Former minister for Ethics and Integrity Hon Miria Matembe has said she has lived her entire life resisting what she thinks is not good, and will die doing the same.
Speaking during the professional women breakfast organized by Pastor Jessica Kayanja, the wife of Pastor Robert Kayanja of the Rubaga Miracle Centre Cathedral in Kampala on Saturday, Matembe said it never surprised her when she was thrown out of President Museveni’s NRM government because she had defied his orders.
“I have resisted all my life. Even when National Resistance Army came, I had resisted a lot of things in my life,” Matembe said.
“I stood in front of Museveni and told him he had taken the wrong path on removal of term limits. He sent me out of that meeting but it still remains that I told him off. I resisted.”
Narrating her childhood, the tough talking Matembe said she started defying orders right when she was a young girl when her father used to glorify his sons and always left her out.
According to Matembe, her father wanted to get her out of school in favor of her brothers but she resisted.
“I was doing well yet they (brothers) even repeated classes but my dad said I could not join secondary but a teachers’ college.”
Matembe with the Kayanjas
She added, “At 14 years, I went to the district education officer and I was able to get a bursary. When I reached university, my father said I could not study law but I insisted with my law course until I finished it.”
She said the defiance continued when she had got a man to get married to but his father never wanted him, and still defied her parent even after a clan meeting had been held to discuss the issue.
Museveni
Matembe said she continued being defiant even after joining government citing a time when she blasted President Museveni over the term limits.
“I had traversed the entire country and told people we had to put limits to the terms of the president. The people supported the idea and it was included in the constitution.”
“When President Museveni wanted us to change the constitution on the term limits, I told him it is being corrupt and could not accept it. I had to resist,” Matembe said.
Anti Corruption court Judge Catherine Bamugemereire urged women to be at the forefront of fighting corruption and other injustices in the society they live in.
“Fighting corruption is not easy because this country has a problem of lack of religious values but we all need to rise up against this disease eating up Uganda,” Lady Justice Bamugemereire said.
Also speaking at the function, the host Pr. Jessica Kayanja of the Girl Power Ministries urged women to always be determined in what they do so as to enable them become successful.
“We should always be selfless and in all we do, the sky should be the limit. We ought to harness negativity as a window of opportunity,” the senior pastor at the Rubaga Miracle Centre told women.
The breakfast was meant to empower women in a bid to go about challenges in their day today life as they compete with men.