s not all, I don’t know why I feel like Mr. Cool J was picked because of the influence Hip hop in the whole has on Grammy awards this year.

Let’s face it Adele may have ruled the charts last year but another Hip hop artist with barely a top ten song dominated the nomination list with seven. And no offence many of us are still outraged that Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album missed out on Album of the Year, trust me it’s the only Album that deserved that award but wasn’t even nominated. Hip hop may not have dominated the top four prestigious awards of the night like: Album of the Year and Song of the year Categories but still, hip hop still showed a great presence in the other half of the big four televised categories.

Hip hop had a great year that’s why in this article am specifically making predictions of who I think is going home a winner come the Grammy night next month in the Hip hop category.

First of all love him or hate him Kanye West is a genius, it’s no mistake that he’s the most nominated artist at this year’s Grammy awards. With seven nominations and two brilliant Albums in Kanye will leave the show with something.

He’s a Grammy act, the academy loves him and he’s been nominated for Album of the Year twice, much as he’s never won any of the big four, he’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy not only deserved a shot at the Album of the Year it even deserved to win. With such an upset by the academy, when they chose not to nominate the album might work for Kanye in the Hip hop category, truly this album is diverse and meant to change the game for some time, no one deserves to win Rap Album like Kanye. His other Competition may be Nicki Minaj whose Pink Friday was a huge success commercially plus her album got a huge influence on the MTV generation, Lil Wayne’ s Carter III was a massive success on the charts, downloads and the market but the real deal and competition to Kanye will be Kanye West himself. His crime this time might be for crafting another brilliant album with longtime friend and new father Jay-Z. Watch the Throne is the only other album that may match the Brilliance that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is and the reason is that the albums were crafted by the same person. Thus much as Nicki Minaj is a darling to the fans, she is a Britney Spears of sorts trust me she’s not picking up this award.

Then we have the category for best rap/sung collaboration, this award for some reason has always gone to Jay-Z as long as he’s been nominated. He won it with Encore, Umbrella, Run this town, Empire State of Mind and many more thus with him in this category there more chances that he’s bent to win this category with Kanye west and considering the fact that he’s a new dad, what a way to celebrate Blue Ivy Carter.

There more chances that All of the Lights will win an award or two for Kanye, it’s the only Hip hop song nominated in the Big four categories thus it has a chance of winning.

Talking a lot of Kanye and awards usually bring back the memories of the VMAs in 2009 and that’s Taylor Swift we are talking about. Her album Speak Now will definitely win Country Album, she really deserved a slot at the top album nomination. She has a chance of winning many of the country slots this year.

The other category may be the Best New Artist, for many Nicki Minaj is a clear favorite but the person to beat is some guy Bon Iver in the person Justin Vernon. His self titled Album was nominated for Album of The Year thus stands more chances at the best new artist.

WHAT IF MARY SAID NO TO THE ANGEL?

It’s said the festive season ends when we celebrate the New Year, yet for many Catholic Christian faithful, the festive season lasts till March 25^th.

March 25^th marks the beginning of the nine months Mary was pregnant with Baby Jesus. Of course we all celebrated Christmas as Christians, from the Anglicans, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s witnesses and so many more Jesus, his birth and resurrection have always been a big deal.

One day I was talking to this friend of mine who seemed to be baffled by the fact that Catholics attach a lot of respect to the Virgin Mary, in her view; Mary was just like any Girl God would choose to do his work.

“there is no reason to attach all that respect to a woman simply because she became pregnant by the grace, Mary is an empty vessel like all of us, the lord just chooses you to do, say his words and do his work on earth”, she argued.

Apparently that sweet friend is not the only one that thinks so, many non catholic faithful share her sentiments, they feel Mary should be relegated to the ranks of a mere believer just like you and I.

May be they are right, Mary is simply any woman, just another daughter to Hannah and Joachim, but they usually forget a lot of issues, why did God choose Mary and not an Elizabeth or Martha? Why did he wait that long? Where other women not pure enough? Or better, what if Mary said no? What if Mary said no to Angel Gabriel’s massage?

Like I usually say, someone skewed the bible to favor or boost men’s egos; I mean its only religion and the bible where everything that would have brought respect to a woman was mysteriously deleted. It’s partly because of this that many feel like Mary is irrelevant to our beliefs.

