A friend and doctor of former security minister Gen Elly Tumwine has reminded Kira Municipality MP, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) spokesperson, and other Ugandans ‘celebrating’ the general’s death that they will also die, some time.
Some Ugandans, especially those in the political opposition, have been ‘celebrating’ the death of Gen Tumwine, particularly for his statement on the shooting of protesters while he served as security minister ahead of the chaotic 2021 general elections.
In some of his statements following the death of Gen Tumwine, MP Ssemujju Nganda described the general from Kazo District as “one person who has, since the bush, wanted to elevate himself above others.” Ssemujju said this quest for elevation was the reason Gen Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni fired Tumwine as army commander decades ago.
But that was not as biting as this statement: “Gen Tumwine behave as if he had a contract with the Almighty God that he will live forever. Now the people he wanted to shoot and kill are still living and for him he is no more.”
Now, speaking during the official vigil in honour of Gen Tumwine at his (the late general’s) home in Nakasero, Kampala, on Sunday, August 28, Dr Warren Namara, the Director of the State House Health Monitoring Unit, and a friend and doctor to the deceased, castigated Ssemujju Nganda and other Ugandans for celebrating a human being’s death.
Dr Namara reminded the MP and other angry Ugandans that the peace and freedoms they enjoyed were to some extent as a result of Gen Tumwine’s sacrifices.
“You get to social media, you get the winers and the diners and the celebrants all celebrating the death of an individual. But know ye all lumpens and comparadors that the spirit of Tumwine is never going to die, never. If Honorable Nganda is seeing and listening, Tumwine cannot be [condemned] by the job he did as a minister of security. You don’t kill a police man and say he has said you kill somebody. Nganda, you will also die, incidentally, because we will also die,” said a bitter Dr Namara.
“Some of these people who are writing, wining and dining, it is because of Tumwine’s willingness to — it’s not that any soldier wants to die but they are willing to stake their lives in the line of fire so that Nganda can drink a cup of coffee, so that Namara can sit here and tell his story. And let me tell you ‘Tumwine may be lonely, may have gone and moved on but his spirit is still very much alive after all soldiers never die: [they just fade away].”
Meanwhile, Gen Elly Tumwine’s daughter has asked Ugandans to forgive her father if he wronged them. (Read Story and Watch Video Here).
At the same official vigil, a relative of Gen Tumwine shocked Ugandans when she asked mourners to raise funds to buy Jolly, the general’s widow, to always fly her from Nakasero to Kazo to see her cows. (Read Story and Watch Video Here).
