“Why is it that Tusker is the one that is welcoming visitors to Gulu City?”

That is the question to which some of the leaders attending the Northern Uganda Accountability Conference in Gulu City on Thursday, 30th June 2022, demanded answered. I am not quite sure that the answers that were given satisfied those offended. Be that as it may, I think that that the Elephant Monument itself is not necessarily the problem.

The back view of the monument

It is the seeming insensitivity and the vulgarity with which those who sponsored the Monument, Uganda Breweries, branded it and advertised on it – in such a way that the first thing that one sees when approaching it is the advert and not necessarily the monument. In fact, some might think that the monument is part of the advert.

Purely by the aesthetics of it, I understand why some may find the whole Gulu City Elephant Monument installation offensive. It reminded me of the uproar when the famous Mbarara Cow Monument was replaced with an installation that angry descendants of Mbarara and the wider Ankole referred to as “fallopian tubes”. Nelson Nsheka, for example, was quoted as having demanded:

“We need our Ankole long-horned Cow back. Take your fallopian tube away.”

In the case of Mbarara the offender was Airtel. So, dear Uganda Breweries, your Tusker Brand Manager may find it useful at this time to contact Airtel and to learn from them how they handled the Mbarara Cow Monument uproar. This is so as to rectify the Gulu Elephant Monument before the murmuring of the descendants of Gulu and the wider Acholi snowballs into a full on uproar, if it hasn’t already.