The 5th edition of Uganda’s City Festival, a black, yellow and red affair happened on Sunday right at the heart of the central business district Kampala.
All roads leading to the City center were closed off and turned into main ground for the celebration.
It was praise and worship at the Christian stage that was located at Sheraton Gardens, where several media personalities and gospel music artistes performed.
The celebrations were online at the same-time, due to the free wifi, courtesy of the ED National Information Technology Authority in partnership with Kampala Capital City Authority. The festival ended with a fireworks display.
KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi appeared at the Christian stage twice.
Some Ugandans criticized this particular edition of the celebration including Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago who told press that he couldn’t attend the festival because it “didn’t reflect the values of Kampala as a city and that this made it look like an occasion with no vision.”
“The City Carnival is a good idea but the problem is that it doesn’t have the elements that would improve the lives of our people. this is what makes it loose meaning. For instance if we had focused on developing our heritage like culture and promotion of talent among the youth, it would add value.” Mayor Erias stated, urging that these ideas were not bought by the Authority during their planning meeting.
During her speech on the second visit around 8:45 pm, the Executive director poured out her heart to the congregation, revealing that the Festival could not be a success if it was not for God.
Here is her full speech;
I am happy to be here again for the second time today. I missed some of you, so I decided to come back. I wanted to come and share with you this time.
Celebrating the City and what God has done in it. Celebrating our country and what we believe God is taking it to. Celebrating our Independence in a very 
joyous way – across religions, across tribes, across churches, across political parties. Celebrating the fact that we are Ugandan.
I want to thank all of you that wore something red, something yellow and something back. We have to be proud of our country, because this is the only country that God gave us.
This is the Capital City that God gave us, and we celebrate Him today. And thank Him for the things that He has done in our City, and in our lives as believers. We didn’t have a Christian stage before, but I want to thank the sponsors that have made this possible.
The list is very long…thank you so much dear sponsors. I will personally make an effort to write my appreciation to each one of you. I want to thank you Pr Bukenya Morris, Pr Bunjo. On behalf of all other pastors, pass on our appreciation and personal gratitude.
I want to thank the super team that put all this together, thank you so much. You are just amazing, you are professional, you are just incredible. working long hours without pay and taking a lot of your time to do this for us, to make us happy and give us a time of celebration.
Thank you for showing that ‘naffe wetuli’ and in a very big way. Thank you and may God bless you. Gospel Evolution, you are just amazing. giving us this stage and the equipment, the lighting and the screens – thank you so much.
I feel very humbled to be a recipient of all these blessings that are coming to us as a city through the fellowship of believers, [and] also through the others, that are sponsoring people that might not be here in the Christian segment.
Everybody is celebrating today. I was at the Muslim site, they were celebrating ‘Mataali’, Koran recitation, ‘pillowo’ everything, they were having a great time there. I went to the Children’s stage, amazing things were happening there.
I want to thank God for giving us a time as this in the country. This has never happened but for the grace and Power of the God we serve – it has been made possible.
So, we cannot say it is one individual or a group of individuals that have made it happen. It is just the hand of God taking something small and making it multiply and multiply. The numbers we had last year were about 5 million people for the City festival. Today, they are more.
Even when we were coming in an hour ago, people were still trying to come into the festival area. That is how much people enjoy this festival, and thank God in whatever way they thank Him for what is happening in the City of Kampala.
