Walukaga Shouldn't Be In Parliament Even If He Gets A Degree

Walukaga is a singer and the current mayor of Kyengera town and has been a parliamentary candidate for Busiro East constituency. He has,however, been denominated over his lack of the required minimum academic qualifications.

First of all, I have, over the years, been advocating for Luganda to be officially designated as our national language, and one of the official languages, but tribalism has made this impossible so far.Non-Baganda are largely opposed to it because of the fear that it would pose a threat to their linguistic identity.

If Luganda is adopted as one of the official languages, then it would be ok for good Luganda speakers to use it in parliament and offices. In New Zealand(NZ), for example, you can address parliament in Maori, English, or NZ Sign language. If an MP uses another language, they have to translate it themselves. If it was clear they were speaking nonsense words or a made-up language, the Speaker would terminate their speech probably for being irrelevant or disorderly.

Languages are sometimes classified as official languages to preserve them and to maintain identity and culture.

Despite English being a non-Ugandan language, It’s seen as an unbiased alternative that wouldn’t threaten linguistic minority groups. It is a compromise when there is a high linguistic diversity in a country. English has also been a unifying language in Uganda for decades.

We accepted English to be the means of communication in parliament, and that's why I think it's wrong to elect people who can not speak it fluently.

I also think that the minimum academic requirement shouldn't only be an A level certificate or it's equivalent; but the candidate should be able to demonstrate some fluency in speaking English. It is one of the subjects for everyone all over Uganda, and everyone is expected to be proficient, at least at the spoken level.

In addition, English provides numerous advantages to Ugandans, such as one easily getting connected with the rest of Uganda and the rest of the world.Most bestselling books worldwide are published in English or translated into English.

Lastly, English is a bit different from most other languages in that you can be very bad at speaking or writing it, but people will still understand the gist of what you’re trying to say.

It's hard to make predictions about the long-term, but it's relatively safe to say that English will be competing with Chinese Mandarin as the first foreign language in most parts of Asia and Africa. My daughter is learning Mandarin, and I would encourage those who are linguistic yo learn it.

Another thing that is harder to predict is the development of AI. There are somewhat decent translators out there, which are sufficient for basic tasks. It could be that they will replace human translation almost completely over the next 25 years.

When you act at National and international level politically, you are supposed to have a basic level of the English language, but in future, we should find a way of adopting people who cant speak English properly to allows each to express themselves in the language they are the most comfortable in.

For now, even if Walukagga gets a degree, I don't think he should be in parliament as an MP. He terribly struggles with English, yet communication is so important in the House. The money he is wasting on lawyers now should instead be going to English tutors.