Sometime in 2018, singer Spice Diana caused a hullaballoo online following a revelation she made on national TV. She had bluntly stated that she scored 32 points when she sat her S.6 papers.
“I did History, Art & Luganda. And I was among the best,” Spice told Faridah Nakazibwe during an interview on NTV Uganda’s Mwasuze Mutya morning show.
Even when Nakazibwe reminded her that 32 would be a Second Grade, perhaps as a cue to correct her that this was probably a mixup with her S4 score, the Sili Regular singer insisted it was S6.
“Everyone wondered. Because many of the students repeated the class,” she said.
“Senior Four or Senior Six,” Nakazibwe inquired, to which Spice emphasized “Senior Six”.
The maximum points for UACE (S6), at least at the time the singer sat her exams were 25. The only logical sense that the singer’s revelation made was if she was actually referring to Senior Four or she was simply lying.
It is possible she got a very embarrassing score at her UACE and she just wasn’t comfortable sharing this information.
Going by that conclusion, therefore, it would be fair to say she is dumb.
Otherwise, what would explain why she recently told Tanzanian singer, Diamond Platnumz that Uganda has a total of 60 districts?
The two had a catch-up at Mestil Hotel during Platnumz’s recent visit to Kampala where he headlined a Comedy Store concert. On arrival, Platnumz had told journalists he had intentions of recording some music with Spice or even shooting a music video.
At Mestil, Platnumz tried to play the good host. Making up a conversation. And he got a little inquisitive after Spice told him she had a very busy weekend ahead with gigs every day.
“How many cities do you have in Uganda?” Platnumz asked her.
To which she responded, “We have districts”.
Then she turned to her entourage for information. “It’s you guys that studied Geography, how many districts do we have?”
One of her team members said 68. And the graduate of Makerere University (Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Fine Art) didn’t seem remotely suspicious about this information.
Uganda currently has 146 districts, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the Electoral Commission (EC) web portals. Of course, keeping track of the number of districts in Uganda is a tedious task, considering how the government dishes them out like some sort of bonanza.
But even without pinpoint accuracy, at least one would vaguely know there are over 100 districts.
“So, every district has those cities. The main ones and the small ones. But the districts are big. Really really big,” Spice who had to wait three years to finally get her university degree due to missing papers and retakes, told her Tanzanian colleague.
Except this information, again, isn’t true.
Apart from Kampala, there are 10 other cities – Arua, Mbarara, Gulu, Jinja, Fort Portal, Mbale, Masaka, Lira, Soroti and Hoima.
Such ignorance points to the general lack of exposure and information among the bulk of our celebrities. One wonders what they preoccupy themselves with outside their career.
It’s even worse when they portray cluelessness on issues that are critical to the work they do. For example, lately, the entire entertainment industry is rallied behind pushing for copyright law reforms.
However, the opinions (by some of them) advanced for and against the reforms leave one dumbfounded. The majority of them are genuinely ignorant about the subject, yet, ironically, they argue their careers depend on it.
This comes at a time when the debate on expanding the audience of Ugandan art beyond Uganda has been revived. Unfortunately, a lot of our talent in the industry remain adamant about enlightening themselves about matters relating to digital marketing tools, streaming and distribution, or enlisting people knowledgeable in these fields.
Instead, they still surround themselves with puppets who never challenge them. This includes their so-called managers.
