Ugandans-At-Heart

Where did the Nubians in Uganda come from?

November 16, 2009 at 7:55 pm (CULTURE, History, Land matters)
Tags: Ahmed Katerega

Dear Ugandans at heart,

Nubians come from Nubia. You remember the ancient kingdom of Nubia, which was originally Christian and later converted to Islam. It covered Upper Sudan and Lower Egypt. The Nubians are now divided between Egyptians in Swan, and the Sudanese, southwards. l have ever visited their ancient city of Meroe. The late Marshal Jaffir El Niemery was a Nubian. They were brought to Uganda by Sir Sameul Baker, Charls Gordon and Emin Pasha, and later Capt. Fredrick Lugard. But in Uganda, we don’t have those original Nubians. Much of what we have is a mixture of West Nilers due to intermarriages. They are also in Kenya. But in West Nile, the North and North East, if one converts to Islam, he is reffered to as a Nubian. It is the same in Nyanza Province in Kenya. In Nairobi, if one converts to Isam, he becomes a Muswahili. In South Western Uganda, if one converts into Islam, he becomes a Muganda. That is real.

I would also like to state that most of the killings in Mbarara in the 1970s were done by Nubians. It was the same in Masaka. Unlike Mbarara which could not differentiate a local Muslim and a Nubian, the Masaka people never avenged on local Muslims. The Nubians had already fled. In 1977, they killed 70 Christians over the death of Haji Kaloddo. But Bannabuddu never killed a single Muslim. They knew local Muslims had nothing to do with the Nubian mercinaries. However killers have not been Nubians only. They even did not kill the way other people killed later. But they killed and some Nubians dont want us to mention it. Let’s be honest even when we are talking about our Muslim friends. They were talking about Shaban Nkutu. Who killed Nkutu? Idi Amin! Wasn’t he his fellow Muslim? Should we keep quiet because Amin was a Muslim. Who killed the late Sheikh Obeid Lutale and detained Sheikh Obed Kamulegeya? Iddil Amin. Should we hide away from it? Nubians have good people and bad people, so are other people and we should talk about them.

Like I stated that “In South Western Uganda, when one converts into islam, he becomes a Muganda” I meant areas such as Ankole and Kigezi sub regions, and to an extent Tooro and Bunyoro in mid western Uganda. Please vist places like Mbarara municipality, Isingiro, Bukanga, Kajara. You will find Baganda immigrants after Chritian victory over Muslims there, with kiganda and kinyankore names. An example is Balinda who was a Deputy Minister in Obote l Government , Sulamain Matojo (a concorcotion of Matovu), Station Manager of Radio West, to mention but a few. Do you know that some of the muslims slaughtered on orders of Edward Rurangaranga and Yowasi makaru, their crime was not being Muslims, but being Baganda, on Ankole soils!

There was love-hate relationship between Baganda Muslims and Nubians when the Britsh were still running the country.Who does not know that most of Ugandan Muslims are Baganda? Is the late Sheikh Saad Ibrahim Luwemba, originally a musoga or a Muganda? The moment we talk about atrocities committed by Nubians, most of which they did in Mbarara, and run away, and Banyankore avenged on their fellow Banyankore/Baganda Muslims, some Nubians today come out in defence of Nubians as if they did not kill people. We know what was done by Faruq Minawa, Ali Toweri, Juma Ali Butabika , Hiseein Malera, to mention but a few. Yet there were very good Nubians like Col. Khamis Safi.

Every region has its own jargons. For example, after the religious wars, Muslims wrere not called human beings or Baganda. They used to say “Nsanze abantu babiri n’omusiraamu.” We had a Munnabwera person in our village of Nnambiriizi, Mawogola, called Biwagalo. He used to say “Kale nga mmwe Abasiraamu, ate nga ffe Abaganda…” But they died away.In Ankole sub region now, , as l stated yesterday, most of the Muslims are Baganda, thus even new converts are labeled Bagsnda. It is no crime. In northern Uganda and Nyanza Province, the Muslim converts are called Nubians. If it is in Central Province or at the Coast, they are called Waswahili. In my cattle corridor home area, most Balokole are called pastoralists, because they were the pioneers in that. Even when l was studying in Ssembabule C/U which used to be called “Kirokole’ we were all called Balokole/ Balaalo, etc…Those things are there. What do you want to hide?

Haji Ntege Lubwama is around and he came back to Uganda recently from exile in UK. Who does not know that Chris Rwakasisi and David Oyite Ojok wanted to finish him off? Even UPC people like Mzee Samwiri Mugwisa, whom l respect very much, can help us on this. Secondly, we should not twist things. We are not saying that all non Muslims hated Muslims or vice versa. Neither are saying that all Catholics hate Protestants vice versa. But we are recalling a historical reality so that we can forge ahead as one country, one people, to borrow from one of our parties.
Otherwise, all religions would have perished if believers in them had participated in the conflicts. The majority did not. They even used to hide one another. But what l have learnt from this debate, is that even intellectuals are narrow as far as our country’s history is concerned. Let’s all sing with
Osagyefo: Forward ever, backward never.

Ahmed Katerega

UAH forumist/ journalist

For more information, visit the following link:

http://semuwemba.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/who-is-a-nubian/

Parliament should investigate why Kabaka was stopped from going to Kayunga

October 15, 2009 at 3:12 pm (2009 -2011 elections, Genocides, Land matters, parliament)
Tags: WB Kyijomanyi

People:

There is a new and very credible angle emerging that the NRMO government or should I say some crooks (read land grabbers) within the corrupt regime stopped His majesty the Kabaka from visiting Kayunga because they had information that the Banyala whose land had been grabbed by Brigadier Tumukunde would call upon his Majesty the Kabaka to intercede on their behalf.

I have taken time to get to the bottom of the stupidity of the NRMO’s regime decision making and why IGP Kaiyihura responded the way he did. Luckily, my elderly auntie lives in Kayunga and after talking to her briefly, she put her ideas in writing and off they got to me.

Since NRMO spin masters are reading they are likely to dismiss the new angle that it was not land grabbing but about Banyala. For the record and the media or Hon. Kirunda and Hon Atubo call tell parliament if it is not true that Brigadier Tumukunde grabbed land belong to the late Mzee Sajjabbi, a respected Munyala elder in Kayunga and left his children landless.

Let the Hon ministers all tell parliament and Ugandan whether it is also not true that General Tinyenfunza too grabbed land in Kayunga. The word from elders in Kayunga is that this Captain Kimeze is a creation of forces loyal to Brigadier Tumukunde and those other land grabbers who have grabbed in Kayunga to ensure that the his land grabbing venture is covered up.

You folks in Uganda do your investigation and find out whether Mzee Sajjabbi’s land was not grabbed by Brigadier Tumukunde. You should also find out his standing among the Banyala. My untie told me that the late Mzee Sajjabbi wanted to help Banyala take up business activities in Kayunga town. You should also find out why Captain Kimeze’s siblings disagreed with him.

Parliament should get to the bottom of the Kayunga saga. Minister Kirunda lied through and through to parliament. He all along knew or should have known that the stand off in Kayunga was about Tumukunde’s land grabbing, particularly grabbing the late Mzee Sajjabi’s land.

Once again let MPs, parliament and the few courageous journalists still willing to risk get to know the story about Mzee Sajjabbi’s (RIP) land. It becomes apparent that stopping the visit by his Majesty the Kabaka to Kayunga was a red herring masterminded by agents of land grabbing and their lackeys within security agencies.

Truth be said it Hon Kirunda was genuine; he would have ordered a very small faction of those security agents seen firing live bullets in Kampala to Kayunga and keep peace during his Majesty’s visit. The fact that the state kept on lying that there would be violence buy yet could not send a few soldiers to Kayunga to keep peace during the viist exposes the fallacy by Hon. Kirunda and Hon. Matsiko.

I call upon parliament to set up a select committee to investigate the roles played by Hon. Minister, IGP Kaiyihura, brigadier Tumukunde and General Tinyefunza is triggering riots in Uganda. MPs may want to investigate the relationship between Captain Kimeze and Brigadier Tumukunde and General Tinyenfunza.

These two have grabbed a lot of land, with Tumukunde grabbing massive Banyala owned land, land that belonged to the late Mzee Sajjabbi. People, a pattern is emerging here: where there has been massive land grabbing there is confusion, confusion created by land grabbers in military uniform.

To the Buganda caucus members, I am going to be refrained, but I would have called you names. Why did you not take time to get to the bottom of the issue? How could you easily buy into the fallacy and lies fed to you by Minister Kirunda and IGP Kaiyihura that it was the fear of His Majesty’s security? You should have known that that was total baloney, but you swallowed it easily. Shame on you.

Now suppose it was fear of His Majesty’s security, how many soldiers or police or a combination would have it taken to keep the peace during his majesty’s visit Suppose it was fear of the Kabaka’ security, why did not minister Kirunda in his capacity as Minister of internal affairs offer to go to Kayunga with His Majesty (I know NRMO does not want to refer to him as His majesty) the Kabaka for the sake of keeping peace?

