Lent started on Ash Wednesday and in Uganda, where Christians constitute the vast majority of the population, it should have been a big event, coming moreover as it does barely two days after February 16, which has been declared Janan Luwum Day in honour of the country’s late Anglican archbishop.

But the biggest public function in Kampala that day was the consecration/ installation and swearing in of the country’s chief “traditional healer,” known as Mama Fina.

And for the record, they may prefer to be called traditional healers, for that is what is allowed in the law, but I say they are witchdoctors because 99 per cent of the “diseases” they are paid to heal in are in the romantic and financial realms.

The middle-aged lady who heads the country’s witchdoctors has just won herself another five-year term in office, and hundreds of witchdoctors participated in her colourful installation ceremony at Namungona in western Kampala, where they lit fires and performed rituals, all captured on TV cameras. Everybody participating in the grand ceremony had bark cloth as part of their attire.

Witchcraft is not my forte but I suspect some weaknesses in the way they manage their affairs in Uganda. After all, the central region of the Baganda people appears to dominate the national scene even though all the ethnic communities in the country have their own witchcraft traditions, which should be fairly represented at national level.

However, the witchdoctors’ influence should not be underrated, going by the media coverage they command. Today, Mama Fina is possibly more recognisable than any bishop in Uganda. No wonder, Ash Wednesday was also her big day, as the crown made out of bark cloth was fixed on her head by another senior traditional healer.

But if Ugandan witchdoctors are overshadowing the state and Christianity, there is another emerging force that seems to be stronger than them — pornography. Mama Fina herself was rendered temporarily powerless a couple of years ago when a local tabloid published her nude photos, apparently shot without her knowledge in her bedroom.

The public held its breath to see what would happen after she gave the tabloid editors an ultimatum to apologise if they didn’t want to find themselves running through the streets of Kampala in the nude. It did not happen and they just continued ridiculing her.

And now, as the Christian faithful were marking Ash Wednesday, another pornographer took on the Reverend Father Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s tireless Minister of Ethics and Integrity, uploading a video in which he abused the Father in Luganda. The young pornographer is a Nigerian national called Franklin Emuobor who rose to prominence late last year when he uploaded nude photos of a top Ugandan singer striking extremely explicit poses.

Father Lokodo came out guns blazing but Emuobor escaped arrest and is said to be operating between Dubai and Lagos. Father Lokodo earlier in the week made an announcement to the nation that they had arrested Franklin and he is “in our hands.”

The runaway pornographer responded by shooting and uploading a video of himself in which he boasts that he can’t be in jail when he is busy making money, and he proceeds to call Fr Lokodo names.

Today’s pornographers unfortunately have no fear of holy fathers, government ministers or witchdoctors.