Ugandan minister of internal affairs Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire has blasted Ugandans for celebrating the death of ex-security minister Gen Elly Tumwine, saying it is only stupid people who could argue with someone who is already dead.
Since the announcement of the death of Gen Tumwine last week, some Ugandans, largely those opposed to the President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime, have been discussing the legacy of the general from Rwemikoma, the man celebrated for firing the first shot that sparked off the National Resistance Army (NRA) bush war in 1981 following the controversial 1980 elections.
Gen Tumwine is among other issues criticized for his statements in 2020 in which he warned Ugandans that members of security forces such as officers of the Uganda Police Force (UPF) and the national army, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), could shoot and kill them if they (members of the public) went overboard and provoked the men and women in uniform.
But speaking during the funeral of Gen Tumwine in Mukuru, Rwemikoma in Kazo District on Tuesday, August 30, Gen Otafiire, one of the surviving generals of Museveni’s bush war, said nobody should criticize Gen Tumwine since he was telling people the truth when he warned that police and the military had a right to shoot protesters if they went overboard.
Maj Gen (Rtd) Otafiire, who was with Gen Tumwine at Makerere University (both of them resided in the famous Lumumba Hall), further laughed at Ugandans who were spending their time discussing Gen Tumwine, a man he said had left behind a footprint, instead of doing things which will impact society and for which they will be remembered when they are also long gone.
Gen Otafiire, who is known for speaking his mind, went on to say that stupidity was not triable in courts of law, adding that under a democratic society, people had a right to be foolish.
He also suggested that there was something wrong with people who were keen on starting quarrels with people who are already and cannot defend themselves.
“Stupidity is not an offence. It is their [some foolish people’s] democratic and constitutional right to exercise their stupidity and lack of information,” said Otafiire, the Ruhinda County MP.
“Do you think that any person quarreling with a dead body is sane?”
At the same funeral, Otafiire left some balokole cursing when he said that he had become somehow uncomfortable with Gen Tumwine’s preaching as the general from Kazo kept pestering him to get saved.
Meanwhile, Kahinda Otafiire revealed Gen Elly Tumwine’s final message to surviving bush war generals before he died. (Read Story Here).