In one of his writings on Catholic.org, Deacon Keith Fournier says Mary is a mirror and a reflection of someone beloved and that’s her son and our savior Jesus. Much as it was a privilege for her to bare for the sake of the world, the lord filled her with his grace which makes her special.

In different editions of his writings the Deacon even tries at explaining the name and origin of the Name Mary. Mary or Madonna is originally from Hebrew spelt as Miryam and was the only daughter Hannah and Joachim had after various trials.

According to him, it was not chosen to give birth to Jesus by mistake, she wasn’t the only virgin considering the fact that this was the time morality was at its best, she wasn’t the only Mary and if we are to look at the meaning of the name, “beautiful and rebellious” don’t really count enough to get God have his son.

Mary was special that God specifically wanted her not anyone else, but what if she let her human nature take over by looking into the angel’s eyes and said NO.  Would you have celebrated Christmas last year who knows may be God would have taken another break of like more 2000 years and may be to date he would still be looking for the perfect candidate.

It’s sad when many Christians fail to see the importance of Mary; they forget that all the events of Jesus and his miracles have one Genesis which is Mary.

Without Mary there would be no human Jesus thus probably there would be no Palm Sunday, no Good Friday. Without this there would be no Easter or resurrection.

Literally if Mary said NO this entire Christianity thing would have been a dream since there’s no Christianity without Jesus.

One may argue that God may have swapped for another candidate, yes he might have but just like humans don’t want to be used I don’t want to believe that God simply used Mary to get his son and then throw her away like she was waste.

It’s the act of God to have a child with Mary that makes and blesses the Marriage institution, if Jesus had been a single product of God, the world order would be different. This would have given room to gay marriages since the savior would have been born by one parent who even happens to be a he.

If Christians usually talk about family with respect, then they should get used to the fact that God is the father and Mary is a mother.

If Mary had said No on that afternoon of March 25^th Jesus would probably have come but without a mother, that would have deprived him of being human. Not even a disciple would follow a man without a background they would have called him a ghost.

Mary made Jesus appear human she made God one of us and part of us. Imagine a Jesus without a mother or biological dad? He would have been a nowhere man of nowhere background and nowhere parents. He would be making his nowhere plans for nobody, performing miracles for nobody and preaching a nowhere gospel to no one.

We all listen to people we know, people with a reference and in this case Jesus’ reference was Mary and Joseph. Would any one of you have followed pastor Kayanja if he had no history or can a catholic believe a priest who just shows up and says he’s a priest without passing through the seminary?

Mary gave Jesus a back bone, it’s because of Mary that Jesus was referred to as so and so’s son, without this he would be hanging. Any human being comes from a woman thus regardless of what or who; no one could have offered Jesus the element of humanity if it wasn’t for the mother.    

It’s crazy for one to call her simply another human in the bible, if it wasn’t for this human, we couldn’t have seen Jesus change water into wine which cements the importance of the virgin’s role and a question, if Mary had said No, would Christianity be the Christianity we know today?

NOVEMBER 30TH, WHEN THE GRAMMY MET PAM AWARDS

 

In the past few weeks, people have said all sort of things about PAM awards, many (artists) called them unprofessional, media houses did their verdicts that some even did post mortems of the show. A few however came out to applaud Isaac for a job well done.

Though, in a nutshell, much as some of the complaints were relevant, others were simply childish complaints by uninformed artists who by the way can’t even put a finger to the music genre they are doing. Can you imagine even lousy artists without a hit to their name came out to criticize PAM awards this year mbu Danger man Mosh or Bucha man. This was too much that even one Moses Ssekibogo said he does only attend international awards since he already jumped the PAM awards hudle.

True to your word Mr. Mowzey, tell us how many times you have been nominated for those international awards and how many times have you actually won? The same question goes to you Bobi Wine and Chameleon. May be Chameleon has been nominated a number of times but he never wins. And for Mowzey and TV, don’t even think of mentioning Keko’s award its her song her award thus besides the Buzz Tenniez awards which are decided by kids who use the term LOL when they don’t even understand what it means, Bobi Wine and peers need PAM awards badly.

Who else will nominate Matyansi if Isaac doesn’t? May be Peter Miles or Bebe Cool can boast of international awards, I mean we can’t simply bypass Bebe’s two Channel O awards in 2007 or his double Nomination in the 2009 KORA awards was a land mark. Though, back to the complaining musicians, can they tell us that exact thing they think PAM awards used to do that they are not doing today? Can they give that exact ingredient PAM lost thus its loss of credibility? Do they even understand the international awards they boast of?

