”Dear brother(s) in Islam,
We would like to bring to your awareness the current situation Islam and Muslims in Lubiri SS:
First of all, when the current head teacher Mr. Sentongo Godfrey Ssempa arrived early this year, he immediately called Muslim teachers and asked us to present to him whatever we expect from him which we did. In turn he assured us that he had not come to fight Islam and that he was going to work together with us to develop the school.
Two days after the meeting, he ordered Muslim girls to put off veils claiming that they (veils) are not part of the school uniform; (you heard the story)! Pressure from the Muslim community forced him to change his strategy, and resorted to an underground move of intimidating S1 and S2 veiled girls on the compound and sending them out of classes till they put off veils.
During the same time Sentongo withdrew teaching time tables from two Muslim teachers,(Kaweesa Yusuf and Segawa Qudra). But due to pressure from the Muslims, he reinstated Qudra but sacrificed Yusuf. For more information, this is his number 0703337392.
He disorganized the Arabic Language Department which had only two teachers, resulting into the departure of one of them. He did this by transferring one to History Department which has more than 15 members, leaving only one teacher to teach all Arabic papers in the whole school.
We requested the administration to make a replacement of the above departed teacher which Sentongo refused to do. Since the load was beyond one teacher to handle, he was also forced to step down, leaving Arabic students without a teacher. We combined efforts with the parents and mounted pressure on Sentongo to recruit another teacher. In response, he shamelessly told parents to look for the teacher which they did. Surprisingly, the new teacher taught for 2 months, but he ended the year without having got even a single coin from Sentongo, yet all the other teachers were paid.
Prior to his coming, Islam and CRE were compulsory to all S1 and S2 students aiming at fostering religious tolerance in the school. But Sentongo changed this policy in the middle of the year even without the extra facilities needed like rooms, furniture etc. This meant sending Muslim students to study under trees and at times in the leaking mosque.
When it came to voting, students elected a good number of Muslims including the head prefect, his assistant, and the assistant head girl among others. Sentongo took almost a full week announcing the results. After announcing results, he nominated a Christian prefect to supervise all the prefects.
After about a month, he conducted the swearing in ceremony of these prefects, but denied them the prefects’ uniform. When they reminded him of their right to have the uniform, he demoted the top most prefects who were Muslims. This plus other students’ dissatisfactions about Sentongo forced students to almost strike, forcing him to re instate their elected prefects and solve some of the problems.
The same Sentongo refused Muslim teachers to rehabilitate the mosque and instructed his men to use our sand to rehabilitate the cooking stoves in the kitchen. When some of the sand got used, we organized ourselves and started the rehabilitation work of the mosque. He responded by reporting us to the Board of Governors chaired by Sheikh Lutaaya Hassan, which exonerated us. Up to now he insists that we have to remove some iron sheets for him to monitor what is going on in the mosque.
Sentongo advertised jobs being done by Muslim employees in Lubiri SS. Following this he forced a Muslim secretary (Lukiya) to hand over to a non Muslim whom he brought. Eventually Lukiya was dumped in the library where she does not qualify to serve. Her contact is 0701393003
He found a policy in place of giving a package of 20000/= to every person on his or her religious public holiday i.e. Muslims could receive on the 2 Iddis, Christians on Easter and Christmas. But when he came, he gave out a bunch of matoke, chicken, and 20,000/= to each non Muslim on Easter. When it came to Iddi, he gave a bunch of Matoke and chicken to the Muslim resident teachers only who are less than 10%, plus the 2 Muslim deputies.
Worst of all, he gave the above discriminative package after lunch on Iddi day. It was after a member making several claims that last month (November) he gave out the the long awaited package to some Muslims who were able to look for him. Up to now, more than 50% have not yet received that package. What is surprising, is that he was the one giving out that money not even the bursa yet he is always busy with office work and teaching.
He insults Muslims with pork even when eating food. He uses statements such as “Eno emmere singa ebaddeko ake Ggayaaza yandiwoomye nekamala”. In the same line, he insults some Muslim parents in office telling them “Get out of my office so that I eat my pork!” Among the offended parents in this regard is Ms .Birungi Faridah.
We hear that he submitted a list of only Muslim teachers to the Ministry recommending them for transfers from Lubiri SS
To sum it up, Sentongo has committed innumerable atrocities against Islam in Lubiri SS, and the last one took place last Thursday 3/12/2015, when he served pork and beer on the End of Year Staff Party. What is disgusting is that this pork was served by the assistant caterer “his son” called Jonah on the dining table of the school. This forced Muslims to vacate the party prematurely.
Compiled by:
(Some of the offended teachers of Lubiri SS)
