Category Archives: General

Election time is upon us and for once I’ve taken keen interest in following these elections beyond the confines of social media.

I’ve spent the past three months studying and participating in the political landscape of Butaleja district where I emanate.

The NRM party without doubt is predominant in this district hence making many believe that for political success you need to dress in yellow.

Last Friday we held primaries for the MP positions after an electrifying period of campaigns.

I was shocked to the marrow when I learnt of plots by incumbents to rig their way back to parliament. Matters sucked in Dr Tanga Odoi the head of the electoral commission of the party.

There were attempts to change returning officers at the last minute that were thwarted by the massive exposure of the scheme being worked on.

The winner to me was the way elections were handled on voting day. It’s no wonder that there were cries from across the country. For elections that ended by 2pm at nearly all polling stations why would the district tally center take forever to get the result and pronounce the winner?

I believe I know why. The structure of the electoral process in the party dwells on one thing, *How to enable vote thieves to prosper.*

I do not see why the party couldn’t design a simple results tabulation system that could ensure that vote counts from polling stations were received in real time at the district tally centre. As usual because of analog mindsets, they prefer to wait until all physical documentation has reached the center before embarking on counting. What a shame and waste of resources.

I did help one team come up with an electronic tally centre that enabled them have a clear dashboard in real time how all the candidates were performing based on the returns. These guys by the time 50% of the results had been declared knew they had gone through.

If in a couple of days such a system could be designed, what is the NRM secretariat doing failing to embrace the simplicity technology brings?

It’s no wonder that the team I helped took the day because all attempts to alter the results by the mafias bore no fruit.

Hon. Dombo Emmanuel, now that you’ve joined the secretariat and become the mouthpiece, save yourself the embarrassment by ensuring that your colleagues embrace a digital lifestyle.

The eternal optimist

James Wire

@wirejames

Http://wirejames.com

It was one of those routine work days, I branched by my local supermarket before reaching home to buy a few groceries and snacks. At the entrance, on the newspaper stand, I saw a headline that rang a bell on the cover page of the ABC newspaper.

I immediately decided to buy the paper and take a copy home for further reading. What I found out was so shocking and frustrating. The paper had lifted this entire article from The Wire Perspective Blog and published it under the name of one of their staff. It took me a while to believe that a seemingly professional outfit like ABC Africa Newspaper would have such gross disregard for copyright matters. Anger welled up inside me and I realised that I had to do something. Interestingly, I had been told by a number of readers before that some consultants were passing off my articles as theirs while marketing their business services. This is something I had never verified but this time round, I had a solid culprit.

I made a few calls to my seniors in the field of writing and most told me to just turn a blind eye claiming that it is normal and I would be wasting time and resources pursuing the matter. Unfortunately for me, I do not usually take no for an answer, so I made a choice to follow the matter to its most logical conclusion.

This is how I recalled an old acquaintance, Mr Charles Batambuze, who I quickly reached out to for advice. He wasn’t too bad and immediately referred me to a law firm KTA Advocates that offers free legal services on Intellectual Property matters for the Uganda Reproduction Rights Organisation and its members. Progress!!

I had a chance to interface with Counsels Ivan Ojakol and Edwin Tabaro who took me through the details and possible outcomes depending on what direction I chose to take on ABC Africa Newspaper matter. 

My initial message to ABC Africa

Amidst all this, I was already communicating to ABC Africa over this matter and the kind of response I got from them was heart wrenching. The arrogance with which they initially responded to my communication made me question whether they have professionals at the helm of the organisation. How can you claim to be a professional journalist and you do not have any respect for Copyright?

A reply from ABC Africa newspaper that left me shellshocked

Upon receiving a notice from my lawyers intending to sue, the tone of communication changed and they became more responsive. It took some back and forth before we settled for them to publish an apology as well as republishing the article under my name.

I felt a sigh of relief having concluded this matter in the most logical way and thanks to Karuhanga Tabaro Advocates who offered me an entirely free service, I was able to demonstrate to the chaps at ABC Africa Newspaper that arrogance doesn’t always pay off.

Are you an author who is also tired of such infringement of your works? Do something about it. Do not sit back and relax. Until we start making these infringers uncomfortable, they shall keep going about it like it is Business As Usual.

James Wire is a Technology & Business Consultant based in Kampala, Uganda.

Follow him @wirejames on Twitter

Email – lunghabo [at] gmail [dot] com