Senior Presidential Advisor (SPA) on Poverty Alleviation in Busoga, Hon. Florence Mutyabule, issues an uncompromising call for mandatory security reforms across all schools and childcare facilities in Uganda, saying the nation must “end the era of casual security” following the tragedy at Ggaba Day Care and Child Development Centre on 2nd April, 2026.
Speaking from Jinja on Friday, Mrs. Mutyabule, wife to Busoga Lukiiko Speaker George William Wanume Mutyabule, begins by offering heartfelt condolences to the affected families and to “the broader motherhood who labour in pains to bring out life after containing them in the womb for 9 months — something so special and unique that makes motherhood both interesting and frightening.”
“Every mother knows that fear,” she adds. “For nine months you are the wall, the gate, the guard. Then you hand that child to a school. When that trust is broken, all of us who have carried life feel the wound.”
Her statement comes just days after the suspect in the Ggaba case, Christopher Okello Onyum, is produced before the Makindye Chief Magistrates Court and remanded to Luzira Prison. The Court commits the accused to the High Court for trial. Prosecutors confirm that charges with four counts of murder are formally preferred against him in connection with the deaths of four toddlers at the facility.
While acknowledging that the courts now handle the question of justice, Hon. Mutyabule insists that the country’s urgent duty is prevention. “We cannot have gates that open for anyone with a smile,” she says. “A school without protocols is a playground for evil.”
A staunch born-again Christian believer, Hon. Florence Mutyabule anchors her appeal in Scripture, quoting Matthew 2:13-14. “An angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and says, ‘Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.’ Baby Jesus has to be taken away from the prying eyes of some elements who want to kill Him at infancy,” she says. “If God Himself prioritizes hiding a child from danger, who are we to be casual with security? Protecting children is not a modern policy — it is a biblical principle. Heaven acts to secure one Child. On earth, we must act to secure all children,” she stresses.
Drawing on her experience as former Headteacher of the Church of Uganda-founded Buckley High School at CMS in Iganga, as President of the Mothers Union for 10 years, and as the former Namutumba District Woman MP, Mutyabule outlines what she calls “non-negotiable” standards for every place where children gather.
Mrs. Mutyabule also addresses the tension between security and convenience, a challenge she says she faces often in school administration. “Parents tell me, ‘Madam, your security is too much, we are clients, we are late for work, the askaris are very rude’,” she recalls. But she says customer care ends where child safety begins, adding that a dead child is the worst customer service failure.
She argues that access to schools must be controlled through a single-entry point, with the national ID of every adult visitor logged and a staff escort required at all times, including for parents. The former headteacher says a bank asks for a PIN to withdraw money and people comply — so why should a school ask for less to withdraw your child?
“Familiarity is not verification,” she says, noting that reports indicate the suspect in the Ggaba tragedy is known at the centre. She insists that every worker — from teachers to cooks to guards — must undergo LC1 clearance, police background checks, and quarterly child-protection training.
Physical security, she adds, should not be seen as hostility. “Walls and locked gates are not unfriendly. They are friendly to life,” she says, urging schools to install CCTV at gates and play areas as a basic standard, not a luxury.
Hon Mutyabule is equally firm on pick-up procedures, saying children should only be released to adults who are pre-listed by parents and who present photo identification or pass a biometric match. “There must be no ‘uncle has come’ exceptions,” she says. “If a mother endures 9 months, she can endure 3 minutes of verification.” She calls for emergency and abduction drills every school term, alongside panic button systems linked directly to the nearest police post.
Finally, she demands that the Ministry of Education and Sports stop the operation of unlicensed daycares and publish a National School Safety Minimum Standard within 30 days. “If you cannot afford a guard, you cannot afford to open,” she says. “If you cannot ask for ID, you cannot ask for a child.”
But Mutyabule’s concerns extend beyond the school gate. She condemns what she calls a wider national failure to treat children as sacred, citing errant motorists who knock down school children due to speeding, ignoring zebra crossings, and impunity in school zones.
She also faults some boda-boda riders who, she says, betray the trust of parents by harming the children they are paid to transport. In the gravest terms, she decries the persistence of child sacrifice, saying some citizens still kill children in the mistaken belief that it will bring them wealth.
She further singles out what she calls shameless moneyed men dubbed sugar daddies who lure young, innocent and unsuspecting girls into illicit sexual encounters. “These encounters sometimes end up with HIV infection and unwanted pregnancies that destroy a girl’s future before it begins. That is criminality. It is defilement. We must call it what it is,” Mutyabule says.
“These are different evils, but they share one root,” she says. “From Herod’s time to today, the enemy targets children because destroying a child destroys a future. The Church, the State, the family — we must all stand as Joseph stood. Hide them. Shield them. Vet every hand that touches them.”
As Presidential Advisor on Poverty Alleviation, Hon. Mutyabule links child safety to development, arguing that poverty drives communities to hire unchecked labour and to use unlicensed, informal daycares. “Safe childcare is part of poverty alleviation,” she says, “or we lose the generation we seek to lift.”
Turning to the Church of Uganda, which runs an estimated 60 percent of schools in Busoga, she says: “Canon law says protect the orphan. Today, we say protect the toddler. The altar must not only pray for children — it must build walls for them.”
She closes with a direct charge to mothers and school owners alike. “To the mothers of Ggaba, and to every mother tonight who will hug her child tighter: Your 9 months of labour are not in vain. Turn that holy fear into fences, into laws,” she says. “Motherhood is frightening because life is fragile. Our duty is to make it less frightening — starting at the gate, on the road, and at every boda-boda stage.”
The former Mothers Union President closes not with tears but with terms and adds this is no longer a Ggaba problem, it is a Ugandan problem, when motorists kill children, when riders defile them, when rich men buy them, when ritualists slaughter them, when schools admit them without vetting the adults around them, we are all complicit”, Mutyabule says.
Customer care, she says ends where child safety begins, convenience ends where the grave begins, the suspect is remanded but the system that enabled him is still free and until every gate asks for national ID, until every boda-boda rider is tracked, until every sugar daddy fears prison more than he desires a school girl, we have done nothing.
