Popular Ugandan music festival, Nyege Nyege has been cleared to take place, a day after the parliament banned it over immorality allegations.
Despite getting the greenlight, the organizers of the music festival are expected to operate within the guidelines to be developed by the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity.
According to Don Wanyama, CEO of Vision Group, the festival will go ahead as planned, with the caveat that security “will have to do what they have to do to maintain order.”
The Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) reported that Ugandan Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja had approved the festival after reaching an agreement with the Nyege Nyege organizers and other stakeholders that it would take place but under strict guidelines.
Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday (06.09.2022) slapped a ban on a popular music festival, the second time that authorities have taken steps against the annual event over accusations that it promotes sex, drugs and homosexuality.
The four-day Nyege Nyege festival on the banks of the Nile in the southern town of Jinja brings together artists from across Africa to entertain around 10,000 revellers and is usually held in September.
But nine days days before the event was due to resume — following a pandemic-induced shutdown since 2020 — parliament said on Twitter that it had “stopped the ‘Nyege Nyege’ festival, an annual social event scheduled to take place next week”.
Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister Rose Lilly Akello told reporters that the festival “promotes a lot of immorality and this immorality is something which is not wanted in our country.”
The festival was banned in 2018 by former ethics minister Simon Lokodo, a fervent Christian and outspoken homophobe, who described it as an orgy of homosexuality, nudity and drugs akin to “devil worship”.
But he was forced to lift the ban barely a day later, following outrage on social media.
Nyege Nyege means an irresistible urge to dance in the local Luganda language, but it can have a sexual connotation in other languages in the region.
