Deborah Esther Nakitende: Phoney restrictions
Recently the church has been exposed to the true feelings and thoughts of the world towards it and this has mostly been epitomized by the lockdown of places of worship in Uganda for the longest period, unjustifiably and yet other places that would facilitate the spread of the so-called pandemic have been opened up.
NCSA Writer 
For quite some time “religious leaders” have purportedly been made to believe that their opinion and place in the welfare of the nation has been valued by politicians through the convening of the same to be consulted on various irrelevant matters but the recent events have proved otherwise. Places of worship have been closed for an indefinite time and even when opened have been given such “standard operating procedures” that mock the very core of the existence of worship which is faith.
Phoney restrictions such as only allowing 10 people in an online worship service that are required to keep a distance of 2 meters apart from each other and yet concurrently, there are people downtown in shopping arcades, streets and markets have been allowed to operate freely with barely any supervision on their adherence to the set SOPs. Regarding the previous example, it is surely ridiculous that believers who are 10 in number on an online platform are subjected to scrutiny to follow the set SOPs or else be stopped from worshipping. This connotes that a person downtown is expected and allowed to use their faith and freely interact hoping they’ll not catch this virus but a worshipper is not allowed the liberty to practice this exact faith. We now see an even grosser display of impunity where believers are now restricted to 200 at any given time which is not the same for malls and arcades and might I add that this is irrespective of the size of the place of worship even if it is as big as a stadium. This is preposterous and in contempt of the faithful!
The reasons that have been given for this have manifested through the various opinions that leaders in the nation have expressed towards places of worship. Places of worship have been depicted to be some sort of money gathering enterprises and businesses, the closure of which seemed to be a rescue mechanism for the souls that were being profited off by their religious leaders. This alone clearly exposes how the politicians truly feel about places of worship after using these very places of worship as campaign platforms to ask for votes during the recently concluded election period. During the election period, several of these politicians were seen convening “religious leaders” for apparent discussions which resulted in these people influencing their congregations on where to be affiliated politically. Some of these politicians even made it more direct by going to places of worship to address the worshippers when physical campaigns had been limited. Unfortunately, right after the election period, everyone seemed to forget that places of worship existed and needed to be opened at all.
Needless to say, as a believer, you might be wondering where you fall in all this or what your place is in all this and what your faith meant since the people that you once went to for prayers and to stand with you in faith concerning healing are now telling you to strictly adhere to what science has dictated as the only solution regardless of you being sceptical to follow these scientific solutions. You might be trying to figure out who to go to or whether your faith meant anything at all. The beauty is the Lord has not left you without a solution.
In the book of 1st Kings Chapter 22 when Jehoshaphat advised the King of Israel to consult the prophets about whether he would conquer at the battle and these prophets told him that which he loved to hear save for the Prophet Micaiah who told him the truth. Similarly, in this era, we have Prophet Elvis Mbonye. He has not only had countless prophecies fulfilled but has also come out to stand with the believers in the nation of Uganda and remind you that the God whom you have believed is still all-powerful and mighty to heal, deliver, preserve and protect you. The God that has proven himself countless times has sent a Prophet to tell you as in His message to the remnant of God that be strong, fear not because your God will come and save you. As a believer, you do not need to continue feeding off the confusion of religious leaders that retract in the face of adversity and denounce faith or choose science. Instead, you need those who will only stand by that which you have always known which is- the God you have believed is not a man that He should lie!
Written By: Deborah Esther Nakitende.
The writer is a member of the National Christian Students Association (NCSA Youth).
