Advocateㅣ Member of Lawyers Without Borders.
Kampala, Uganda
Joined October 2021
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David Lawmaker retweeted
Let’s face reality.
When you list the world’s most unstable economies, South Sudan, DRC, Palestine, Syria, Ukraine and realize their currencies are holding more value than ours, it's no longer an economic debate, it's a leadership failure.
This is not about global shocks. This is about economic governance. A currency is a reflection of confidence, productivity, and leadership. And right now, ours is reflecting failure.
You have failed to protect the purchasing power of Ugandans. You have failed our people. @rggoobi @NRMOnline
David Lawmaker retweeted
Tomorrow Sunday, Half of the Northern bypass; Nambole round about to Busega roundabout, will be closed for a scheduled Marathon till 1pm. Plan your journey well.
David Lawmaker retweeted
I strongly condemn this too and as a victim I have experienced firsthand the emotional and psychological impact of these practices, In the previous elections I found myself spending hours not discussing policies or youth issues, but defending myself against falsehoods that had been manufactured and spread both online and on ground.
Having been falsely labelled a lesbian, portrayed as the daughter of Gen. Kale Kayihura despite never having known my father, recently in someone’s office seeking support on a certain project, one innocently asked “but your father is now in good terms with gov’t why cant he help on this, me wondering …aint you Gen KK’s daughter they addex ? ” then me again in defense mode even after elections .
Others fabricated stories linking me romantically to senior public figures ,The misinformation became so widespread that, at one point, an individual reached out to me reassuring how it was okay and acceptable to identify as gay and that support was available should I need it , Imagine as a christian ugandan girl the embarrasment to vividly comfirm that such exist even.
Imagine the humiliation of having to explain repeatedly that none of these claims were true, Imagine entering a meeting with youth leaders only to spend hours clearing the air about rumours rather than discussing solutions for their day to day challenges ,Imagine trying to lead while constantly defending your identity, your family background, your faith, and your personal integrity.
No one talks enough about the trauma that young leaders take home, the public sees politics, but they do not always see the anxiety, emotional exhaustion, embarrassment, and mental strain caused by coordinated misinformation and personal attacks.
What is most concerning is that many of these attacks are not necessarily started by candidates themselves. Often, they are spread by supporters, online mobilisers, and social media influencers seeking political relevance through malice and sensationalism yet the damage is suffered by real people.
Today, the situation is becoming even more dangerous with Artificial intelligence (AI) that can generate convincing fake content, manipulated images and more.
In all this I ask my self ,Is it too late ?
Is it really impossible to establish and enforce a code of conduct for political engagement? Do we need political ethics programmes for young leaders and political mobilisers? Why is it that in many youth political spaces, the person with the loudest insults and most damaging rumours often receives more attention than the person with the best ideas and these grow to be the ministers, CEOs and EDs of tomorrow .
A young woman may run for Guild President, Youth Councillor, Member of Parliament, or any other leadership position, weather she wins or loses, she should not emerge from that process emotionally damaged because society normalised abuse as part of politics.
We have become too comfortable with the phrase, “That’s politics.” But politics should never require the destruction of another person’s dignity,leadership should be a contest of ideas,values,and vision,not lies, character assassination, and psychological warfare.
Uganda should seriously consider reforms that protect young leaders and society at large, these reforms could include ; enforceable digital campaign codes of conduct, political ethics programmes, civic education on responsible online engagement, rapid response mechanisms against cyberbullying and misinformation, and stronger accountability for those who deliberately spread falsehoods starting with the candidates, making the supporters being responsible to protect their interests.
Most importantly, we must revive something that appears to be disappearing from our public discourse, conscience, decency, and basic manners.
It is not too late to change course. The future of our democracy depends on raising a generation of leaders who compete through ideas and service rather than abuse and propaganda.
She has raised concern about cyberbullying, online insults, sexualisation, misinformation and the use of young people to attack political opponents on social media. She has urged young people to use digital platforms responsibly and to apply their skills to constructive political participation rather than online abuse.
#NationalYouthSymposium26 #SADU
@EUinUG
David Lawmaker retweeted
1. She served as the Palace’s core guardian and regent following King Oyo’s fathers death in 1995.
2. She guided and protected the 3-year old King Oyo.
3. She secured the monarchy against royal factions via strategic ties with the central government.
4. She campaigned for the return of seized historical Tooro Kingdom land titles and properties.
5. She founded the Queen Mother Best Foundation (QMBF) to aid vulnerable youth and women.
6. She established vocational programs and financial literacy classes for single mothers.
7. She spearheaded grassroots regional drives for HIV/AIDS awareness and rural sanitation.
8. She launched regional campaigns against female genital mutilation and early child marriages.
9. She built the Tooro Kingdom Women Association (TKWA) to foster financial independence.
10. She co-founded the African Queens and Women Cultural Leaders Network (AQWCLN) with UN Women.
11. She co-founded the Council of Traditional and Cultural Leaders of Africa (COTLA)
12. She partnered with the UN Women, UNAIDS and ZONTA International to fund local projects.
The Queen Mother was awarded various awards like the "Champion of Women’s Development in Africa" honor in South Africa.
