By Michael Aboneka
One of the cornerstones for democracy is public participation. Public participation is the golden thread in the thread of accountability. Article 1, 29, 38 and 52 of the Constitution of Uganda guarantees the right of citizens to express their opinion as well as participate in the affairs of government as individuals or through association.
Holding leaders to account is a key principle of democratic governance to which Uganda subscribes to and that it must guarantee and uphold these rights at all times. Further, Uganda is signatory to several international and regional legal instruments such as the International Covenant on civil political rights (ICCPR), African charter on human rights, African Charter on Democracy Elections and Good governance which all enjoin Uganda to protect, promote and guarantee the freedom of expression and public participation of its citizens.
The recent exhibition is not new; we have over the past protested, presented petitions, lodged complaints to our leaders but all in vain. The recent gesture by Dr. Spire Sentongo to rally citizens to Exhibit the state of roads and now the state of our health care system is commendable, for it is buttressing the principle of accountability and public participation.
One of the enigmas we have suffered for long is a non-responsive government where demands are made and no feedback is given at all and if you are lucky, the usual rhetoric of “no budget for this and that” will be the only response. As citizens, we give government power and taxes and what we expect is adequate and efficient service delivery in all sectors and a prudent government is one that listens to its citizens and acts upon their demands.
The exhibition(s) of the state of our public services from the Entebbe international Airport, to potholes in Kampala have yielded results with the President ordering for a supplementary budget to KCCA to fix the potholes. One wonders if this mass citizen action wasn’t taken what would be the state of our facilities. It is the duty of every citizen to hold their leader accountable and also participate in the affairs of their country.
Despite the illegal closure of Facebook, which is 3 years ever since; Ugandans have built resilience and used all avenues available to express their dissatisfactions and approvals.
According to Datareportal 2023, there are over 4.76Billion people on social media and 2.05 million Ugandans and 20.16 million mobile connections in Uganda and it is will be foolhardy for any leader to ignore those voices because they are not limited to Uganda alone but to billions of people in the world. The best for the leader to do is to receive feedback, take it in good faith and act upon the situation(s). I have seen many government officials spending a lot of time planning how to counteract citizens’ voices. This is itself self-defeating and unfortunate-for a pro-people government as it is described, listening to citizens is an expectation. Government officials should take this as an opportunity for constructive feedback and even when the feedback cuts through the skin, it is also oke; for it’s for the betterment of our society.
What government leaders must do is to receive this feedback and treat it as free citizen monitoring and evaluation exercise to which instant results are published on daily basis. It will be unfortunate and undemocratic for government to start planning on how thwart citizens’ efforts and even if this is done, the resilience that citizens have built will lead them to new avenues of innovation and we shall still go on with the exhibition.
In the spirit of love for the country, the citizen exhibition should be a daily activity where every public sector is monitored and evaluated for action to be done. As citizens, it is our right to demand for accountability from those we entrusted our country with-this might be the only noble thing you can ever do for your country. Let us continue with daily exhibitions of all the public sectors until our voices are heard and acted upon-for it is our right and the government must protect this right and also provide feedback, for we are doing this for the love
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Theodore Roosevelt.
Michael Aboneka is a Partner: Thomas & Michael Advocates| Director: Envirogreen Trust Ltd| Vice President-Young African Activists Network (YAAN)| Member: Pan-African Lawyers Union, International Society of Public Law & World Youth Alliance|
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