NO JIGI JIGI AS Parliament Stops ‘Nyege Nyege’ Festival
September 6, 2022
Revelers partying at Nyege Nyege
The parliament of Uganda has stopped ‘Nyege Nyege’ Festival slated to take place on September 15th to 18th 2022 at Itanda Falls on the shores of River Nile, Jinja City.
The organisers of the Nyege Nyege Festival announced its return in May following a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Preparations were in high gear until when the Tororo Woman MP Hon Sarah Opendi tabled motion arguing that the event is a breeding ground for sexual immorality.
“In the last Nyege Nyege, we all saw what happened; people having sex in the open, drinking themselves silly and people have been told this event will go on both day and night,” Opendi said.
She said Nyege Nyege has promoted acts of lesbianism and gayism through international adverts.
“It is going to attract all kinds of people from the world who are going to bring non-African acts…While it is ok to enjoy, we have another bigger challenge, we are having our young children being recruited into LGBTI community,” Opendi said.
Efforts by the Minister of State for Tourism Hon Martin Mugarra Bahinduka to defend the event as a hub of tourism fell on deaf ears as the Speaker Anita Among directed that the festival be called off. Mugarra said over 8,000 foreign tourists have already booked tickets for the event.
“We want to sell our country in the name of tourism?” Speaker Among asked.
“We are talking about morality of this country; we are talking about our children. You are trying to promote tourism at the expense of our children? We are not going to allow this function to take place,” Among said.
After a lengthy discussion, Speaker, Anita Annet Among had no option but to stop the festival.
Parliament has stopped the ‘Nyege Nyege’ festival, an annual social event scheduled to take place next week in Jinja. Tororo Woman MP Hon Sarah Opendi says the event is a breeding ground for sexual immorality.
Parliament Tweeted.
This is not the first time Nyege Nyege Festival has been stopped. Father Simon Lokodo, the deceased former Ethics minister, requested that the event be cancelled in 2018, claiming that it promotes homosexuality and moral decay. But he was defeated.
It should be noted that Sarah Opendi pushed for the banning of performing artists in school.
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