Dr. Stella Nyanzi is no stranger to controversy and she has vehemently established herself as a critic to President Museveni’s current regime. The Makerere University research fellow was summoned to appear before the Criminal Investigations Directorate in Kibuli on Tuesday morning over cyber harassment. According to Nyanzi, she’s been summoned for insulting the First Lady on Facebook.
Below is the post she summoned for
“I despise people who go around addressing the first wife as “Mama Janet,” “Mama Janet,” “Mama Janet!” That woman is no mother to the nation! I refuse to refer to Janet Kataaha Museveni as Mama anything. Let the children of her womb Mama-Mama her. Uganda’s poor children are motherless.
How can a whole mother go to parliament and ask legislators to understand the claim that there is no money in Uganda to provide sanitary pads to school-girls? What sort of mother allows her daughters to keep away from school because they are too poor to afford padding materials that would adequately protect them from the shame and ridicule that comes by staining their uniforms with menstrual blood? What malice plays in the heart of a woman who sleeps with a man who finds money for millions of bullets, billions of bribes, and uncountable ballots to stuff into boxes but she cannot ask him to prioritize sanitary pads for poor schoolgirls? She is no Mama! She is just Janet!
I started my periods when I was only nine years old. My mother introduced me to disposable Lilia sanitary towels. She also taught me how to fold layers of soft toilet tissue to use in case I lacked Lilia. She also talked to me about reusable cloth which is washed, hang to dry and folded for use. She talked about dry banana fibers (ebyaayi), plaited palm mats (obusansa obuluke), hay (essubi), and soft bark cloth (embugo) that were used in the past. My mother talked about tampons but said they were too expensive for us to buy at the time.
For my mother, it was important to arm her daughters with not only the best menstrual hygiene products but also with information about alternatives to use. Having an abundant supply of Lilia pads ensured that I was saved from the worst source of shame and indignity for adolescent girls at school. My mother provided in order to protect my dignity and hygiene. I excelled at school although I was a menstruating girl.
But Museveni’s wife does not care enough for the poor daughters of Uganda whose families cannot afford sanitary materials for menstruation. Her tongue is too thick to convince Museveni to either buy less bullets or pay less bribes, and instead buy the pads to protect the feminine dignity of Uganda’s young women. Her brain is too thick to think of alternative low-budget menstruation materials. She went to parliament to ask us to understand that our girls will keep away from school during their periods because the government has no money for sanitary materials.
She will never be Mama Janet to me. I should visit her without protection during my next menstruation period, sit in her spotless sofas and arise after staining her soul with my menstrual blood! That will be my peaceful demonstration in solidarity with Uganda’s poor adolescent girls.”
Stella Nyanzi Still defiant
Despite the summons, Stella Nyanzi is hell-bent on stopping to use the pen to express herself.“I am a writer. I am a poet. I am a lyricist. I am a story teller. I am an author. I am a scholar. I am an academic. I am a voice. I am onomatopoeia. I am speech. I am metaphor. I am simile. I am allegory. I am syntax. I am diction. I am rhetoric. I am a dictionary. I am lexicon. I am a thesaurus. I am a thinker. I am a critique. I am a wordsmith. I am a communicator. I am a typist. I am a scribe. I am a script. I am words. I am spoken word. I am graffiti. I can speak at length about my written and spoken words. I will go and meet the Deputy Director Investigations. Is he handsome? Is he hot? Will he fall for my adult brown thighs? Will his brain get my words? I will defend my acts of writing, my freedom of expression, my poetic license, my literary justice and my academic freedom. I slay with words! I fire words. It is futile to attempt to gag or censor or silence me. If they shut me up, I will break into dancing or farting or a raising of my fist.”