Grammy awards happen to be the most respected music awards in the industry. With an experience of 53 years the Grammy academy gives out over six life time achievement awards and 106 awards in the same number of categories.

On November 30^th, the Grammy academy will announce nominees for next years’ ceremony. Am going to make a number of comparisons between our concluded PAM awards, the nominees and what the academy may announce as a nominee list come November 30^th, Ugandans need to learn a thing or two about international awards.

And before I get any further, for our artists who think that getting an MTV nomination is all, do your research well. MTV awards, no offence to them but they lead the pack when it comes to award shows with out credibility. The reason is that their winners are mostly influenced by the public vote just like PAM their lack of credibility was the reason we witnessed an episode between Kanye and Taylor in the 2009 VMA edition.
Back to the Grammy awards, hope many of you have spent the big part of this year listening to some pirated collection of western music and perhaps, in your little mind you’re twisted in belief that you know both the nominees and the winner.

But Grammies don’t roll according to the demands of the public; they have an academy which totally decides the nominees and winners. At least PAM lets you vote for the winners but the Grammies your job as a fan is done when you download and request for the songs, the nominees and eventual winners are none of your business.

I can comfortably tell you that come November 30^th, a little known English song bird Adele will dominate the nomination list with her hit album 21. this album will prominently feature in the top three biggest awards of the night like Song of the Year, Record of the Year and the biggest Album of the year. Now if this was a Ugandan setting, the public would pass the academy off as unprofessional considering the fact that Adele is little known compared to the likes of Lil Wayne or Kanye West.

With his big ego, Kanye West (read Bobi Wine) would call the Grammies an upcoming artists’ award show that doesn’t know what they are doing. He will vow never to attend such a show but simply send his 5 year old son.

Basing on the fact that she had some hits but won’t get a nomination, Avril Lavigne who would be Jamal or Kenzo in our case would complain that their songs were not nominated and when he says this the public is quick to join him forgetting that each category only has room for four artists.

Now unlike PAM, Grammies dwell on albums, one can’t be nominated best new before they release a debut album. Even if one has many singles and collabos, without an album, they can’t get a best new artist nomination. Thus, the Grammies would nominate Nicki Minaj or Bruno Mars whose albums Pink Friday and Doo Woops and Hooligans have been hits. Of course if the Grammy awards met the PAM, Nicki Minaj would be Chris Evans and Bruno Mars would be Mun*g or Caesar Man. Radio presenters and journalists would jump on now and accuse PAM awards of nominating old artists in a new artists’ category. They would argue that they saw Caesar Man Mr. DJ back in 2009 the same year Chris Evans’ Rihanna was released. And actually it’s the same year I first saw Nicki Minaj on a BET cipher and some song called Bedrock.

Like I told you, the Grammy awards usually consider 106 categories though for the first time in their history, the categories will be reduced to a mere 76. Reason being that some categories are dormant, less competitive some particular acts have dominated them. The academy will merge them with relative categories like merging male and female categories. In our setting such categories would include live band category which has been dominated by the Eagles Production which is not even a band. Before I forget, let’s settle this, what’s a band?

A band does songs together and releases a joint album. Boys 2 Men, NSYC were boy bands, BLU3 was a band, UB40 and Afrigo or Qwela are live bands. All the above have one thing in common; they release joint albums regardless of who takes the lead. When a band member does songs alone, it’s considered a solo project not a band song. What Eagles production are simply solo projects or say its simply another group of artists like Baboon Forest or internationally Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. That aside there’s nothing live band about Eagle’s music. It’s simply a descent version of Afro beat that needs another category name like Adult Contemporary but not live band.

That said, PAM can use the grammy theory by killing off and merging categories. Some categories have been dormant since 2003, look at live band it could become Best duo/group. Best Reggae, cultural have been dominated by the same names Bebe Cool and Ndere Troupe.

This is for the Olive awards too, awarding Baby Gloria with the best child star award is almost a give away. Think about it, who else had to win this apart from her? How many child stars do we even have in Uganda? So what will happen to the category next year? Give her another one for being Baby Gloria?

