Yesterday OJ-UGANDA, the news site for which I work as editorial director, published a fact-check about the statement made by UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima while speaking in Lubaga Cathedral on February 23.
Ms Byanyima said: “[…].we were married here, myself and my husband, in this church […]” But one verifiable press report about her wedding—which our fact-check used—tells a different story. It shows the wedding took place at Lourdel House Chapel in 1999. The venue is different, though it is within the same Catholic establishment.
Public trust in Uganda and in numerous other places is built on truths ranging from small to big ones. For prominent figures, the obligation to be exact is even greater. Their words travel faster, carry more authority and shape public belief.
Crucially, we all want to hear what is incontrovertibly true. No one gets to hear true statements and is bothered that they are true.
Some readers on social media commenting on our fact-check have leapt to Ms Byanyima’s defence, arguing that both locations fall under the Catholic Church and that saying “Lubaga” is therefore acceptable shorthand.
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That defence misses the point entirely. A pertinent question to ask is: Is what Ms Byanyima said true? That formed the basis of the fact-check.
A marriage location is not a vague memory. It is a specific, verifiable fact—like when you got admitted to college. If a passport form asks where you were married, you do not write the name of the hill, the parish or the wider complex. You write the exact venue.
Imagine if Ms Byanyima was applying for a visa, say, to the US. The embassy in Kampala has told every applicant that information submitted as part of the application process has to be correct. Then the embassy staff processing her application find that she was married at the Lourdel House Chapel, but on the visa application form she wrote Lubaga Cathedral. Can they ignore it?
Here’s another way to look at it. Photos were taken at Ms Byanyima’s wedding. Is there any photo that shows both Lubaga Cathedral and the Lourdel House Chapel in Nsyambya since the difference, as some readers have argued, does not matter?
Try to think of Ms Byanyima’s statement as a court matter. It would be fiendishly difficult to persuade a judge that a wedding held in a chapel was in fact held in the cathedral simply because both belong to the Catholic Church.
As you would expect, photographs would show the chapel. Witnesses would name the chapel. Documents would record the chapel. Precision would prevail over approximation.
History offers uncomfortable lessons with respect to Ms Byanyima. In 2002, she appeared on the BBC’s news and current affairs show, Network Africa, and dismissed claims that James Opoka, a former aide to her husband Kizza Besigye, was working with the Lord’s Resistance Army.
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Our founder and editorial director, Musaazi NAMITI, brings more than two decades of serious newsroom experience, including eight years as an editor at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, and consulting for the African Development Bank, UN agencies and Globe Media Asia in Cambodia. His global exposure anchors OJ-UGANDA.COM in professional rigour and fairness—standards that too often slip in Uganda’s crowded media space.
2. We fact-check with scientific precision
Verification is NOT a box we tick; it is how we bring journalism to life. We confirm spellings, dates, figures, places—every detail that shapes a story. If a fact looks shaky, we pause and probe. Emotion does not lead us; evidence does.
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It later emerged that he was indeed fighting alongside the rebels and was killed in combat operations. The issue is not whether Ms Byanyima intended to mislead; it is that public statements have consequences long after the moment passes.
If Uganda tolerates factual elasticity from its elite, it will eventually lose its ability to demand truth from anyone else. People, especially those who care about the truth, begin to suspect that every statement contains a margin of convenience.
A wedding venue may seem trivial. But the standard it sets is not. Once facts become dispensable in small things, they will rarely remain indispensable in matters that truly determine Uganda’s direction. Read that again.
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.