Have We Lost Our Community Based and Societal Values as Ugandans?

Police in Wakiso is investigating Faisal Muwanguzi a resident of Buloba- Bwotansbu village, who is accused of murdering his wife and two children and burying them behind his house.

One is left to wonder if these lives could have been saved, given the fact that the man was known around the neighborhood and among the area local council for battering his family.

Muwanguzi is one of the many examples of society gone wrong. A lot of murders and tortures happen every day in Uganda and people standby, watch and do nothing.

Where, as society have we gone wrong? Three lives were lost and had gone missing for 4 months without any neighbor or people on the council noticing. Where is the humanity, where is the love for one another, where is the unity, or it does not live among us anymore.

The kind of society we are degenerating into, one that only cares about self, one where we have fast developed the "I don't care attitude," is a dangerous if not deadly one.

In the traditional days, Africans used to live as a community, where neighbor looked out for neighbor, where we were each other’s keepers.

Are we left to assume that the likes of Muwanguzi are such powerful and feared men in villages that they cannot be reported and dealt with by the law? Muwanguzi battered his family, eventually killed them and buried them in his backyard for four months with none the wiser. He appointed himself Judge, jury and executioner and no one lifted a finger to object.

Personally, I believe the Buloba community is indirectly to blame for those deaths because they did nothing as a mad man tortured and murdered his family. I strongly believe a lot should have been done by the village to avoid this tragedy. If they stood up to the man, asked for accountability after a few incidents, then maybe a mother and her two children would still have been alive.  

For God and My Country seems to hold no water anymore in our nation, but we should revive our Africanism, oneness and togetherness for all our safety and well-being.

 

 

The writer is a student of Social Work and Social Administration.