Further, suppose it was fear for peace, why could not IGP Kale Kayihura accompany his majesty or go to Kayunga to keep peace? What would it have taken to keep peace from imaginary combatants in Kayunga? Now suppose Minister Kirunda and Kale Kaiyihura were right that it was fear of security-they were lying on behalf of the land grabbers-and rather than blocking Kafu had offered to lead the visit from the front to ensure peace? The fact that they chose to block the visit illuminates the fallacy.

Finally, regarding the hundreds of so called presidential advisers, a bunch of yes women and men, how come not a single one put forward a different view? Why it is that Minister Kirunda, IGP Kayihura told lies when they knew or should have known the truth about Kayunga and the truth was not His Majesty’s security but protecting Tumukunde and Tinyefunza’s land grabbing?

Folks, if it was security Minister Kirunda and IGP Kaiyihura would have offered the necessary protection at minimal cost and damage to Uganda. That they chose not too is exposes their fallacy. They are liars. period.

Bottom line: the Kayunga saga had nothing to do with fears about His Majesty’s security. Rather the blockade was concocted to protect one or two land grabbers in the names of Brigadier Tumukunde and General Tinyenfunza. Mzee Sajjabbi’s grabbed land was the issue not His Majesty the Kabaka’s visit to Kayunga. That is the truth folks about Kayunga.

Among the president’s advisors, cabinet, NRMO and yes Buganda caucus, there was only one firefighter who knew the folly of the Kirunda-Kaiyihura-Kimeze-Tumukunde-Tinyenfunza gang and tried rather late to stop the fire. As always it was the affable General Salim Saleh. The rest who advised the president were bifure period. Bifure because they feared to tell the president and country the truth: that land grabbing has now become a danger to national security.

It is time for a select committee of MPs to get to the truth about Kayunga and ensuing riots
WBK

USA Resident

Is Museveni responsible for Landlord murders in Uganda

August 20, 2009 at 1:52 am (Genocides, Land matters)
Tags: muwanga christopher

Summary: Though M7and his henchmen like Tamale Mirundi and Kakooza Mutale are encouraging Ugandans to shed the blood of their countrymen because of their property, the killers are shedding innocent blood in vain because, they do not inherit he land of the victim. The killing does not give them ownership!!! The killers are pure and simple, political condoms. FULL stop.

1/4. It is strange that the Monitor editorial [19/08/09]is asking irrelevant questions about the killings of property owners as though the cause of the mob-justice is unknown. The cause is the instigation from the government and its political activists and spokesmen, those who formed “Bibanja self-defence associations”, the ‘land Police’, etc.

2/4. But, as is always the case, the poor are being led into a blind alley. They are being used as “condoms” and the reasons are many. For example, do the Bibanja mobs no know that EVEN IF THEY SHED BLOOD AND MAKE OTHER PEOPLES’ CHILDREN ORPHANS, STILL THIS DOES NOT GIVE THEM THAT SAME LAND? Ownership of land does not transfer to the squatter simply because the owner has died!!!

3/4. Secondly, the original mile-owners are maybe 5% or so of the Buganda population. The rest are secondary buyers, third owners, etc and others are politicians, soldiers, civil servants, etc, who, when they want to evict the squatters, may come with Army platoons and no one will touch them. Only the poor descendant of a landlord, with no political connections, is roasted.

4/4. Lastly, it is now apparent that most of the mobs burning peoples, as though the law allows them to kill {they have been told so, though}, are not even squatters on the land of the victim landlords. It is political activism that some have made killing a pass-time, like Uganda has no state institutions????!!!!

Christopher Muwanga,

Nakasero,Kampala.

Banyoro hard line stances started the problems 120 yrs ago

August 14, 2009 at 11:39 pm (CULTURE, Federalism, History, Land matters)
Tags: Dr Adyeri Muchori

Whilst we sympathize with the problems that the banyoro are having, we should be clear on the following self inflicted problems. essentially the banyoro need to take their lesson from history and focus on cultural development (learning how to work hard), and on social emancipation (they started it all).

1. Ankole, rukiga, busoga, toro, etc are all fundamentally part of bunyoro. however, these regions sought to become independent due to the bad practices at the core of the kingdom. for instance, at the burial of every king, 100 bashambo (a clan that cuts accross ankole, rukiga, and rwanda) would have to be killed / buried with the king. the bakiga have every right to be anywhere in bunyoro. this derailed potential future sympathy for its causes.

2. Due to excessive ruthlessness in handling POWs by bunyoro, the growing buganda kingdom was forced into an align with whites … just to find a lasting solution to that everpresent looming danger of bunyoro. of course, victory resulted in “annexation” of bunyoro land and genocide, which was largely a revenge killings. note that the rest of the region sat and watched as this campaigm against bunyoro was orchestrated. No body really “felt sorry for them”

3. It is true that in principle kabalega is correctly a hero in fighting colonialisn. and this is confirmed by the fact that his earlier foe, king mwanga, joined him. although the motives were more survival than nationalist. with hindsight we see this, but we also do not say that this war was bound to fail because the leader kabalega did not have moral authority. u see, people compared british / bugand rule to the omukama’s rule .. with the bunyoro leader doing badly in that mental “elections”. the rest is history.

4. That hard line stance by banyoro is the same one showing its ugly head. It goes against all lessons of history. one that obama had to take himself. learn the + and – of your history and resolve to adopt the pluses only and replace the minuses with a better value from other cultures. for instance, in this day and age, in a republic, why do u call fellow citizens abafuruki? Remember that with the advent of colonization, the laws of Uganda gave everyone the right to settle anywhere. this was crowned by the 1974 land decree. these revelotionary land laws are just as binding as other state decisions during these times. for instance courts of law have instructed current governments to pay benefits to soldiers of uganda army recruited during amins times. similarly, the resulting decisions to collapse cultural land boundaries are just as binding.

5.This particular aspect of moving forward also affects buganda and the stance taken by mengo. it also affects the acholi region and “their land”. It is the same reason why the other east African states wisely do not recognize cultural governments. We actually feel Uganda needs to abolish them to become a positive member of the east African community.

6. Do you expect a lazy bum to bring development? The president may have good intentions, but; Jesus; it is not leadership per see, but what you can do with it. based on the accusations we see in the media about laziness, will the banyoro rise to the mark do disprove that they are lazy. it appears from the meida that the bakiga of Uganda are the most hardworking group, and on the contrary shoudl be allocated chunks of land in the idle north.

food for thought.

Thank you very much

Dr Adyeri Muchori
Kisumu – KENYA

UAH Forumist

4 Comments

Heny Mirima is wrong on Bafuluki

August 6, 2009 at 5:48 pm (2009 -2011 elections, CULTURE, KINGDOMS, Land matters)

Alot has been said about the President’s letter to cabinet about ‘Abafuruki’ in Bunyoro. I personally disagree with some of the contents but I was surprised when I watched Henry Ford Mirima, the Omukama’s press secretary and a an elder on Barometer on NBS TV saying that the Bafuruki should leave leadership to the Banyoro. He even said that what annoys him is to see the Bafuruki calling some of the villages they are staying, Rukiga names and he named Mpefu as one of them!

At his age and experience, I didn’t expect Mr.Mirima to take this debate this far bearing in mind that he is also not staying in Bunyoro but in Buganda. If Mr. Mirima, his sons, daughters or relatives wanted to stand in Buganda, how would he feel if the Baganda told them what he talked on NBS? With due respect to Mr. Mirima, why don’t you go back and read the Constitution( power belongs to the people) of which I believe the Bafuruki are among?

I don’t buy his urgument that the Bakiga are represented twice since they are represented both where they come from and also in Bunyoro and that Banyoro are not represented because of this reason!

I have personally been to Kibale and got a chance of interacting with the so called Bafuruki. Some of them told me they don’t have any problem with Banyoro because they have been staying with them for a long time but people who stay in kampala(Politicians) are the ones who fuel these tribal clashes.

Is Mr. Mirima aware that there are few Banyoro in villages? Banyoro are instead concentrated in trading centres like kagadi! One mukiga told me that Banyoro don’t like staying in villages because they are lazy and said that is the reason why they stay in towns where they can businesses! I discovered that some people as old as 20 years have never stepped out of Bunyoro. They only hear that their grandparents came from Rukiga. What does Mr. Mirima talk of these young people?

Dr.Besigye on Monday said that Bunyoro is one of the poorest districts in Uganda and which doesn’t have tarmac roads at all! Should we put this blame on the Bafuruki or you the leaders, Mr.Mirima?

What I would expect Mr.Mirima to be doing at this time is how to develop Bunyoro economically, socially and politically. Don’t encourage your people to be lazy, let them go and compete with Bakiga politically, teach them how to do farming and the rest. There is Oil in Bunyoro. Encourage your people to go and look for jobs in those Oil companies because I will not be surprised to hear that the Bakiga and other tribes are the ones working at the sites.