David Lawmaker retweeted
“When an opportunity to prove to God that you are his child wholeheartedly comes cease it and Let Him be proud of you “
Forexample, when a temptation comes , be firm and uphold God’s position. Refuse to compromise and let the angels clap for you.
GOOD MORNING
David Lawmaker retweeted
Panama just signed Law 535 of 2026, making "paternity fraud" a criminal offence in Panama. Any person who deliberately induces a man, through deception or concealment, to recognise and support a child who is not biologically his may face 2–5 years' imprisonment and financial penalties.
The legislation also makes clear that a person who knowingly accepts parental responsibility despite the absence of a biological link commits no offence, provided the decision was made freely and without deception.
What do you think, should other countries consider adopting it or not?
📌 Share your thoughts in the comments.
#Legalnaija #FamilyLaw #AccessToJustice #PaternityFraud #DNAEvidence #LawAndPolicy #LegalDiscussion
David Lawmaker retweeted
You people are actually so gullible 😭
One tweet from one person and King Baby oyo is already finished? Loyalty really lasts that long with you?
Guys for us Team Baby we have noy given up yet. We know a King is born. Kingship is a birthright 😁
David Lawmaker retweeted
We consider the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom our blood brothers. I trained at Sandhurst many years ago and have nothing but love for my British brothers. I was extremely honoured to receive a call from Right Honourable Clive Alderton, His Majesty's Secretary, recently. We shall participate in the Invictus Games. That is no problem.
David Lawmaker retweeted
It is amazing that another year has gone by. We give praise and honour to God for His loving kindness, mercy and grace. He has walked with us and we are at the beginning of another year! It is hard to believe that you are 82!
2026 has been a year unlike other years, and therefore we have even more reasons to give thanks to God for the blessing of life. The fact that I am here in person to wish you a happy birthday is a testament to God’s goodness and Faithfulness.
Happy 82nd birthday, Mzee! May God continue to bless and use you mightily.
David Lawmaker retweeted
LET TOORO CHOOSE PEACE.
Tooro has lost a King. A mother has lost her son, a sister her brother, and a Royal Family one of its own. Yet, even before the tears have dried, disagreement over succession threatens to divide one of Uganda’s oldest and most beautiful cultural institutions.
I do not write to determine who is right or wrong, nor do I presume to tell the Batooro who their King should be. I write as an elder, a lawyer, a friend of the Royal Family and, perhaps importantly in this particular debate, as the person who moved the motion for the constitutional recognition of traditional and cultural leaders during the making of the 1995 Constitution.
I believed then, as I believe today, that Uganda must modernise without becoming culturally rootless. Our kingdoms preserve our languages, customs, histories and identities, and these things matter because a people must know where they came from if they are to know confidently where they are going.
Nor is this merely a Batooro affair. My daughter is married to a Mutooro and I have a grandchild who is Mutooro, as families across Uganda are joined across regions, cultures and kingdoms by marriage and friendship. When one Ugandan cultural family hurts, the pain does not stop at the boundaries of a kingdom.
We have always admired the Batooro for their beautiful culture, their gentle language, their courtesy, humility and softness of manner. At this difficult hour, I appeal to them not to lose those qualities, but to make the very gentleness for which they are known the instrument through which this disagreement is resolved.
History should make all of us humble about disputes of succession because there is nothing uniquely Batooro about them. Rwanda knew Rucunshu, Britain endured disputed crowns and civil wars, and our own history in Ankole tells us just how far a disagreement over a throne can travel once pride, faction and power take command.
The quarrel after Omugabe Ntare V’s death in 1895 should teach us something. There was no agreed successor, and while many chiefs and powerful figures looked to Prince Igumira, a famous warrior with a large following, others rallied around the young Kahaya, whose cause was championed by Nuwa Mbaguta and eventually secured with British support. The struggle did not end there: it would contribute to the subduing of Igara and, in time, to the death of my own grandfather, a reminder that succession quarrels can travel far beyond the palace and leave wounds in families and communities for generations.
I learnt another lesson about kingdoms much more recently and much more personally. In 1993, I was among the Banyankore who supported the restoration of the Kingdom of Ankole and, relying on our understanding of the law at the time, we crowned Prince John Barigye as Omugabe. Government declared our actions null and void, and I personally engaged President Museveni on the matter, but to no avail.
