By Our Reporter
KAMPALA – Bishop David Livingstone Kiganda, the founder and senior pastor of the Christianity Focus Centre, Mengo, Kisenyi has linked the State Minister for Ethics and Intergrity, Father Simon Lokodo, to Pharaoh, the biblical figure who was troubled by the exponential growth of Israelites until their exodus from ancient Egypt led by Hebrew prophet Moses.
“The spirit that possessed Lokodo to do something that is unconstitutional, and unapproved by Parliament is not new. This spirit existed even before the Idi Amin regime. What he had declared was a Pharaoh strategy,” Bishop Kiganda said.
He was addressing the nation during his weekly televised program, ‘Weddemu’ on KTV, Monday morning.
Fr. Simon Lokodo at the start of this month revealed during a media interview that a new policy is now in the advanced stage of formulation that among others requires all religious and faith-based organisations to abide by formal government procedure in order to start a Church.
In 2015, Lokodo asked Parliament to transfer the powers to register, regulate and monitor faith based organisation from the ministry of Internal Affairs to the ministry of Ethics.
“Yes the constitution talks about freedom of worship but of recent we have noted that there are mushrooming churches everywhere and many of them are not registered. Someone just comes up and says the Holy Spirit has told me to set up a church,” Lokodo said at that time.
Bishop Kiganda said father Lokodo has not formatted any law that restricts new bars and shrines from opening, but is up and about to considered restrictions on mushrooming churches in Uganda.
“As we seek to bring people to church, so are bars and shrines seeking to bring people to their places,” Bishop Kiganda said.
“They have allowed bars that are taking people to hell in every conner of the city, but deny Churches that seek to take people to heaven. Churches are limited on what time they are allowed to hold prayers, but bars have remained open throughout the night,” he continued.
“This policy is something Lokodo’s faith denomination supported. They have been praying for it a very long time. They are tired of pentecostal churches mushrooming in every city conner and village. They have long fought this,” he explained.
“Pharaoh was the first person to declare something similar. This goes back to about 4000 years. He said, “Look, the Israelites have become too numerous and too powerful for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase even more”. Pharaoh’s strategy was to stop Israelites from continuing to give birth to more children.
“Lokodo is stepping into something he does not know where it originated. He is possessed by it, but is unaware of it. Pharaoh died but the spirt that possessed him didn’t. It is looking for who to posses,” Bishop Kiganda said.
It should however be noted that government suspended registration of religious and faith-based organisations until a “legal framework” is instituted.