Over to you Mr.Mirima.

kayitarama godfrey

kampala

Federalism in Uganda is a Stone Age issue

August 5, 2009 at 3:28 pm (Federalism, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Kayondo Edward

Fellow netters, it’s the DNA of ethnicity that makes federalism in Uganda a Stone Age issue. We are currently not able to survive in the caves of our forefathers or hem in our brains like coconuts, the world is way wide open, opportunities are every where and the level of interdependence needed to survive these days is more than palpable, and so constricting.

For starters, those who have there eyes to the future (all true leaders should be visionaries), the definition of an ethnic group on which federalism is centered should be clearly explained. For a generation like ours, one for example will ask who is a true Muganda? My kids can marry or get married to any one they choose and excuse me but tribe will not be on my wish list for a suitable partner. Pluralism is a norm for many Ugandans scattered in and outside our borders. Diversities within many individuals are conflicts many don’t even want to address. Many can identify with Tiger Woods answer on the question of him being Black or African American.

So the question then is who is deceiving who? Who is going to benefit from this federalism movement? In the central area, baganda will benefit you would say, but then who is a muganda. The litmus test is before our eyes, who is benefiting from the few assets that those who want more currently own. Don’t forget that it’s the same people who administrate Bulange and its controversies that are holding the steering wheel for federalism.

For federalism to work we should have some other galvanizing force in the stipulated regions other than ethnic groups. On record I don’t think the failures in Uganda can be fixed with federalism. We are better of installing a couple bulbs in the heads of our current leaders , drill holes in some coconut skulls or scavenge for a few brighter minds.

For God and My Country.

Dr. Kayondo Eddie, MD

3 Comments

The only battle worth fighting in the proposed Kampala takeover is the democratic right of Kampalans

July 14, 2009 at 9:51 pm (KINGDOMS, Kampala, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Desmond Nzana

Ugandans At Heart,

While we await the official position of the FDC party on the Kampala Bill and the taking over Kampala by the central administration, let me volunteer the following personal perception:
1. FDC is unlikely to support the dilution of democracy as is proposed in this new Kampala bill. The people of Kampala deserve the right to be governed by their popular will just as other Ugandans in any other district. If other Districts are going to continue electing the LC5 chair persons by adult suffrage, why should city dwellers be denied this right
2.The question of territory is also not very clear, the expansion of the commercial attributes of Kampala into the areas surrounding it is inevitable. Urbanisation is on the up trend and that is good for our future, we can let the city expand into the neighboring Districts without first annexing them into Kampala. We could instead put in place the planning regulations in those areas that envisage such an eventuality.
3.These Districts should be prepared to host the growth of the city into their territory, it will be good for their revenues and I don’t see how it harms anybody least of all central GVT
4.Let Mukono, Entebbe Wakiso and Mpigi, be part of the same planning framework that envisages the commercial territory of Kampala growing into them but let them maintain their administrative identity. We can have a modern well governed metropolis that sits across several districts. It should not be impossible.

Having noted the above, it is also important that we remind ourselves that the district boundaries are not unchangeable. Article 179 (a&b) of the constitution empowers parliament by simple majority to alter boundaries of districts and to create new ones

Parliament has been creating new districts by splitting existing ones and what is proposed in this new bill is not new, only that in this case, chunks of existing Districts are being added to another existing District. There is nothing illegal in it

What is contentious is that the Districts losing territory are all deemed to belong to Buganda but Kampala which is to gain the territory does not.

Ugandans need to remember, that the only territory that the constitution considers immutable is the territory of Uganda as defined in the second schedule. Everything else within the territory of Uganda can be adjusted for administrative, cultural and political convenience as long as it is done in accordance with the constitution.

The regions, ie Acholi, Ankole, Busoga, Bunyoro, Buganda and Toro are not fixed territorial entities, they are instead groups of districts that consent or were deemed to have consented to co operate on cultural matters by article 178. This co operation is not irreversible. A District can democratically opt in or out acording 178(4).

The facts as per our constitution are as below:-
1.Districts can be created and adjusted by power of parliament. Their boundaries are determined by parliament
2.Regional groups (including Buganda) can be created and adjusted by the democratic consent of the districts involved. Their boundaries are determined by the vote of the district councils.
3.Theoretically Mbarara can vote itself out of Ankole to Buganda or choose to remain an attached like Kabale, Masindi could decide by vote to join the Acholi group. It may be difficult to imagine but it would all be legal and constitutional. Regional groupings by their constitutional status are more cultural than geographical.
4.If any Ugandans or Baganda for that mater are unhappy with the above constitutional disposition then the focus should be on constitutional reform, not political pressure when the other side is on solid legal ground. Eventually this matter may need a national referendum

The only battle worth fighting in the proposed Kampala takeover is the democratic right of Kampalans, and the maintenance of the entire council under universal Adult suffrage.

The issue of territory to me is secondary, because like I have elaborated above, within Uganda, there are no other unchangeable territories, no permanently fixed boundaries. Government can legally adjust district boundaries even if that may affect Buganda’s current deemed geography. But what is legally tenable may not necessarily be morally right or politically tenable.

Let me again reiterate that these are my personal views.

Desmond Nzana

FDC Activist and UAH forumist

The peasant mode of production must be stopped to avoid further famine

July 10, 2009 at 10:59 pm (Food and health, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: L/Cpl (rtd) Otto Patrick

Dear Ugandans,

I am recycling this message to once again emphasize that the uncertainty of national food supply (“food insecurity”) is a function of over-reliance on the peasant mode of production. The peasant mode of production has now reached its elastic limit and recurrent famine is clear testimony to that fact. The country must find the final solution to the peasant question. That population explosion bogey we keep resorting to whenever we come face-to-face with the limits of subsistence agriculture is sterile.

Uganda’s principle problem now is that it is experiencing an explosion of a population of elite that is mainly made up of part-time thinkers.

These were my words a few weeks ago:

1/6 An average person feeding on grains, legumes, vegetables and common meats requires about 300 Sq Metres of land to provide for his food requirements if the calorific consumption per day is the minimum requirement for a human being, i.e., about 2,600 calories per day; and assuming that there are 3 harvests per annum on that land.

2/6 An average human being requires at least 715 square metres of dwelling space at maximum dwelling density, this being the average amount of space per person in the great New York area.

3/6 Uganda has up to 5.2 million Hectares of arable land, that is, 13 million acres or 52 billion square meters. For the current population of 30 million, the optimum arable land one would expect to be used for food production, (assuming an average Ugandan consumes 2,500 calories of food per day – which he does not) is 18 billion square metres (30,000,000 x 300).

4/6 The amount of space that used for living is 2.15 billion sq M (30, 000,000 x 715) giving a total of 20.15 Billion Sq M that we would currently utilise if every Ugandan was taking up the maximum optimum living space (OLS) and consuming the recommended daily allowance of calories.

5/6 Therefore, out of our 52 Billion sq M, we are theoretically “using” only 38.75%. Basing on that computation, Uganda’s maximum carrying capacity is at least 77.42 million, which at the current rate of population increase shall be attained at 23:47 Hrs on 17 September 2036.

6/6 Note that, although we claim to be agricultural, our productivity is still abysmal. Kenya has only 4.6 million Hectares of land and they are able to add value agriculturally to the tune of $1,600 million per annum, compared to Uganda with 5.2 million hectares but adding value only to the tune of $574 million. Uganda’s value addition rate is about 36% that of Kenya. The difference can be attributed largely to Uganda’s peasant mode of production.

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

DRIVERS OF DEMOGRAPHY: THE HOE, THE ASSEMBLY LINE AND THE MICROCHIP

July 10, 2009 at 10:54 pm (Food and health, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: L/Cpl (rtd) Otto Patrick

Dear UAH,

1/7 The Countries of the world can be divided into three clans according to the waves of major change that they have undergone. “First Wave” countries are the agrarian countries, whose Court of Arms is the hoe.. For such countries, man has only made one major transition: from being the hunter-gatherer to domesticating innocent beasts and cultivating crops. “Second Wave” countries are the industrial countries whose Court of Arms is the assembly line and “Third Wave” countries are the post-industrial or information age countries Court of Arms is the Microchip.

2/7 The way countries work, produce, consume, socialize, politic, celebrate the beginning or end of life, raise families, fight wars, etc ……the way we live is shaped by the wave of change that precedes our present mode of existence. Uganda today is a “First Wave” country, that is, one of those countries still living off the First wave of change unleashed ten thousand years ago by the invention of agriculture…about 90% of us are peasants just like England in 1381 during the peasant wars, and the 100 years war.

3/7 As you know, the precondition of any form human advancement is energy. First wave societies like Uganda get all their energy from “living batteries”: human/animal muscle power, or direct from nature…the sun, wind, water. If anything, Uganda is at the lowest end of the first wave: we have not even dared yet to make the transition from the use of human muscle power to harnessing animal muscle power. We are not yet where Europe was by the time of the French revolution when they drew their energy from an estimated 14 million horses and 24 million oxen which pulled ploughs and carts, with waterwheels and windmills turning millstones etc.