I did not agree with Government then, but experience teaches us that wishing Government away does not make Government disappear. Cultural institutions exist within a Republic, within a Constitution and within a wider political and legal order, and any durable settlement in Tooro must therefore involve respectful engagement with the central Government rather than treating it as an outsider to the problem. Government should not choose the King, but neither can a realistic search for peace pretend that Government has no role to play.
There are moments in human affairs when disagreement is real, deep and even bitter. I remember my years in Parliament, the fierce battles we fought and some of the terrible things we said about one another across the political divide. Yet time did something that anger could not: many of us who once confronted each other bitterly came to know one another better, and friendships were formed across those old battle lines which endure to this day.
David Lawmaker retweeted
We argued just as fiercely over the restoration of traditional institutions generally and over the Ankole monarchy in particular. At the time, every disagreement seemed final and every argument seemed to divide us permanently. But age teaches what passion sometimes conceals: today’s opponent may tomorrow become a friend, and today’s quarrel may one day look much smaller than it does in the heat of the moment.
I came, with time, to understand the wisdom of the old preacher who urged people to “cut yourselves with a sword that heals.” If we must disagree, let us disagree in a way that still leaves something to repair when the argument is over. Let us fight our battles, if we must, without destroying the possibility of friendship, family and reconciliation when the battle has passed.
Our ancestors sometimes settled succession questions with spears and armies, and history records the cost. We have law, institutions, elders, dialogue and the benefit of their mistakes, and surely we must be capable of doing better.
I am a lawyer and have spent much of my life in and around courts, so I say the following with the greatest respect for the judiciary. Not every problem that can be taken to court should be taken to court, because although a judge can interpret a document, determine a legal right and declare a winner, there is one order no court can issue: that a family shall henceforth love and trust one another.
A judgment can tell us who has the better legal argument, but it cannot always heal the wound that produced the case. A court can produce a winner and a loser; reconciliation has the possibility of preserving a family and, in this instance, perhaps a Kingdom.
I therefore respectfully appeal to Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, who has been announced as Oyo’s successor, to make reconciliation his first great act of leadership. Reach out to the Queen Mother, go to her, speak to her and listen to her, because whatever the arguments over succession, one fact requires neither affidavit nor evidence: she is a mother who has just buried her son.
If leadership is ultimately measured not simply by the office one occupies but by what one does with it, there can be no greater beginning than bringing a divided family together. Do not seek merely to inherit Oyo’s throne; seek also to inherit the gentleness by which so many Ugandans came to know him.
I equally appeal to the Queen Mother, Princess Ruth Komuntale, the Babiito, the elders and every branch of the Royal Family to give dialogue a genuine chance. Nobody needs to be humiliated for Tooro to be reunited, and nobody needs to be defeated for Tooro to win.
Put the traditions on the table, put the documents on the table, put the history on the table, and put the elders around that same table. Let Government facilitate where facilitation is needed, let lawyers advise where law requires interpretation, but ultimately let the family talk to itself, listen to itself and find a solution with which Tooro can live.
I also appeal to my friend @AndrewMwenda , an exceptionally gifted and fearless journalist who is also a son of Tooro. That gives him both an interest in what is happening and, I would suggest, a special responsibility in how this extraordinarily sensitive moment is handled.
Some very serious allegations have now entered the public domain, including allegations touching members of the Royal Family and the leadership of our country. Andrew, I say this to you as a friend: do not make reconciliation more difficult than it already is. The truth or falsity of those allegations is not for me to pronounce upon here, and my plea is simply that, in this moment of grief and uncertainty, nothing should be said or done which makes it harder for the Royal Family and the people of Tooro to find their way back to one another.
There are moments when courage consists in speaking and there are moments when wisdom consists in recognising that enough has been said for now.
David Lawmaker retweeted
@X will move on to another controversy, another argument and another target, but when the phones are put down and the cameras have moved away, the Batooro will still have to live with one another.
That, ultimately, is what matters. When this dispute is over, the Batooro will still speak the same beautiful language, belong to the same clans, marry one another, celebrate together, mourn together and bury one another, and their children will inherit whatever this generation leaves behind.
Let those children inherit a Kingdom, not a quarrel. The throne is important, but Tooro is greater than its throne, and no King wins if his Kingdom loses, no Queen Mother wins if her family is broken, and no faction truly wins if its victory leaves bitterness that lasts for generations.
