Our Reporter, Mbale City (UG) – The spokesperson for Inzuymasaba, Steven Masiga, has urged politicians to refrain from intertwining cultural activities with broader political agendas in the country. Speaking yesterday morning on Radio Uganda (UBC) during the regular Inzuymasaba updates held every Monday and Friday, Masiga questioned why organizers of the insonja (a preliminary stage to imbalu) chose to align themselves with the FDC party in Mbale recently.
In a letter addressed to Uganda Police Headquarters, the Bugisu Youth League, an offshoot linked to the FDC party, requested permission for the insonja. The letter, seen by this publication, indicated that the preliminary activity, initially scheduled for June 22, 204, was hastily rescheduled to June 29, 3024, to coincide with FDC party activities on the same date. Furthermore, the date of the activity was not clearly indicated, and many of the participants in the insonja were observed wearing FDC colors, according to an anonymous observer who spoke freely.
The spokesperson of the Bamasaba cultural institution emphasized that cultural institutions should not be involved in broader political activities. “Let us remove politics from our culture. You can borrow our cultural drums for political mobilization, but it is very disturbing to see imbalu candidates numbering in the hundreds being used for political purposes,” Masiga said. He added that any future requests for police permission should be directed to the Elgon Police leadership rather than Kampala. “What are the Mbale police structures supposed to do? These individuals knew that the Elgon police know the true leaders of Bukuka, so they bypassed local leadership and went straight to Kampala, where the significance of insonja might not be understood,” Masiga remarked.
Inzuymasaba, which has a gazetted cultural leader as the custodian of activities such as imbalu and insonja, reiterated that they bypassed Elgon’s leadership because they knew local authorities would not allow politics to infiltrate cultural institutions. “The FDC rally held on Saturday included imbalu candidates to bolster their numbers. Mixing our imbalu boys with politics was highly inappropriate,” Masiga told UBC Radio.
Masiga also pointed out that Article 246 of the Uganda Constitution explicitly discourages cultural institutions from involving themselves in politics. “As a cultural institution, we have respected the directives of the law, and politicians should not take our respect for the law lightly. We exist to unite our people, and political activities can divide our communities.”