4/7 Look at Uganda : everything is dependent on human muscle power. Economic productivity of a low- grade first wave society like us is a function of the pairs of hands available to operate the hoe. It is not a question of “moral hazard” as any member of UAH would wish to think, or ‘dark nights’ as Professor Kamuntu believes, or lack of financial penalties on reproduction as Mr Obbo has mused. Making more and more pairs of hands available is a functional necessity. Unless we break out of agrarianism, our demographic profile will not change. The question here is: does high population growth cause poverty or it is poverty that causes a high population growth? If at all there is a causal relation between high population and poverty, then the latter is the cause and the former just a spinoff.

5/7 Civil War America graphically illustrates the contrast between First Wave and Second Wave demographics. That civil war was a clash between the industrialism of the North (Unionists) and agrarianism of the South (Confederates). The leader of the industrial cause, Abraham Lincoln had two siblings, while Jefferson Davis was the last born in a family of 10. You mentioned China ’s one child policy. China came up with the one child policy as soon as they started making the transition to the Second Wave. That policy has not been there all the time, as Mr Obargot has pointed out: it was conceived of in 1979, and implimented wef 2000. The policy applies only to 35.9% of the population: it is restricted only to the urban areas. It does not apply to rural couples, ethnic minorities, and parents without any siblings themselves, or special administrative regions like Hong Kong and Macao..

6/7 The argument on population explosion is not convincing on several grounds: I remember from the days I was a mortar man, whenever there was an explosion, there would be fragments all around.. With our population explosion, where are the fragments? We would expect to see a lot of old people around, yet globally, Uganda has the lowest number of people over the age of 65. Why? : Because of our high mortality rates. Just today, 2,794 children will be born in Uganda . By 13 March 2010, 184 of them will have died, not because today is Friday 13th. It is because in Uganda , 65.99 out of every 1,000 live births do not live to celebrate their first birth day. We rank No. 35 in the world. For the 1.02 million that will be born this year, those that will die will be the equivalent of 170 Boeing 747s packed with babies crashing at Entebbe at the rate of three per week. Here is the point: the rate at which organisms reproduce is always commensurate with the odds of survival. We reproduce a lot because we reduce a lot. It is not immorality, it is mortality stupid!

7/7 The high maternal mortality you have highlighted is incidental to those underlying factors. Uganda ranks at No. 23 in the world, with 510 mothers dying in child birth for every 100,000 live births. Sadly, as long as we remain a “First Wave” or peasant society that atrocity against the mothers shall only pass as an occupational hazard, the whims/political will (or lack thereof) of our lumpen-bourgeoisie notwithstanding. We are simply pushing the wrong buttons….Bottom line: we have to find the final solution to the peasant question.

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

High Uganda population explained – A Shot in the Dark!…UGANDA….11.7 Bn

July 10, 2009 at 10:48 pm (Food and health, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: WB Kyijomanyi

L_Cpl Otto:

Professor Kamuntu should have reflected on his own admission that only 9% of Ugandans have electricity. If that is the case, how come the country is teaming with youth if only those with electricity are overdoing it?

Professor Kamuntu should be helping the government to come up with credible measures to curb the population explosion. Uganda will not come close to meeting its millennium goals if the population growth continues to grow at that rate. Similarly Uganda won’t be able to offer effective health care to the people with such numbers. It simply can’t even with plentiful oil money in the future.

Ugandans do not seem to appreciate the strong macroeconomic growth because the micro economic fundamentals are terrible. Very little attention has been paid to the household level which is both the victim and author of their own fate.

I understand the jist of Professor Kamuntu’s assertion: that lack of leisure and work activities forces Ugandans to engage in sexual activities. he should live that to undergraduate students of micro economics. As the the minister in charge of planning it was very timid. He should tell Ugandans the uncomfortable truth, which is that as long as they continue to produce many babies, their fate is doomed. Period. Done.

There is no magic bullet out of poverty at the household level. Needless to say, households with more children are likely to be poorer than households with fewer children. As the minister in charge of planning that is the message he should convey to Ugandans religiously. As they say he should stay on message over and over.

The big question is how to get there given the socially conservative environment in the country. Is the government of Uganda prepared to confront the elephant in the house and extend affordable, safe and accessible family planing services to those Ugandan women who want them? The minister can talk of natural methods if they want but the most effective method is well known.

Ugandans cannot have their cake and eat it too. No way. The best and yes more efficient method was the one suggested by Mr Onyango-Obbo in his Daily Nation column that to save Africa, time has come to levy a tax on babies. Incidentally land tax would also be the most efficient in the country but Ugandans are allergic to taxation (read the big men are the largest landholders). Yes, raise the cost of having babies without shifting the burden and cost on the poor Ugandan women. That could do the trick faster than this electricity angle.

The Minister as a respected economist should also help the state review the legacy of its policies. Are some govt policies contributing to the population explosion? For example could UPE and USE be having unintended consequences on population? How? Now that the barriers to education are no more even those Ugandans who may have sought of family planing/child spacing may not care anymore now that the burdens have been relieved.

You know Ugandans and their mentality “let us now produce the govt will educate” so they say. But wait a minute the govt won’t feed or dress those kids. Yes, it is proposing to treat them for free but not yet. Are the very policies aimed to hep Ugandans hurting them instead? That is for the govt to review and change course if necessary.

To be brunt, there is no political will to address the population explosion and its attendant poverty in Uganda. As a result the state is killing Ugandan women who have to produce until God relieves them of the burden.

WBK

Kampala Bill is not fair to Buganda and the rest of Ugandans

June 29, 2009 at 10:36 pm (Geography, KINGDOMS, Land matters, POLITICS, Uncategorized)
Tags: Tendo Kaluma

Fellow Ugandans,

I cannot imagine going to Mbarara or Gulu and taking over such perimeters without expected push back. President Museveni and his administration have become a very strange bed fellow when it comes to Buganda property, not only land but other revenue generating properties that seem to have been targeted to render defunct or non functional the cash cows for Buganda. In essence housing the capital of Uganda has been a nightmare for the tribe.
If the administration wanted to annex cities of regions from the previous 10 districts, then it ought to have done it across the board, take Jinja, Mbarara, Gulu and many other towns as a fair legislative move. Singling out Buganda things, simply because it is the capital has brought such unpopularity to the NRM/O both at home and abroad among seriously concerned Baganda.
My friend Kiyonga the political strategist has to be thinking beyond one presidency for his party! Having such unfair unilateral moves that target and impoverish Buganda cannot be a good thing for his party’s future. Incidentally the Baganda seem to have lost out disproportionately, in terms of economics, environment and lives wasted.
In the eyes of political forecasters this mounts to political party suicide given the projected future census of Buganda. Simply thinking that “generations would have changed and the ills will be long forgoten” is a myopic strategy. Had the folks in UPC been more foresighted during their reign, they would be enjoying incredible popularity today. Besides, why legislate on something that will definitely be reversed in the future?
Writing legislation to take so much out of Buganda alone is not only blatantly unfair it is discriminatory.
Look, Buganda/Baganda aided the Museveni administration to get in power, and it/they have paid the ultimate price. Buganda lost most of it’s ability to raise revenue take for instance, the Electricity project wich seems to have been designed without regard to Bugandan investors, who owned the old Owen falls dam. The adminstration did not have a plan or good will to replace Buganda’s investment with any other viable or similar revenue generating project. The Baganda like the Indians also had staked carefully their own revenue generating strategies and taking them away without adequate remuneration afforded to Indians is what’s put them at odds with the administration.
Even the Bristish who colonized us longer, did not take as much away from Buganda as has president Museveni and his administration. Here in Boston,echoes of disenchantment for the NRM/O party are heard from even those that are not following these debates closely.
I often say to my NRM/O friends in the USA that rescuing the NRM/O name in our towns is more difficult, because, people here see the party as the one that has taken on a very selfish posture to impoverish Baganda by overtly disenfranchising them at every turn. It will take a concerted effort to get back in the good graces of many Baganda, who have of late acquired this complex spline from irreparable suffrage. Laughing it away is unwise, un stately and indeed sadist to say the least. I hope the president will be able to look Bostonians in the eyes when he comes in September and empirically convince them that this ain’t so!

Tendo
Ugandan in Boston

9 Comments

What does ‘Kampala’ mean?

May 26, 2009 at 10:41 am (CULTURE, Geography, Land matters)
Tags: Henry Gombya

Dear UAH,

I would like to correct a few people telling lies about insects called ‘empala’. I am a student of African history from when Africa had no such thing as the Sahara Desert to the present time. I have not read anywhere that there was such insects in Buganda . unless there are yet some books on Uganda ’s history that have escaped my notice.