Government, too, carries a responsibility at this moment. I appeal to President @KagutaMuseveni and Government to continue facilitating dialogue with sensitivity, impartiality and respect for Tooro’s traditions, because involvement should mean helping the Batooro find peace, not choosing for them the answer they must reach. Current efforts at mediation should therefore continue until every reasonable avenue for an agreed settlement has been exhausted.
I appeal to the elders to rise above factions and to the Royal Family to remember blood before bitterness. I appeal to Prince Edward to make reconciliation the foundation of whatever comes next, to the Queen Mother to make room for dialogue, and to Andrew and all of us commenting publicly to lower the temperature sufficiently for those directly concerned to hear one another.
King Oyo was a gentle King, and there would be something terribly sad about honouring a gentle King with a bitter succession. Let his final gift to Tooro be the peace that his people choose because they loved him, and let historians one day record that when grief and disagreement threatened to divide them in 2026, the Batooro remembered who they were and chose wisdom over anger.
History is watching, Uganda is watching and, most importantly, our children are watching what we do with this moment. Beyond all of us stand our ancestors, from whom these institutions came and to whom, one day, every King, every elder and every citizen must return, so let wisdom prevail, let dignity prevail and, above all, let family prevail.
Hon. Dr. Elly Karuhanga Ateenyi
@KagutaMuseveni @FrankTumwebazek @Thomas_Tayebwa @AndrewMwenda @BalaamBarugahar @Tumukunde_ @elisonk
David Lawmaker retweeted
My brother @BebeCoolUG called me this morning and told me they are some comrades of ours in the music and media sectors who have been attacking him recently. Please do not attack my young brother. Whatever issues they are we shall manage peacefully.
David Lawmaker retweeted
A MESSAGE OF GRATITUDE, REFLECTION AND HEALING
People of Tooro, friends of Tooro, and all those who stood with us,
As we come to the end of one of the most painful chapters in the recent history of our Kingdom, I wish, on behalf of the Tooro Kingdom administration and on my own behalf, to express our profound gratitude to everyone who stood with us and supported the final journey and dignified send-off of our beloved King, His Majesty Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV.
Our responsibility during these difficult days was clear: whatever else was happening around us, we had to see this journey through with the dignity, respect and honour befitting our King. We had to put aside our differences, manage our grief and work together to ensure that His Majesty was laid to rest in a manner worthy of the Crown he carried and the people he served.
In a special way, I wish to recognise and thank Prince Jonathan Bala, His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary, for his loyalty, dedication and service to our King. Throughout this extraordinarily difficult period, his commitment to His Majesty remained steadfast. He carried an enormous personal and official responsibility, often under very difficult circumstances, and continued to serve with dedication until the very end. He deserves our sincere acknowledgement and gratitude.
I thank His Excellency the President, General Muhoozi, the Royal Family, the Government of Uganda, religious and cultural leaders, the organising committees, the media, our Kingdom leadership, clans and Masaza, volunteers, businesses and partners, the people of Tooro, Ugandans across the country, the diaspora and friends from beyond our borders. Whether you contributed your time, resources, professional expertise, food, transport, prayers, presence or simply stood with us in solidarity, you became part of His Majesty’s final journey. We are deeply grateful.
We recognise that everything may not have been done perfectly. This was an unprecedented moment for our generation. We were mourning our King while simultaneously carrying the enormous responsibility of organising his final journey. Emotions were understandably high, decisions sometimes had to be made under extraordinary pressure, and grief affected us all in different ways.
Where we fell short of expectations, where communication could have been better, or where anyone felt disappointed by our actions or omissions, I offer my sincere apologies. These shortcomings should never be mistaken for a lack of respect or commitment. We were a people grieving an immense loss while doing everything within our ability to honour our King.
Now that we have laid His Majesty to rest, another journey begins.
This must be a period of learning, refocusing, rebuilding and healing.
We must learn from what these difficult weeks revealed about our institutions and ourselves. We must strengthen what worked, honestly address what did not, rebuild trust where it has been strained and allow ourselves, individually and collectively, the space to heal.
There will be difficult conversations ahead. There will be institutional questions that require wisdom and clarity. There may be different opinions about the way forward. But our differences must never become greater than the Kingdom we all belong to.
This is not the time for winners and losers. It is the time for responsible leadership, humility and reconciliation.
His Majesty’s passing should remind us that positions are temporary, but Tooro remains. Personal ambitions pass, disagreements pass and generations pass, but the responsibility of preserving this Kingdom for those who come after us endures.
Our guiding principle in the days ahead must therefore remain simple:
Tooro comes first.
Above personalities. Above positions. Above disagreements. Above individual interests.
May we find the wisdom to learn, the humility to reconcile, the courage to rebuild and the strength to move forward together.
@ObukamaBwaTooro
