Uganda’s singer, Spice Diana has shared how she had a rough childhood and her education was especially challenging, owing to family financial constraints.
She said her single mother and siblings were living from hand to mouth, barely affording life in the city.
The singer added that when her school fees arrears accumulated, and with her O’level final exams on the horizon, she had one choice: take advantage of a teacher who was taking advantage of her.
The teacher, whom she didn’t name in a recent interview, was also a senior administrator at the school.
When it was time to chase those who had not cleared UNEB registration fees, Diana says, she went to the teacher and pleaded with him to be patient as her mother scraped for the fees.
But the teacher had other things in mind.
“That very evening he called me to his office and told me he was willing to let me stay if I agreed to be his woman,” Diana recounted
“I felt bad, but I pretended it was ok,” she said.
In the days that followed, Diana says, she started avoiding the teacher, which upset him, adding that the teacher started harassing her in front of her classmates, calling her a prostitute at times.
Under pressure, she decided to run away from school for two weeks, lying to her mother that she had been chased for fees.
During that time, she said, the teacher started sending her love letters through her friends and begging her to return to school. That’s when she had an idea.
One morning, she returned to school and went to his office to confront him.
“I showed him all the letters he was sending me, and I told him this was evidence that he was trying to sexually assault me. I told him, This is your handwriting, you have no way of denying that you were forcing me to have sex with you.”
“In the end, he had no choice but to write me a clearance note that allowed me to study. I even brought my sister who also studied and finished on the same terms and conditions.”
“He hated me so much, but he had nothing to do. He just resorted to bullying me.”
Diana says several years later she met the teacher again when she was a student at Makerere University.
“Back then he always told me I would never advance in my education. But when he found me on campus, he was walking and I was driving. He asked me how I had managed to get to university.”