What I have read is that there were animals on the hill of what is now our capital city that the white man called ‘Impala’. There were so many everywhere that the white men kept referring to the place where these animals were as ‘the hill of the Impalas’. When translated to the natives it sounded like this: “Ako kasozi ka Mpala”. After some time the words ‘akasozi’ were dropped and there remained the words ‘ka Mpala‘. This was later turned into Kampala our present city. This story was narrated to me and other students at the Universsity of London’s School of African Studies (SOAS) by then Dr David Anderson, now Professor of African History at Oxford University.That story makes more sense than yours of insects called empala because there is another town in Kampala called Bakuli. Do you know why? I will tell you. There used to be a white man at this place who had a beautiful house and his name was Barclay. Whenever the Baganda passed his house they would marvel ata its beauty and it became known in Luganda as ’ewa Bakuli’ which, when translated in English was ‘at Barclays’. Yet another story is that of what the Baganda call ‘Mandaazi‘ (pancakes). The story goes that one day a white man was doing his rounds of women in the slums of Kampala and met this family that gave him what looked like pancakes. When he put them in his mouth and ate them, he was heard exclaiming: “Man does”. Excited Baganda heard him and told their friends; “He said it is mandaazi.” The name has remained since!

I think changing the name of Kampala would be a very silly mistake. It is a beautiful name with many sad and good memories for all those that have ever been there.

DR.HENRY GOMBYA

What does the law say on land evictions in Uganda

May 24, 2009 at 3:15 pm (CULTURE, Land matters, conflicts, legal issues)
Tags: Robert Ssenkindu

Dear UAH,

As you are aware there are four complicated forms of landownership in Uganda unlike in developed nations which reduced to only two, namely, freehold, leasehold. In Uganda we have the former plus two , that is, mailo and customary. Given the change of circumstances the latter, that is, mailo and customary are likely to be absorbed into the former, that is, freehold(mailo likely to take this form) and leashold. There are number of pieces of legislations regulating land ownership Uganda. However, the most essential pieces are (a) Land Act 1998 (Ch 227), (b) Land Acquistion Act 1965(Ch 226) and (c) Registration of Titles Act 1924(Ch 230).

As regards the issue of recent so called ‘ Mengo evictions’, it first and foremost depends on how the deprived parties obtained that land; were they granted (a)leasehold? Or b) freehold(?). If any of those, did they bother to register their titles? Or Is it so that the land in question was obtained fraudulently? If you are granted either a freehold or leasehold, you can’t just be evicted abrutly without an advance notice. The notice can be served to you provided you breach the covenant(e.g failure to pay rent) between you and your landlord (previous land lord if bought freehold). However though served a notice to vacate, the landlord must seek a court order to lawfully evict you. Most land disputes are handled by land tibunals, but if unsuccessful at the tribual level,then the high court, a court which also deals with emergency situations which may require the deprived party to seek an injunction. So I don’t know well whether the Mengo victims were lawfull freeholders or leaseholders and what exactly transpired. Did they, for instance, acquire the land fraudulently or just breached the covenant with their landlord(the Kabaka)?

The following section is a good authority on eviction of tenants:

PART XII—ACTIONS AND OTHER REMEDIES S.176 Registration of Titles Act 1924(Ch 230)

176. Registered proprietor protected against ejectment except in certain
cases.
No action of ejectment or other action for the recovery of any land shall lie or be sustained against the person registered as proprietor under this Act, except in any of the following cases—
the case of a mortgagee as against a mortgagor in default;
the case of a lessor as against a lessee in default;
the case of a person deprived of any land by fraud as against the person registered as proprietor of that land through fraud or as vb against a person deriving otherwise than as a transferee bona fide for value from or through a person so registered through fraud;
the case of a person deprived of or claiming any land included in any certificate of title of other land by misdescription of the other land or of its boundaries as against the registered proprietor of that other land not being a transferee of the land bona fide for value;
the case of a registered proprietor claiming under a certificate of title prior in date of registration under this Act in any case in which two or more certificates of title may be registered under this Act in respect of the same land,
and in any case other than as aforesaid the production of the registered certificate of title or lease shall be held in every court to be an absolute bar and estoppel to any such action against the person named in that document as the grantee, owner, proprietor or lessee of the land described in it, any rule of law or equity to the contrary notwithstanding

The best thing to do at the moment is perhaps to enact a new piece of legislation which require compulsory registration of titles(perhap computerised?), just to curb the increase of fraud involved in acquiring land titles in Uganda and regulation of relationships) between the landlord(s) and tenant(s). England and Wales have very formidable pieces of legislation, that is, Land Registration Act 2002 and Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, which address those problems decently.

Kenya has no lake worth writing home about

April 23, 2009 at 9:14 pm (Geography, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: L/Cpl (rtd) Otto Patrick

Ugandans,

The trouble with Migingo is, that you are dealing with artisanal fisherfolk (the equivalent of your small holders..the peasants and the balaalo)…they are the peasants of the waters. They are not even a community as such. Migingo, the rocky acre is just a beachhead for fishing deep inside Bugiri.

The portion of Nalubaale that belongs to Kenya is too shallow for meaningful fishing and this is what YK Museveni has observed, when he emphasizes the point of the waters to the West of the islands. If the brothers in Kenya insist on strict policing of the borders then they will take Migingo, but it will be useless for them, especially if Uganda reciprocates by saying: keep out! Kenyan fishefolk can only fish in Bugiri. Kenya has no lake worth writing home about. Migingo is only useful as a beachhead for fishing in the deeper waters of Southern Bugiri and Mukono, bordering with Tanzania. That is where they get all the fish from.

Note that, the bit of Nalubale that belongs to Kenya is too muddy for fish to thrive. From the bit of military geography of that area that I remember, there are are about 12 rivers that drain into Kenya victoria, depositing a heavy load of soil from the highlands West of the Rift Valley. Fish can not live there…except may be a bit of Nile Perch. When Nile Perch (which thrives in shallower waters) was introduced in the lake smaller species like tilapia took cover in the deeper waters where NP could not venture (hence the unscientific myth that NP had finished tilapia….the latter run into exile deep in Bugiri and Mukono)

Those Kenya islands are in fact peaks and crests of the portion of the Kenya highlands that borders the lake. When you look at the contours of Pyramid Island and the Island east of Migingo, all you see is that, land was submerged at the birth of Nalubaale but the peaks of some hills were too high to be covered completely by water. The largest of the Kavirondo islands, Mfangano is just the tip of a mountain, as you can see in the attached images.

Solution: final solution to small producers…the lake peasants, like I have been agitating for the land peasants.. Let fishing go industrial, deploy a couple of industrial trawlers in Bugiri…some of them can even be the size of Migingo…you know…which catch, process, pack and freeze the fish ready for export. Let us enforce the borders, as Kenya wants, and we keep their fisherfolk out of Uganda waters that they survive in. As you can see from the topography of the area, their waters are too shallow for industrial trawlers. They would as soon close all the 13 or so fish processing plants on their shores of Victoria. I would even put sonar in our trawlers to call up all the fish from their shallows.. They would not win. That would be the end of fresh water fish for them, especially as L Turkana atrophies as a result of Zenawi’s the hydropower project further up in the Oromo valley.

The Migingo hysteria is no different from the balaalo issue, and the small peasants in the crop farming areas: being stuck in small timer production. Actually YK Museveni has already looked beyond the hysteria of the rocky acre and identified the centre of gravity of the little quarrel: the deep waters of Bugiri and Mukono. He is laughing at those who think the rocky acre is the decisive factor.

My interest in telling Uganda to get their hands off that rock is first it belongs to Kenya a fact that we want to ignore, and secondly, it does not really matter for some one that is determined to harvest fish from that pond called Nalubale. Uganda, go trawler.

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

Don’t destroy cemeteries for new buildings

April 16, 2009 at 11:51 pm (CULTURE, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Dear Ugandans,

The government must not destroy Jinja Road cemeteries because they want to construct new business buildings.Graves are almost in all cities in the world. In the USA, Nevada has got old cemeteries and graveyards that have become tourist attractions. Many older cemeteries in Nevada have tour guides or park rangers on hand to provide details. Washington DC is another one where people tour some Civil War battlefields and cemeteries.. While in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans is a city where the dead, for centuries, have had to be buried in above-ground structures because the water is so close to the surface of this sinking city. If coffins are put in the ground, they will rise to the surface as the underground water pushes them up. We all watched these scenes during some Tsunami called Katrina when Bush was touring the city.

Anybody who attempts to destroy cemeteries is condemned world wide. France was the first to be condemned the time when they used to burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane their cemeteries. Jews also didn’t learn from their historical pain they suffered under the French and Russians as they also bombed 5 of the Palestine cemeteries in Gaza in 2009. Brother Saddam Hussein was another one that was also condemned when he destroyed Kurdish villages and cemeteries in 1987.

In Islam, the religion I follow, the dead and their wishes MUST be respected. That’s why caliphate Ali had to be buried in the now modern Iraqi city of Najaf because that’s what he wanted. Najaf is now considered so sacred by the Shiite Muslims. Ali was Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, adopted son, and son-in-law. He was killed in a mosque at Kufa, approximately 6 miles from Najaf. Prophet Abraham also visited Najaf while still alive and stated that those buried in Najaf would be guaranteed entry to paradise. So Ali had requested that, when he died, he be buried not in his capital of Kufa but rather in neighbouring Najaf.

In addition to Ali’s tomb, the Najaf city also boasts one of the world’s largest cemeteries, the Wadi-us-Salaam (” Valley of Peace “). Several Shiite prophets are buried there, and some believe that Ali himself endorsed the site as part of heaven. Shiites from around the world long to be buried there.