Award shows are not meant to catwer for everyone and its also stupid for the public to say that so and so should have won or been nominated since they have been in the industry for so long. Underground music doesn’t build an industry hits do, it’s the reason Kanye West has 14 grammies in 7 years compared to Rakim a famous underground rapper.

In conclusion, Kanye West will be nominated in various rap categories and in some cases he will be nominated against himself, if it was Uganda,journalists would blame Mulindwa for nominating people against their own songs.the aweard show would in turn not be attended by some artists simply because they fear losing. And just like all award shows, they can never get away fromsurprises thus like PAMhad surprise winners, expect surprise nominees and eventual winners come February.

THE YEAR THAT WAS 2011

2011 came in with a lot of hope that’s to say from the number of ambitions many of us had to the excitement of ending that gruesome 2010. Regardless of where we ushered 2011 from, many of us had high hopes for 2011.

At this time, the election fever had already consumed our souls most especially that large size one by the president. The elections kicked in and we saw some character assassination and lots of money changing hands. Though much as many will have a lot to say about 2011 we at the youth link decided to sum up the year that saw the first youth forum news paper launch in Uganda.

Politics

The beginning, as I said was marred with a lot character assassination and with a fact that the presidential race was merely between two usual candidates, it would be bad not mention the constant attacks Besigye and friends had on Museveni and Museveni in turn attacking Besigye.

Just like the NRM caucus their election was much driven by money offered to voters, local leaders a lot of poor quality merchandise was made to simply honor the NRM party elections. From T-shirts to caps it was visible that the party had sunk a lot of millions in this campaign.

Fast forward to February 28^th Ugandans turned up to vote in, well, small numbers. Museveni was voted into power for the ummm (I don’t know how many times, I lose count) but he was voted into power by an overwhelming majority. The election as usual was marred by vote rigging, voters’ ignorance and allegedly ballot staffing. For the first time, this election didn’t end in courts of law as the opposition had earlier discredited the independence of the judicial system.

The parliamentary election was no surprise with NRM winning majority of the seats and a surprise northern constituency, the Kampala mayoral race became the other highlight where Ssematimba’s academic qualifications almost took centre stage or the alleged ballot staffing at the would be mayoral election days.

Then we had the post election drama starting with the walk to work campaign by the Action for Change pressure group with Besigye as the main actor, this later led to quite a number of riots with the police poorly using their black cans, you know the teargas bottles? It all climaxed when one Bwana Arinaitwe sprayed the doctor’s face with his toilet insecticide.

Then the swearing in ceremony, who could forget the overwhelming numbers on Entebbe road for Besigye’s return, Museveni truly shot himself in the foot by blocking his return a day earlier. I think this is the time he should have thought of really firing that shirt of an adviser he has, because of that ill advice, the Ugandan president became a joke on the Nairobi streets following his NTV interview in Kenya. He said Besigye had sprayed the officials with pepper and Kenyans had spent the better half of that weekend making comedy jokes and news parodies about him.

Who can even forget the swearing in ceremony at the parliament or the councilor’s broken English, that was the period, their failure to master the queen’s language made their leadership questionable.

We can’t just by pass the nullified election results, from Singi Katogole’s unexpected win to former Vice President’s clear cut win. Talking about the Vice president we can’t stop talking about the shocking cabinet Museveni announced, can you believe it had Ssebagala in it or the shock in Kakooza’s eyes after that Committee rejected him.  

Politically this year has been active one, the oil scandal, CHOGM scandal and all those corruption allegations, who could even forego the fact that they all had the Prime Minister’s name in them. Much as the parliament constantly asked the people involved to step aside to allow investigations, hon. Hillary Onek and Amama Mbabazi refused to step aside till to date.

You can’t talk about 2011 politics and live the 9^th parliament aside, first of all its run by the first woman speaker in the Ugandan history and for the first time we have a speaker who doesn’t bow down to the demands of the party. With a whole lot of Youthful MPs, Mrs. Rebecca Kadaga has made the first eight months of the Ninth Parliament very newsworthy.

2011 was a hub of activities even in the international media and politics, this year saw the world’s oldest News Of The World shutdown amidst phone tapping allegations. This same year saw the Italian prime minister and owner of Italian football side AC Milan stand down.

African dictators must have taken the year hardest since it saw the end of some regimes and demise of one, from the Arab awakening the ended the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan regimes with even the death of Gaddafi a self designated King of Kings.