His visit was to see how to help elevate the dilemma of development of the game by giving funding, building human resources technically, and administratively.

To many a Ugandan, Watanabe’s coming was seen widely as right and central to the game of Gymnastics in Uganda. As the World Gymnastics supervisor, Watanabe told the country that he had already prepared a gymnastics development plan for Uganda to help the game grow through leaps and bounds.

That, the international body will help in the growth of this game with a facility (training centre) and equipment. Also, that, the World body will help in the development of coaches and other technical personnel. All this he said and could ensure because “Uganda is among the 24 countries that actively engage in gymnastics in the World and would love to see more of it here.

Barely a month after he proceeded, the guys he was preaching Gymnastics development have long chosen to do otherwise. To them, Watanabe`s development plan and strategy is their ‘Do not develop plan’, and their strategy is very suicidal in nature for the game! Now read this…

At faithfully 10am inside Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) Boardroom on May 24^th Tuesday, was seated Miss Harriet Aya –The president of the Gymnastics Association of Uganda (GAU). In front of Aya was Alfred Odongo – The Secretary General of the same body. Spotted in the same boardroom of UOC at Address Plot 2-10 Heskethbell Road Lugogo Sports Complex, were other members of the top local association executives.

This time was not a usual working meeting to discuss matters of gymnastics` developments in the country, but rather one where the executives were fingers pointing against each other and very quarrelsome in manner amongst themselves. Our pry on the walls of the boardroom where the troubled parties sat revealed to The Investigator News Sports desk how “It was nearly a fight, especially involving Aya and Odongo” 

“The wars at the Gymnastics body from the onset are financial. Don’t you remember that International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) President Morinari Watanabe was a guest at the offices of the Uganda Olympic Committee?” the source privy to the body asked us before she continued, “The issues are financial. Everyone wants to be an authority and control the money once it arrives in their account.” 

While here in April 2022 on his visit to supervise the Gymnastics body, Watanabe stopped at the UOC offices, spoke with UOC President Donald Rukare and members of the UOC Executive Committee. Watanabe’s visit also included a meeting with members of the National Council of Sports, as well as the opportunity to watch a demonstration of gymnastics at the MTN Lugogo Indoor Arena in Lugogo.

Speaking about his visit, Watanabe said: “I am excited to have come to Uganda. I have prepared a gymnastics development plan for Uganda to help the game grow through leaps and bounds,” … But this dream seems to have died on arrival. The mother of all problems at the Gymnastics Association of Uganda is here below;

During a meeting with Uganda’s State Minister of Sports Hamson Obua, Watanabe revealed he had offered the Gymnastics Association of Uganda $1,000,000 (£795,000/€948,000). This, converted into Uganda Shillings, Watanabe was talking about 3,600,000,000/= (Three Billion, six hundred million shillings). So, when Gymnastics Association of Uganda President Harriet Aya said; “We are very glad and lucky that we have the gymnastics President in the whole world here in Uganda,” one should have purely interpreted her words the wrong way. 

It’s argued that even the strategic plan that they presented and that Aya would want to follow keenly was how well she should use this money away from that of Gymnastics development.

While other members like the secretary (Odongo) whose aim is to develop this sport in Uganda, Aya has found Odongo as her saboteur who is affecting her personal plans, or so, we are told. 

During Watanabe’s visit, he announced that Aya had been appointed to the FIG’s Development Commission on top of being the local president of the Gymnastics body.

That known, Aya has more powers in Uganda than any other member of the top Executive and it is said she could soon dump members of the top Executive, using such powers conferred in her and office. This is a developing story. Till the next fold…

Nansana’s immediate rival, Kings Club, was relegated from the top spot after their weekend’s defeat by Kisansa Kireka 3-1. Enjoying the top seat, Nansana will face Masaka Giants in an away fixture on match day eight, to be played on Sunday 15^th May 2022.

There will be five other fixtures on the day.

Other results:

Kazo hill         2-2      Busega 

Buloba A       2-2      Ntinda United 

Buyende United      3-1      Nansana All stars

Masaka Giants         3-1      Basajja Bayiiya  

According to Kalule; “During the year, 2021 a number of challenges such as financial shortages were registered but could not stop the federation from moving ahead. Our vote of thanks is extended to all those key players who have enabled us to register success and excellence on our score card of performance. Please keep up the spirit.” 