In 2004, Fallujah residents in Iraq decided to bury their dead in the city’s football stadium since cemeteries on the city’s edge could not be reached. This is the time when Bush and USA were relentlessly bombing them.

We are still a poor country and therefore we should not pay or lease for plots where we are buried as is the case in England.So , the dead should be buried where they wish and their wishes must be respected by the state. Well, Obote wanted to be buried in Uganda and he got his wish. Why not us? We are all going to die some day and personally wish to be buried anywhere near the city where Muslims and my kids can easily access my grave to pray for me. I hope to organise this when I’m still alive inishallah(God willing). I pray that nobody plays around with shifting my grave mbu I’m near the city.

Byebyo ebyange

Abbey.K.Semuwemba

Don’t burry your people within or near capital cities

April 14, 2009 at 4:15 pm (CULTURE, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Robert Ssenkindu

Like in any sovereign land(democratic) public interest overrides individual interest. So being the legal owner of the land in question can’t stop the constitutionally delegated authority to take over your land if it is for the interest of the public.

Chapter 4 on Protection and Promotion of Fundamental Human Rights and Other Freedoms(1995) Constitution, under the subtitle of ” protection from deprivation of property” art 26 (2) (a) & (b)(i)(ii) stipulates that “26.(1) Every person has a right to own property either individually or in association with others. (2) No person shall be compulsorily deprived of property or any interest in or right over property of any description except where the following conditions are satisfied-

(a) the taking of possession or acquisition is necessary for public use or in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health; and

(b) the compulsory taking of possession or acquisition of property is made under a law which makes provision for-

(i) prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation. prior to the taking of possession or acquisition of the property; and

(ii) a right of access to a court of law by any person who has an interest or right over the property”

Further Chapter 15 on Land and Environment, article 237(2)(a) (1995) constitution stipulates that “the Government or a local government may, subject to article 26 of this Constitution, acquire land in the public interest; and the conditions governing such acquisition shall be as prescribed by Parliament”

Again, Ch 227, s42 (1998) Land Act re-stresses those constitutional provisions above. On the contrary ss.43&44(1998) Land Act concerns control of environmentally sensitive areas.

There is also another section, that is, s45(1998) Land Act which concerns ‘land use planning and zoning’ in relation to Town and Country Planning Act (1951)T&CPA. SS.5& 6(1951)T&CPA address the situations when an area is declared for planning by the responsible Minister on the request of the local authority.

So Ugandans, as regards to your question as to what to do next by the agrieved party, he can appeal the decision , if unhappy, to the authority which has made it against him. In case of further disagreement,he can go judicial review.

One thing you should bear in your mind is that the rule of law is always distorted in nations with dictatorial tendencies(I am no sure if Uganda is one of them…hahaha). For instance any authority can maliciously invoke either a statutory or constitutional provision, if it were to be softer to you, to deprive you of any of your rights if it wishes to do so. However, if you detect any such malice, the burden of proof is on you to prove that you have been wrongfully deprived of your right(s). If you can prove that, then you have one more stumbling block to overcome, that is, the judge . Many people are of opinion that judges or judicial institutions in particular, in undemocratic nations are always hell bent to serve their employers. But that should not make you dispair because it is always better to try and err than not trying at all… what I mean is that no one should fear to have his case heard as a result of fear that s/he will no win it anyway.

Robert Ssenkindu

Ugandan Residing in Sweden

Land should be owned by few Ugandans

March 16, 2009 at 5:25 pm (CULTURE, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: L/Cpl (rtd) Otto Patrick

Ugandans,

1/11 The thrust of my views on the land question in Uganda is that, in whatever manner it is resolved, the goal should be to make the country effect the transition from rain-fed, hoe-based, peasant-operated agriculture (if indeed it should be called agriculture) to modern, scientifically-managed commercial farming. Any intervention in the land question must have its end state as revolutionising Uganda’s agriculture. In my opinion, anything less that is subversive and an act of treason.

2/11 Let me quote Mr. Kyijomanyi who wrote in his debate on land the following: “Both aspiring land barons and those with land should be treated the same.”. Once again, my view is that a progressive government with an eye for the country’s future should do everything in its power to ensure that ownership of land is consolidated in as few hands as possible, to enable the transition in our mode of agriculture to take place. Those already with land should not be saddled by legislation that entrenches squatters on their land. It is for that very reason that, I hold that the 2007 land bill is a piece of treason.

3/11 No legal, political, traditional or any other obstacles should be created for those I call “aspiring land barons”. If their intention is to consolidate land holdings and do away with fragmentation, they should be given as much support as they need and beyond. Fragmentation of land is a barrier to the development of Uganda’s agriculture. If Uganda does not develop her agriculture then the country is dead. If we are to have a future as a nation, we have to turn our agriculture around.

4/11 So, as far as I am concerned, everything is just in black and white: Either you are for consolidation of land ownership or you are for fragmentation of land ownership and entrenchment of microholders. I am for the former, and I am opposed to the latter. If you are for fragmentation, I treat you as the ultimate enemy of Uganda.

5/11 Let us look at some of the issues Mr. Kyjomanyi raises in the message below:

1. so-called land fund, for enabling squatters to buy themselves off: This is treason.

2. Land bill that entrenches squatters on land causes fragmented ownership. That is treason.

3. Microfinance, microcredit, microenterprise, microthis, microthat, microetc: That is treason

4. Owners of large tracts of land with tenants that pay them rent (Kyijomanyi Doctrine): retrogressive, reactionary and inimical to the future of the country: Treason.

6/11 Kyijomanyi asks:“Should the land fund fund tenants (not squatters) to a luxurious land style, from being tenants (squatters) to owners of 200 cares?” What exactly does this question mean? What are “land fund tenants”? What is a “luxurious land style”? Those are obscure phenomena….the trouble is that, you then go ahead and build secondary arguments basing on them. Once again, Kyijomanyi directes certain questions at me that would make appear me to be a supporter or defender of the 2007 land bill: “Do you see the inherent moral hazard nature in the land bill/land fund?” . As far as I am concerned, the inherent problems are more monumnetal that the so-called moral hazard.

7/11 I thought moral hazard was a situation wherein, when someone is shielded against a certain risk, he starts behaving differently from how he would have behaved if he was exposed to the risk, e.g., smoking carelessly where there are jerrycans of petrol, because you know that there is a fire extinguisher. How does that concept apply to Uganda’s agrarian question? (By the way, there are still questions you have not answered about the applicability of Akerlof’s lemons to issues of strategic transformation of Uganda)

8/11 My point is, if a land lord has 200 acres of land, far from being encumbered with tenants and squatters, he should be facilitated in any way he chooses, to acquire even the adjoining 200 acres.. In other words, all kyijomanyi’s talk of land fund for tenants should be off from the books. If at all there is a land fund, it should be given to the big landowner, to ease the squatters off the land. Land fund should be given as abribe to squatters to leave land that they are squatting on. Not every Tom, Dick and Harry; not every Musoke, Mukasa and Kiwanuka; not every Baluku, Kambere and Masereka; not every Okello, Otim and Otto should be a land owner.

9/11 There should be no question of giving “land fund” to peasants, squatters, microholders. That simply exacerbates the problem of fragmentation. Fragmentation is the antithesis of modernisation of agriculture. Backward agriculture is Uganda’s grave. Whoever encourages fragmentation is Uganda’s grave digger. Whoever arrogates himself the role of being Uganda’s grave digger has to be resisted.

10/11 Kyijomanyi says: “I know what land rents mean. Rent is not mere land rent but the receipts of what is grown on that land. I defined rent broadly.”: That is very funny. Rentism as an approach to Uganda’s agrarian question is subversive. Feudal lords fleecing tithes and scuttage and surplus from serfs? I would make you choke on that rent of yours….treacherous, reactionary, mediaeval mentality in an era of producing for a global market. Disabuse yourself of that thinking. I hope that is not DP policy.

11/11 Kyijomanyi says: “No, unlike you and NRMO, I see a situation where bibanja holders and land owners emerge winners. There is a win-win situation but it cannot be in the form of free lunch for one party.”: What does he mean here? We should not be looking for winners or losers. This is not a matatu game or football match. The question is whether Uganda will survive or not. Finally we should not look at landownership as an end in itself. It has to be a means to increased national productivity. If the land owner is not a producer then he should be put to task…

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

Museveni has killed institutions in Kampala

March 15, 2009 at 1:43 am (Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: christopher Muwanga

Summary: The breakdown of state institutions, which started in the villages when the LC system withered away (no elected officials for more than 3 years now) [in addition to the parastatals destroyed long ago but the Civil service, police, national Army, etc] has at last reached Kampala City management. Child sacrifices are the order of the day. Citizens, even kings are denied freedom of movement and the “fountain of honour” owns to and braggs about the feat.

1/5. By their own admission, KCC are no longer in charge of Kampala [See Daily Monitor, 14th march 2009]: Mr Muwonge Kewaza, Monitor yesterday: “Legally, we are in charge of the city but there are several city managers out there. City dwellers no longer respect our directives“.

