Elizabeth Namazzi
14 November 2009
Kampala — THERE is no job she cannot do, no challenge she can't face. She learnt her lessons from the school of hard knocks, when she should have been fantasising about marriage and starting her own family. Her problems started with her father's death in 1979.
She was just completing her school practice at Wanyange Girls, where her teaching experiences included being abducted by Idi Amin's soldiers, when the old man passed on. He had been an educationist, so her biggest task was to ensure that all her siblings make it through school.
The first born in a family of four, it helped that Beatrice Lagada Amongi valued education. Her mother was a housewife, so Lagada had to devise means of supporting her family. She taught in several schools, including Tororo Girls School, Kolanya High School in Kenya and St. Katherine's Girls' School in Lira, where she was the head teacher. She also served as the assistant inspector of schools in Jinja District.
A kind person, her home was always filled with people, despite the hard times she was going through. She once had 15 people to look after, so she cooked food for factory workers in Jinja, baked cakes up to 3:00am and engaged in farming for extra income.
When she joined the Institute of Teachers Education Kyambogo in 1988, she was elected the institute's first female guild president. It is that election which opened her eyes to her leadership abilities. It is also then that the education minister noticed her and asked her to head St. Katherine's School.
It was under her management that some of her students booed President Yoweri Museveni. When the President sent Lagada a text requesting that the guilty girls meet him for a discussion, local politicians insisted that she shouldn't grant his request. She travelled with a delegation of 30 people to ensure that the girls were safe, although politicians back home still blamed her for disregarding their advice.
It was at this point that she decided to join politics. She has since served as a Resident District Commissioner for Mbarara, a National Resistance Council member and Constituency Assembly delegate for Apac District. She also served as the deputy director for gender at the NRM secretariat from 1997 to 2005. Now the Oyam District Woman MP, she is actively involved in fighting for women's rights and is currently leading a battle against female genital mutilation.
Those who have dealt with Lagada, both as a teacher and politician, agree that she has a high doze of self confidence. She's also known as one who will not bend rules to suit her circumstances or tell lies, a result of her 1994 decision to give her life to Christ. Married with children, she's said to follow the Bible teaching that tells wives to submit to their husbands. Although she is more vocal than her husband, it is said that she rarely ever goes anywhere or does anything without telling him. When she is angry, you don't want to be anywhere near or around her. When she sparks, it is only her husband who knows the right words to calm her down.
When it comes to late political meetings, she will not hesitate to remind her colleagues that she must return home lest her husband divorces her. And if she is set to travel and there's room for her husband, she invites him along. She does not want to leave anything to chance.
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