Bonita NAKALULE
On 25th August this year Gen Elly Tumwine the former minister of security died at Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi.
Tumwine’s death like earlier reported by this website brought up mixed reactions from the public with some celebrating his death on various social media platforms.
The latest we now have is president Museveni responding to all those that celebrated his bush war colleague’s death and calling them shallow.
In a special signed document that he put out on his official Twitter page, the president mentioned Bobi wine, Kankweza and a few others as some of the people that celebrated the death of Gen Tumwine on Twitter and other platforms.
“Today, the 5th of October, I had the opportunity to look at the tweets that were being sent by some malicious and confused people when General Tumwiine died. My staff told me about those tweets, but I had not had time to look at them.”
1. Mr. Kakwenza “moaned” (meaning mourned) with pleasure;
2. Mr. Bobi Wine – became biblical, quoting “dust to dust” and admonishing everybody to be “humble” – meaning that Tumwiine was not humble;
3. Masereka Jodrah, Ineza Tusiime, Kwemboi, Magezi Damic, Atutta, Ogwal Joseph, Nabukalu Rachel, Rea Gan, Mugambe, Olanya, Allan Allan and others, were celebrating, in different ways.
4. That type of thinking is wrong for the following reasons:
(i) We all shall die, eventually. That, therefore, cannot be a matter for celebrating whether you like the person in question or not. People who do that are deceiving themselves, highlighted Museveni in the document.
The president went ahead to mention some of the things that the late Gen Tumwine achieved in the 68 years that he lived then concluded by saying it was very wrong for one to celebrate his death.
“Therefore, celebrating that Tumwiine has died at 68 years of age, after achieving all this, shows that you are, at the least, shallow because Tumwiine did not fear death because that is why he went to fight with arms, to look for possible death, when he was in his 20s, on account of patriotism and Pan- Africanism.”
“Moreover, Tumwiine because he lived longer than some of the other fighters, he cared for the children of some of the fallen comrades.”
Tumwiine was an early achiever, If some people do not appreciate such people, it could be that they are either uninformed (ignorant) or they are parasites (want affluence without working).
“Such people should be guided or condemned if they persist in their negativity. The roads everybody rides on, the schools, the electricity stations that generate electricity for the night-club goers to have transnights and tweet the following day etc., are from the sweat of the wealth creators like Tumwiine. “
Not to forget the peace the tweeters are using to express their malice. Go and send tweets in Mogadishu, if you think peace is not important” read parts of the document.
This response comes on the same day when the president also put out another document in which he apologized to Kenyans and Ugandans for the recklessness of his son Gen Muhoozi.
