Accountability starts with Countability

By: Wouter Dijkstra

In Uganda, even at the peoples parliament of Ekimeeza, where intellectuals are supposed to be gathered, there is a substantial lack of numbers, statistics and measureable facts. People have not mastered advanced counting and have no logical perception of values and numbers. 2000 – 500 = a big problem for a lot of people. So how can they understand context?

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Ekimeeza 2.

This week, the topic of the Ekimeeza was on elections in South Africa and how Uganda could learn or take examples for Ugandan elections in 2011. Again, no position was taken and no preliminary explanation or overview of key concepts concerning elections or South Africa were made. Again, the MP of the day came in 15 minutes after the show had started making the appearance of some kind of god or movie star. He brought his wife and both wore immaculate white casual clothing.

Ekimeeza, the Peoples Parliament on Radio One

By: Wouter Dijkstra

I arrived around 2.30 at club Obligato, where the massively popular radio talkshow ‘Ekimeeza’ was about to start. I was welcomed by a series of middle aged men, who directed me to the man sitting at the head of a table. The table was about 12 meters long and seated around 16 people; an audience of about 150 people was surrounding this central structure. ‘Ekimeeza’ is the Ugandan word for ‘big table’; it is the place where Ugandans can speak their mind about issues concerning social and political issues and where they will be heard by the thousands of people tuned in at radio one.