Uganda took part in a lot of championships/competitions locally and internationally with such strong competitiveness where at some of them the representatives became winners and crowned champions.

Africa Ludo Championships

The federation (ULF) with the representation of Nansana Galaxy and Buloba A clubs participated in the Africa Ludo Clubs Championship (ALCC), 2021 conducted in May, in Dubai.  The two qualified to represent the country to the magnificent International Ludo Clubs Championship (ILCC), 2022.

National Super League;

The National Ludo Super league, 2021 was played from May, 2021. Though intercepted by the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown that had its ugly head into almost every activity on the world, ULF had their league action resume in June this year and continued until 26th September, 2021.

Kisansa Kireka club of Nakawa ULF district emerged the champions with 27 points. Nansana Galaxy of Wakiso ULF district finished as runners-up on 26 points. 

Africa Ludo Cup of Nations;

The federation through the national team Uganda Doves participated in the Africa Ludo Cup of Nations (AL-CON), 2021. The tournament, the biggest on the continent in Ludo ran from 1st to 4th December, 2021 in South Africa, Johannesburg. 

Uganda emerged champions (winner) for the first time with 44 points against the host South Africa in the second (2nd) position with 37 points. Team Uganda, Uganda Doves captain Matovu Huzaifa finished the tournament as the overall best player (MVP) of AL-CON, 2021. 

Best 2021 performers

Uganda Ludo Federation (ULF) through its technical and competitions committee declared outstanding performers, 2021 after a stiff electoral process which was conducted scientifically from 14th to 16th December, 2021 with 250 electorates (voters) composed of team coaches, team captains, referees, umpires and judges as well as players. 

In the Best performing club category, Nansana Galaxy club obtained the largest votes of 160 votes out of 250 votes. The reason for being voted as the best was that, it won the Africa Ludo Clubs Championship (ALCC), 2021 conducted in Dubai from 20th to 22nd May, 2021 also was the runners’ up (2nd) position in the National Ludo Super League, 2021.

Ssendawula Gerald obtained the largest votes of 126 votes out of 250 votes against his other one contestant and was voted the best referees category.

The best player (Most Valuable Player-MVP) category Matovu Huzaifa of Kings club, also captain Uganda Doves obtained the largest votes of 130 votes. He beat Mubiru Emmanuel and Nagaddya Beth who were both tied in the second position each with 45 votes and Mr. Kirumira Moses in the third position with 30 votes.

Matovu Huzaifa’s selection as the best player (Most Valuable Player-MVP), 2021 were bent on his great year performances that included among other things finishing the runners’ up in the annual Individual Ludo Championship season of November 2019-January, 2020.

He was the best player (MVP) in the Africa Ludo Cup of Nations (AL-CON), 2021 conducted in December, 2021 in South, Johannesburg Africa where Uganda Doves won with 44 points. 

As captain, Matovu contributed 27 points out of the 44 points for Uganda Doves to celebrate a trophy of victory.

He was the team captain of Kings club in the National Super League, 2019 when it was chosen as the most smartest team still its captain when the same club was chosen as the most organized (brand designer) in the National Super, 2021.

On the latest ranking released Tuesday 21st December, Uganda made the first ranking change seen climbing to 6th position. This is placed the uppermost ranking in the history of the Uganda and the Netball National Team-She Cranes.

She Cranes’ beautiful performance and victory at the Pent Series and successful stint at the Africa Netball Cup increased their rating by four to 126, allowing them to move into sixth place, relegating Malawi who moved down to 7th with a rating of 125.

The same two series benefitted Samoa and Fiji who move up the rankings to 15th and 16th due to Zambia falling two places to 17th, whilst hosts of the series Namibia moved up from 25th to 22nd as a result of their performance. 

Below 22nd, there was lots of movement within the WN World Rankings with Emirates Netball (UAE) moving up 8 places to 29th and Tanzania regaining a world ranking and entering the table at 40th.