2/5. The Division Administratioins are now private feifdoms, The City Engineer’s instructions are no longer followed, hence the daily collapse of structures, killing people. KCC no longer collects garbage [the task is now in the hands od private scavangers who fight for garbage and collect it, at a fee, depending on connections political], UTODA, the taxi transport managers are above the law, so long as they accompany the president on his campagn trails.

“KCC has lost control of the city,” he continued.
Although he did not give names, Mr Muwonge said sometimes KCC’s law enforcers are confronted by gun-wielding people at sites.

3/5. Mayor Nasser Sebaggala told Saturday Monitor: “The city development technical team visits these sites as part of their routine but developers defy their directives.” [read: investors and political proteeges.
He added: “We have just suspended construction works in the city, why did he [developer] continue?”

4/5. CONCLUSION; All these facts allude to the conclusion that Uganda, the state, is no longer in existance. The Villages have no Governement [ in form of councils-LC1]. We have no national Army or Police. Now, Uganda’s only City is in anarchy since the elected authority has no power. Those who predicted Government would not be in place in 2011 were far off the mark! Already, in 2009, WE HAVE NO GOVERNANCE, IN THE REAL SENSE. UGANDANS are like ducklings which survive on the mercy of God. “Buli omu ali ku lulwe, ng’ebyana by’embaata” (every one is on his/her own like ducklings).

5/5. Request: Pray for us, everyone. We know not what sin we Ugandans committed, not to have a Governement, when we pretended to elect one.

Chistopher Muwanga,

Nakasero,

Kampala.

Encourage urbanisation in Uganda

March 15, 2009 at 1:29 am (Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Ogwanga Sam

Dear Ugandans,

I would like to react to what Mr.Otto Patrick has written below about land. Mr. Otto wrote:

“We cannot inaugurate the ‘Plan for Modernization of Agriculture’ (PMA) and then promulgate a law that entrenches peasants and squatters. That is like buying a baby cot and then going for vasectomy .”

I have always had problems understanding the reason behind some of the elements under PMA. I think a lot under PMA constitute glaring contradictions in the government’s PEAP policy, informing many of it’s budgetary allocations. I would imagine that given the continuing land fragmentation that we have in most parts of the country, the PMA components dealing with actual cultivation of crops/rearing of livestock should have concentrated on intensive methods of agriculture (on small plots) not plantation agriculture.

Extensive Plantation agriculture and the infrastructure and technology that go with it cannot meaningfully be done in a country where the countryside is full of peasants all eking out a living from land.

But I also think a lot of these things will require more carefully thought-out government planning. I remember there was a time when it was fashionable for all politicians and civil servants to advise young men/women looking for employment in towns to go back to land (I continue to hear that up to this day even on the ‘UAH’ forum). I still think that was misguided thinking. These people were leaving rural life to begin wage labour in urban centres, a step in societal transformation. Advising somebody to go back to land may be done individually depending on the circumstances but not made to appear as if it is the government opinion/policy for all school leavers searching for jobs. Many young people ended up becoming peasants even though they could have been encouraged to try other occupations.

The point is that we should instead, more than before, encourage urbanisation and not see it as a bad trend. All the trading centres cropping up ought to be immediately surveyed and planned for basic services to serve as nuclei of future metropolis. Provision of government or any services like electricity, water or vaccines can be several hundred times cheaper and affordable if people were living in more concentrated settlements, not everywhere throughout the country side. Urbanisation is a sure way of freeing land for commercial agriculture, including forestry. Peasants living in small towns can choose to go and work on these farms or find something else to do in the urban centres. Within two to three generations you would not have many typical peasants in the country.

We shall take more that 200 years to reach the structural transformation turning point (one where there is a shift from living off peasant agriculture to survival on wage labour and services)if no bold and unpopular step is taken now regarding land reform.

I think shying away from carrying out a major/drastic land reform is part of the reason Uganda may be moving in circles in very many areas including politics (trapped in a revolving door as some people would put it).

Ogwanga Sam.

Residing in USA

I oppose the 2007 land bill??

March 15, 2009 at 12:59 am (Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: L/Cpl (rtd) Otto Patrick

Let me start by quoting Mr Kyijomanyi in his message below when he wrote:

“…if NRMO really wanted to create efficient land use in Uganda, I know L_Cpl Otto does not want to hear it anymore, it should have used taxation.”

Where does he base to make such a claim? I am a staunch believer in the tax state, and a symbiotic relationship between the political class and the populace based on a fiscal contract.

Let me refer you to my paper on land that I have sent to all UAH forumists to read but Mr.Kyijomanyi has refused to read it or/and comment on it. In that paper which Mr. Abbey Semuwemba has read, I say:

“Instead of giving microcredit to a peasant who will buy a bicycle, marry another lady to oppress and use the rest to buy tekwe brew or is it kwete, and then fail to pay back, we should lump everything up and give macrocredit to a General Oketta or a Brigadier Otema or any other aspiring land baron currently gracing the headlines, to handsomely pay off the squatters that are pestering him. Once the land has been consolidated, give the owners the confidence that it is their private property, with all accompanying legal backup.

Just as swiftly, enact a law that sets the minimum acreage of land that can be registered under a landowner in zones of agricultural production, and for that matter, everywhere else. Soon afterwards, by force of law, cause the land baron to pay property tax on that land: so many millions of shillings per so many hectares of land per annum. That will discourage him from using the land as an object of speculation and force him to put it to productive use. If he employs a threshold of 500 labourers on his 40 square miles farm, and provides them with affordable accommodation and other amenities, waive the property tax in his favour.”

Although Mr. Kyijomanyi constatntly imply that I am a supporter of the 2007 land bill, I am on record as a stauch opponent of everything it stands for:

I will quote myself again:

“We cannot inaugurate the ‘Plan for Modernization of Agriculture’ (PMA) and then promulgate a law that entrenches peasants and squatters. That is like buying a baby cot and then going for vasectomy.”

Land titles are now useless in Uganda

March 13, 2009 at 4:25 pm (Land matters, POLITICS, PRESIDENCY)
Tags: WB Kyijomanyi

It is the truth. I repeat the market for land collapsed long ago. And it collapsed because the govt messed up with the incentive structures. Actually several things are happening simultaneously in the land sector. The land bill Act of 1998 or 1997 offered full insurance to land squatters/bibanja holders/and so called bonafide land tenants (read land grabbers). I equate land to insurance. Once the laws was passed things fell a part literally. There has never been order/certainity in the land sector ever since. I invite you to wonder why it is that insurance firms discriminate on the basis of age, gender, and even race.

For some strange/stupid reason the cabinet of Uganda wanted to treat every one in the land sector the same. Actually tenants were treated better than mailo land owners which in the insurance industry would be like treating young male better than middle aged women drivers. In other words, the land bill should have taken into consideration quality. Quality of land/location/size etc but also quality in terms of ownership.

To privilege the tenant/bonafide tenant over the mailo land owner was the biggest mistake the bill made. It may be the case that tenant/bibanja holders have groups that represent them but not mailo land owners because the regime hates them even as the big men in the regime have become the largest land holders in Uganda not by birth, but through land grabbing, okay blackmail purchases. Anyone who cares to know knows that the President Museveni is now the largest land holder in Uganda (that is why he and the twatera embuddu clique eschewed efficient tools such as land taxation). The consequences are there for all to see: the opposite has happened to the land sector. The order the bill wanted to introduce is no no more. Truth of the matter is tat the land sector is characterized by chaos and uncertainty.

That chaos and uncertainty has led to the second problem: multiple land titles. Mailo land owners have the original copy which by law-gazette notice -has never been annulled. The crooks with the right connections have duplicate copies. Mark you, the ministry of lands is a den of thieves who create land titles for the NRMO crowd. under such an environment, land buyers can never be sure that the land they are buying belongs to the person selling it in the first place. That is where the lemon problem comes in.

What you saw the IGP doing is the equivalent of what buyers of second hand vehicles in the West do: demand a certificate from govt licensed garage to verify that indeed the car is not a lemon. It is costly. With the crime levels in Uganda, the IGP is now in the business of verifying land titles. How did things get to that level?

Things will get worse not better. I suspect that as Kony terrorized parts of northern Uganda, some ‘bonafide’ tenants may have taken over people’s land. Mark you the Land Act does not take such developments into consideration. If someone takes over your land and can prove that they have been on that land since 1986 (notice the cut off year) for 10 years, they can invoke the law to protect them.

Basically, the Land Act assumes that if you let -never mind whether you were aware or not-someone on your land for 10, you are deemed to have slept on your rights and therefore out of luck. The bonafide tenants has all the rights to be issued land titles.

The insight I want to emphasize on Ugandans is that if NRMO really wanted to create efficient land use in Uganda, it should have used taxation. All holders of mailo land holders/other forms of land would be subject to a land tax. It would have served multiple goals. a) it is more efficient than the current land Act. b) there would be no such uncertainty with regards to land titles and therefore minimal chaos in the land sector. C) It would have been more equitable in the end. The logic is that you tax heavily something you do not like(NRMO hates land owner). Those unable to pay the tax on the expansive land would sell to return portions they can afford to pay the tax on. It is possible the govt could have generated bilions in taxes since land can’t be hidden to vade taxes. I told why taxation was not considered: it would hit the new kids on the land block.

