Supreme Court ruling a day to Easter festivities was deliberate

Last week, many other Ugandans and I received the long-awaited Supreme Court ruling on the presidential age limit from the Supreme Court.

Interestingly, the ruling is what we expected. Naturally, whether the ruling of the Constitutional Court was to be upheld or not, many people in and outside the political circles had their two cents to chip in as it was a matter of national importance. Not to mention that President Museveni, the only beneficiary in this case, was determined to stand for presidency again.

Little did we know that the eventual (expected) victors of the ruling last week had it all planned on a flash for the Friday strategy that is mostly practised in the United States and a couple of other countries, multinational corporations and institutions that have appreciated it.

What the public ought to know is that making a ruling before Good Friday and before the arrival of the Bombadier, two of the Uganda Airlines planes, is a strategy of swaying people from the unappreciated news. This way, the public only gets a fraction of Friday to receive, digest, and critic the news. Not to mention that their minds are already set for and looking towards the weekend.

Come Monday, one may not be as disappointed as would have been if they had the time to properly analyse the news because of the weekend days. Its called flushed Friday because news is flushed down the toilet.

In the case of the now controversial Supreme Court ruling, this was taken a notch higher with some incentives along the way to seal the deal. The powers that be decided to read the judgement on Thursday, which is a day before Good Friday leading to the long Easter weekend. This is day one of engagement with the disappointing ruling. This took all day riddled with suspense as the justices were for and against. The roller-coaster was intense until the chief justice broke it late.

Friday, which was day two, was Good Friday and though the news outlets tried to mention it, the masses had already been absorbed into Easter mood. Saturday was a weekend coupled with shopping and trips up country for civil servants who had to work until Thursday. Sunday was the Easter Day and naturally even those who are not strong believers considered it a day of prayers, reunion and as such few would have the ruling on their minds. On this day, an incentive of allowing my MP Robert Kyagulanyi to hold his concerts was thrown in.

Easter Monday is another day when people lie low nursing the hungover from the long weekend. Not much about work, politics is on many minds.

Come Tuesday, it had already been announced that the long-awaited planes belonging to mother Uganda would be received by his excellency the president. Now this is a national issue that has been on debate for some time and cannot be ignored as it is also an exciting one. With this strategy, the NRM managed to dilute the post-Supreme Court ruling debate as they have taken the traditional flush Friday strategy and made a hybrid of up to six days from Thursday to Tuesday, ending with receiving our planes.
Apollo Katinti,
Wakiso District