According to World Netball, 2021 has been a busy period for netball and exciting for so many teams to return to the court following the extended period of lock-downs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

These include matches played at the Northern Ireland Test Series, Taini Jamison Trophy Cadbury Netball Series, Europe Netball Open Challenge, Margaret Beckford Sunshine Series, Pent Series (Namibia), Africa Netball Cup, Isle of Man Series, Battle of the Saints, Roses Reunited Series and Netball Scotland Series.

This latest update sees no change to the positions of the top five teams in the WN World Rankings, with Australia retaining 1st place, New Zealand in 2nd, England in 3rd and Jamaica and South Africa in 4th and 5th place.

Despite remaining in the top spot Australia haven’t played since the last WN World Ranking update, whilst New Zealand have played three times with a 2:1 series defeat to England seeing their rating decrease by two.  

England have played six times with two 2:1 series’ victories, over New Zealand and Jamaica, increasing their rating from 175 to 178 to cement their 3rd place spot.

Earlier this year due to COVID the WN Board decided to defer the World Rankings Annual Update from July 2021 until after the qualification date for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. 

The top six Commonwealth Games Association’s (CGA’s), as per the WN World Rankings on the 28th July 2021, were invited in October to participate in the games, but the remaining six CGA’s have until the extended date of the 31st January 2022 to qualify. 

The CGA’s ranked 7-12 after the annual update on the 31st January will then be invited in February 2022.

These decisions were made to protect the integrity of the rankings for the benefit of Member nations and provide additional time for fixtures to be played before the 2022 domestic netball season begins. 

“Policy makers need to consider a total ban on wildlife trade. There is need for a coordinated global action to advocate for it as a way of saving Africa’s wildlife populations,’’ counsels the Country Director for World Animal Protection, Tennyson Williams.

At an individual level, Tennyson educates that one should distance themselves from wildlife trade, ultimately making it socially unacceptable. “If we leave the animals where they belong,” he adds, this will save the lions, other wildlife species, millions of people and our economies.

A combination of factors aside from the poachers, have conspired to wipe a total of 180,000 of the big cats which are a big tourism attraction raking in good dollars from people who visit this continent to see these animals. Such staggering is rendered credibility by statistics from the International Union for Conservation which indicates that Africa has by now lost 90 percent of these carnivore.

Wildlife activists delivered the scary news during this year’s celebration of the Lion Day. “The King of the Jungle may soon be extinct if urgent measures are not taken,” was the message from the World Animal Protection.

This year’s edition of the Lion Day is being celebrated with three keen objectives. The first is to raise awareness of the plight of the lion and the issues the species face and the second, is to find a way of protecting the big cat’s natural habitat. Then the last is to educate people on how to prevent humane-wildlife conflicts since the people and wildlife can live together in harmony.

Edith Kabesiime, the campaign manager at the above animal activists’ body adds her voice, “African lions are facing human and nature induced threats hence the need to prioritize the protection. We have witnessed the population of lions in Africa decline in the last decades as humans occupy their habitats.

A press release issued by the World Animal Protection, names  climate change, removal from their habitat for entertainment as the other factors  that are contributing to the dwindling number of lions in Africa aside from poaching. The others include the shrinking of prey base linked to massive hunting. This has increased the death of lions by starvation.

Captive breeding of lions is yet another contributory factor to the demise of lions. This one that has intensified in some parts of Africa and is posing a threat to the big cats’ survival since the animals are not always a priority so is the lack of adequate basic animal welfare conditions such as enough water, food, space, shelter and medical care, which is a stark reality in most commercial breeding farms. This has been fueled by the urge to make big profits from the wildlife trade.

The Blankets and Wine edition was the best event for UG Pineapple to shine as it resonates with the Gin’s niche market, lounge in the sun and catch a cocktail. As the afternoon turned to evening and into the night, Kampala party revellers flocked Lugogo cricket oval in their hundreds.

The event is a good excuse for girls to show off their fashion sense and Kampala girls do not disappoint. Girls in hot pants, girls in overalls, girls bringing African Fabric to the fore. Every fashion imaginable. The best place to harvest some eye candy was the UG Pineapple photo booth because if fashion must walk the Blankets and Wine red carpet, then the world must see in it pictures.

