Controversial Makerere University researcher and activist Dr Stella Nyanzi says she has given up on her campaign to provide sanitary towels to school girls.
Dr Stella Nyanzi, who spent 33 days at Luzira Prison over offensive communication and cyber harassment charges, said she stopped caring.
Dr Nyanzi first made headlines when she stripped naked in protest of her ‘unfair dismissal’ from the Makerere Institute of Social Research (Misr).
She would later take on Uganda’s three-decade ruler Yoweri Museveni and the first family in a series of stinging social media jabs.
In one of her posts, she referred to Museveni as ‘a pair of buttocks’.
She would later be arrested after delivering a keynote address on menstrual hygiene, organised by Rotary Club of Kampala.
Dr Nyanzi had become a girl child education activist of all sorts, leading a campaign to collect sanitary towels for school girls after Museveni and his wife, education minister Janet, reneged on their promise to provide towels as they had promised in the 2015-16 presidential campaigns.
But Nyanzi has now scoffed at those who want to enjoy their comfort and expect her to fight for them. She says people are still demanding pads from her.
“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…” she wrote on Facebook at the weekend
SO WAS NYANZI BOUGHT?
In Uganda, most activists and Museveni critics who suddenly go quiet have reportedly been ‘bought’ – at least that is what a large section of the public believes.
Stella Nyanzi’s recent silence has also made people wonder whether she had been compromised by Museveni.
“What happened to the fiery Stella Nyanzi? She no longer touches the leopard’s behind. Did she retire, get intimidated or bribed or simply expired?” tweeted journalist Andrew Mwenda.
According to Nyanzi, she was not bought but just did some soul searching and realised that she was fighting for people who did not want for fight for themselves.
The activist argues that she can provide pads for her daughter – and she therefore stopped caring and took a break from her activism.
“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!”
Nyanzi is aware of the fact that people suspect she was ‘bribed by the regime’.
“They ask me whether the government bought my silence and inaction”.
For now, Nyanzi will rubbish claims that she sold her voice to the people she once criticised, and celebrate the achievements of her campaign.
“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.”
