By Patrick Semambo
LOVE: 1 Peter 4:8 says; “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. KNOWLEDGE: Ecclesiastes 7:12 says; “For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence but the excellence of knowledge is that, wisdom giveth life to them.
The greatest challenge of the Uganda’s media is Love against knowledge. Many people don’t know but they love, so they speak out of love not knowledge of what they are saying but love of what they are saying. You know the Scriptures in the bible say the love covers everything but then calls knowledge a defence.
So when you lack knowledge, the bible says, you era and to make matters worse the people have a lot of love without knowledge. Yet love covers everything. It covers evil and also in the process, end up covering even the good in the process of covering the evil.
I have always asked myself and now, I want you fellow Ugandans to join me and ask; do you think Tamale Mirundi has knowledge of what he talks about or he has a lot of love of what he talks for? Does Frank Gashumba really have any knowledge or a lot of love for himself and what he talks for?
At this political crossroads we are in as the country, the most disappointing people have been our journalists; they have a lot of love not for their jobs but surprisingly for their political sides. Even when hosting political analysts, they bring those that will defend their targets.
The challenge is the innocent Ugandans who are ignorant of all things depend on the information that media gives. Those who come to speak for the ruling party NRM have a lot of love for their Party, so do those who come to speak for FDC. They both end up failing to be constructive; they love what they are talking for more than the future of their country.
They don’t have knowledge at all of what they are talking about. Blackmail is their strongest weaponry. You know you can be both vulgar and knowledgeable because knowledge shapes you up. Those who come out to speak for government love the government so much that they cover up everything wrong and good and those who speak for opposition also have a lot of love for opposition that they cover everything good about government and also everything bad about opposition.
We are tired of listening to comedy political talk shows, also host political comedians who talk no constructive issues provided they capture the already tuned up comic audience. In this case, media has successfully managed to mould the public into comedy people who overlook issues that concern them. They want comic speeches.
Painfully, all programmes on TVs and Radio stations are comedy. Back to love… it covers everything thing, when I was in the village I use to lay bricks and sell fire wood. So these two businesses involved a lot of covering, what I would say is that there is no formula of covering you bring every rubbish for covering grass, paper, polythene, anything that you can you to cover!
That’s how political talk shows have become. That’s how I hear those guys like Gashumba, Mirundi, Rwomushana and Ofwono Opondo talk. If you look at the way Forces’ spokes persons talk, they have love but they talk with knowledge, mainly UPDF and Uganda Police.
Media houses allow someone to quote themselves as they inform public thus; ‘in my book I wrote’! Who vetted your book to make it a public consumption or a Nation reference for guidance? Someone write notes for their own and their family’s consumption, and you give them audience to use their personal understanding to mislead the Nation!
See Tamale Mirundi… all his books are past present written. When we were young men in my village back in 1987, discos had just resumed ‘ebikesa’ and no parent could allow their children to go out but I had a team of young men to who I were a little older. We would wait for our parents to go to sleep, then we wake up and go to meet in our point to go for discos.
My father was the most serious among other parents so I used to go out with my hoe and garden clothes, hide them somewhere near the toilet. So when we came back at about 5:30am, I would just just go straight to the garden. My friends would give a hand.
By the time my parents could wake to wake us up for the garden, they would goof. Getting me in the garden, they would find me already half way to finish. By the time they start their gardening, I would be finishing and retiring to sleep. My father could say; ‘I wish all my children were like Semambo.’ But I was the most problematic! That’s our Gashumba’s problem. He is waking up Ugandans yet he doesn’t have any of his family members awake!
The writer is a senior spiritual leader at Embassy of God Church Namasuba, mentor, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, advisor, educator, professional coach and media Host