Uganda’s legend music goddess Joanita Kawalya bellowed her most favourite hits over the years, bringing a relaxing mood to the evening sunset.

By 8pm when Distruction Boys stepped on stage, Cricket oval was filled to capacity. The due put up an energetic performance, picking songs from all over Africa and crowning their performance with their all time favourite hit, Omunye.

Information and communication technology is developing at an unprecedented pace sweeping us into a digital era, where information has become a more important resource than raw materials and energy. The information economy is characterized by processing and developing data, instead of industrial production. Access to information is now essential for individuals’ development and national inclusive and sustainable growth.

The African Union Agenda 2063 has acknowledged the importance of digital inclusivity to bring the continent on par with the rest of the world as an information society. Many African countries have embarked on their individual digital transformation journeys, by providing government services digitally and expanding access to ICT to cover more areas.

However, there are still many people on the continent especially from rural areas which still lack basic access to information. According to the GSMA, in 2017, the number of unique mobile subscribers reached the symbolic mark of 5 billion, with 3.5 billion of them using mobile networks to access the internet. Despite this achievement, there are still 3.8 billion people who remain offline, out of which 1.2 billion are not covered by a broadband capable network – the vast majority of this uncovered population lives in the rural areas in developing countries. Africa is home to the largest number of developing countries. On average, 69 percent of the African population do not have access to internet, with many of those unconnected living in rural areas.

A few months ago I travelled to Zambia where I visited Mushindushi, a small village 300 kilometres from Lusaka. There I heard that people usually climbed 2-story high ant hills to get network to make a call. Due to poor coverage, locals don’t usually carry their mobile phones with them including teachers at a local primary school. Since we were planning to cover the area, I talked with one of the teachers and asked him what he was expecting the future to be with adequate network and access to Internet, he hesitated for quite a while without eventually giving me an answer. This reminds me of a survey conducted by Facebook in 11 countries, which found that over two thirds of people who are currently offline did not know what Internet is, let alone how to benefit from this powerful tool.

Rural coverage is an universal challenge not only for countries in Africa; deploying infrastructure in remote areas can be twice as expensive, while revenue opportunities are as much as 10 times lower, a combination that deeply affects the business case for carriers to deploy communication infrastructure. In other words, high prices of deploying infrastructure in rural areas, combined with a relatively weak demand for mobile internet services, results in a supply-demand equilibrium with low population coverage.

Governments usually require carriers to cover specific locations in rural areas from the perspective of social development and realization of basic human rights. It is true that it is a social obligation to cover rural areas, but it is also true that there must be a sustainable commercial imperative for rural coverage.

According to GSMA’s report titled Enabling Rural Coverage, coverage obligations that are too ambitious and disregard the realities of the market will be impossible to attain, “without creating any incentive to expand coverage”.

To break this vicious cycle and help carriers go the last mile for rural coverage, Huawei leveraged its global R&D resources and come up with a site solution called RuralStar. With this innovation, a base station can be deployed within one week, shortened from one month, with total costs reduced by around 70{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe}. Moreover, it uses special equipment to cut down the power consumption to about 200 watts, equivalent to the power of about five regular light bulbs. This allows it to use solar panels in areas with little or no electric power.

For carriers, this innovation means that instead of covering a wide area including those sparsely populated places with costly base stations, operators can now flag and cost-effectively target relatively populous areas, where there is a larger user base for revenue generation; the payback period of investment in rural coverage can be shortened by up to 70{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe} from 10 years to less than 3 years. This makes rural coverage a profitable business which in turn will benefit rural areas socially and economically.

This transformation means dynamic economic performance stimulated by active flows of information, goods and capital; it means agricultural produce can be sold in time and at good price, and teaching materials can be available at any time in any place; it also means health workers which are usually scarce resources in rural areas can be just a phone call away.

Innovation opens a door for the unconnected and under connected people to a world of numerous possibilities for development. With this innovation-driven connectivity comes opportunity and the potential for more inclusive growth and sustainable development.