UGANDA: Jail taught me a lesson, Stella Nyanzi

Stella Nyanzi appears in court. PHOTO/COURTESY

When she first aroused the government’s ire with her Facebook taunts, Stella Nyanzi says she was merely tickling the leopard.
It’s a typically vivid image from the exuberant Ugandan scholar and feminist, who speaks in a rich stew of metaphor, profanity, rude insults and bawdy humour – in several languages. It has made her a star on Facebook, where thousands of Ugandans are obsessed with her earthy language and bold criticism of the regime.
Two months ago, one of those metaphors landed her in prison. In an audacious assault, Ms. Nyanzi denounced the President as a “pair of buttocks” who does “what buttocks do.” She was arrested and imprisoned for five weeks on charges of “offensive” communication and “disturbing the peace” of the President.
The human rights activist and Lecturer at Makerere University has fianlly admitted that Jail taught her a lesson in a Facebook Post.The lecturer had spent more than 30 days in Prison for calling the President a pair of buttocks
‘Jail does things to a soul. In this regard, my children are my priority.
People can be strange. They ask me what happened to the sanitary pads campaign. They ask me whether the government bought my silence and inaction. Some head teachers of schools from rural districts call my phone number to ask me when I will be taking sanitary pads to the schoolgirls in their schools. People ask this and that…
Often, I tell them that I took a break from the sanitary pads campaign, after spending thirty-three days in jail. Sometimes I tell them that I gave birth to only one daughter who has never missed a day of school because she lacked menstrual hygiene materials. Sometimes I am too shocked at their rude intrusion to respond in any meaningful way to their queries. You see, I stopped giving a fuck!
But the more I think about the sanitary pads campaign, the more I celebrate it. Using the free-will donations of ordinary people, our campaign challenged the dictatorial leaders of this god-forsaken country. We questioned the lies about promising sanitary pads, the lies about lack of government funds to provide sanitary pads, as representatives of the manifold blatant lies told to Ugandans. We also boldly bought sanitary pads and distributed them to thousands of schoolgirls. We showed it can be done, where there is a will.’