As Justice Wendel Holmes famously observed, taxes is what people pay for civilization. YKM wanted to avoid land taxes for personal reasons and created the current chaos in the land sector. Similarly, he hoodwinked Ugandans when he abolished the only taxes most people paid so today they have no voice. How can Ugandans complain that YKM is hiring only his relatives when they pay no taxes? If they want that voice they have no choice but pay taxes.

Let the embattled land holders counter YKM’s land reform with a proposal to be taxed instead on their land holders. NRMO would then have to explain why a revenue starved nation would leave money on the table. As they say kyoyagala kikusezza (you pay dearly for what you treasure). Imagine if the land holders were to call a national press conference and announce that they are willing to be taxed on their land holdings. Things would interesting would they?

This the what Akerlof talked about. The land market is full of lemons hence the uncertainty. No one can be certain of the land title they hold. It has now become so costly to a level where the IGP checks land titles. The picture of IGP in the NewVision with scared Katoto checking land titles said it all: the land market is Uganda is no more. That is the uncertainty Akerlof talked about. The govt offices are responsible for the lemon business. No one can be sure of the land titles they hold. Former Finaces ministers are not pared and so is NSSF

The point is this, the land sector can be reformed without fragmenting land any further. But to do so, the govt must come up with an upper limit on the amount of land the landless qualify for under the subsidy/land fund.

Let me wade into a controversial region. By all indications, Bunyoro seems to have plentiful of land. But the presence of plentiful land does not mean that Bunyoro’s land should be fragmented or grabbed. Large scale/’modernized agriculture’ could take place in Bunyoro and in regions where land has not been fragmented.

The people of Bunyoro have a legitimate point when they complain that new arrivals have more land than the indigenous Banyoro. Should individuals who were landless elsewhere own more land than indigenous Banyoro? That is wrong period. It is happening because the govt out of stupidity has promised such individuals to access the land fund and buy themselves out. It is the perfect case of moral hazard. They continue to take over more and more Bunyoro land and complaining-imagine-that the govt is not doing what it promised: to give them funds from the land fund, my foot, to buy their luxurious lifestyles.

Again the Baganda have a saying that “eyali affude bwalemaara (sp)/he who was all given up for the dead, when he ends up disabled is fine. I equate the almost dead to the landless who should be grateful for whatever little the govt can help them afford. But they are foolish and would rather live like kings on expansive land holdings.

And let me be clear again. If the land fund is going to be operationalized, priority should go to the indigenous people. In the case of Bunyoro, priority should go to the Banyoro to buy back some of the land but not to finance luxury. That is why the govt should come up with an upper limit. How much land should the landless be facilitated/subsidized to acquire through the land fund? That is perhaps the mother of all questions and to my knowledge no one has asked it yet.

And in the case of Buganda, priority should go towards bibanja holders and not bonafide tenants/aka 1986 creations. But once again, the question is how much land should they be able to buy from the land owners? Should bibanja holders be able to force the mailo land owner -the land act forces the land owners to sell at Ugs shs 1, 000-to sell them against his/her wish 20, 30, 50, 70, 100% of his/her land? How much should be given up under the law/land Act? Yes, the incentives have to be properly aligned (emphasis added). The last I checked the land reform is silent on these issues.

Byebyo.

WBK

Namirembe now part of land politics

March 9, 2009 at 1:27 am (CULTURE, KINGDOMS, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: christopher Muwanga

Brief: At 12:00 PM , 8th march 2008, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Namirembe, the Bishop of Namirembe for the last 15 years signed the letter of ‘abdication’ of pastoral authority to the Archbishop of the province of Uganda, The Rt. Rev. Orombi who immediately too handed over responsibility to the nearest [geographically] Bishop Dr. Luzinda of Mukono Diocese. [Read on: up to P/S, beyond sign-off].

1/6. Why all this?: the record of the minute of the Synod read by the Secretary to the Diocese of Namirembe to the audience narrated that Bp. Ssekkadde had stated his wish to resign at clocking his 65th birthday in 2 years time and has ever since been saying ‘bye-bye’ to his flock.

2/6. But wait, in his sermon, The Arch-Bishop thanked the Christians of Namirembe for their patience and that he was relieved the ‘demonstrative’ match threatened had not taken place. He also warned the parishioners and the clergy to avoid politicising church matters.

3/6. Comment:

But wait, all has not been well for this Great Diocese that used to ‘command’ obedience from Maseno in Kenya to Bujumbura in Burundi, from Boga-Zaire [Eastern Congo] to Juba in the Sudan. Some clergy and laity had wanted the man gone sooner than later, even before his official retirement date that fell a few days back.

4/6. The possible root cause:

After the Kabaka of Buganda, Namirembe probably comes next in size of land owned in Buganda. When Sheikh Mubaje was under fire, Bishop Ssekkadde paid a courtesy call on him and is reported to have said. “..if he is leasing out but not selling ..land, that is developmental…..that is not a problem“. Rumours had been flying around that Ssekkadde had been ‘selling’ land of different parishes under his custody and there were conflicts in Buganda on subject. The fire of rebellion gathered momentum.

5/6. Other possible reasons: Namirembe today is not that of yesterday. The Bishop of Namirembe is no longer the ‘de-facto’ chaplain at State House, Entebbe. Even in Buganda things have changed. For example, in the audience today were two very important individuals in Buganda: The current Katikiro (J.B. Walusimbi) and the former one, (Mr. Mulwanyamuli Ssemwogerere) -people that are not parishioners at St. Paul’s cathedral – a thing that could never have been imagined over the last 120 years in Buganda’s history. {The prime minister of Buganda, Prof. Apollo Nsibambi never misses the 11 O’clock Luganda service at Namirembe. So, he was present too and he hugged the outgoing Bishop}. Things have not been made easier by the American-style ‘born-again’ biweempe [grass-carpet] congregations, although studies indicate the avalanche has been countered here.

6/6. Conclusion: So, a lot has changed and therefore, Namirembe cannot hide from the Politics of Uganda today, despite the Arch Bishop’s warning, especially when it comes to land politics, etc.

Christopher Muwanga,

Nakasero,

Kampala.

8.3.09.

P/S: The Religion the Katikiro of Buganda was one of the most important questions in Buganda/Ugandan politics. Many believe that the DP was born to fight for the ‘Katikiroship’ of Buganda. It is a question that has shaped our politics ever since ‘project Uganda’ came to be.

That Roman Catholics have now become confirmed Katikiro’s of Buganda under Kabaka Mutebi is not a miracle though. That a catholic too should become Katikiro was a DESCISION by the NAMIREMBER ELITE, led by Prof. Nsibanmbi, Mayanja –Nkangi and others (probably including the then ‘Arch-duke’ Besweri Mulondo, too). CM.

Buganda Assets aren’t limited to those in the 1993 Act

March 3, 2009 at 1:24 pm (CULTURE, KINGDOMS, Land matters, POLITICS)
Tags: Kalundi Serumaga

The items listed in the 1993 Act are those that the Act says must be returned “immediately” (and even that has not happened in full, by the way).

The Act then clearly also makes recognition that there are other properties that must also be returned through further “negotiations”.

This is exactly where we have been stuck for 14 years: Buganda and Uganda have not been able to establish and follow a clear negotiation process. The problem is President Museveni seeking to personalise what talks there have been, and keep the proceedings vague (as was the approach to many of the NRM Peace Talks in the past). Second, while the process stalled, the NRM has been making fundamental legal and demographic changes to the properties that would be under said negotiations (e.g. donating land to ‘investors”; bringing new settlers to these areas; introducing decentralisation, and creating new districts whose “land boards” then claim and sell the land; using the CA to “constitutionally” remove Kampala from Buganda etc).

The purpose is exactly as one Ugandan called Patrick Otto inadvertently puts it: to ensure that by the time NRM sits down to serious conclusive talks, there is nothing left physically to talk about. This is exactly how they prevaricated for six months during the 1985 Nairobi Peace Talks. so that by the time they “agreed” with the Okellos, they had changed themselves from a beaten army of 4000 to a LONRHO sponsered mercernary force of 40,000, and promptly stormed Kampala.

Buganda’s position is simple and clear: follow the law and conclude the legally stipulated negotiations; stop making status changes to property that is supposed to be subject of negotiation; hand over all the peoperty that was supposed to be handed over immediately, or pay the rent arrears for those you wish to keep using; and stop making constitutional changes by the back door (eg: the Buruuli issue. If indeed Buruuli is not part of Buganda, let it be debated in Parliament, and a Constitutional amendment be enacted).

The choice is clear: either all concerned should follow the law, or we can and should all ignore and reject it. This will be the basis of a real revolution that will remove the neo-colony for once and for all.

This approach by Mr. Otto Patrick Mutengesa is what the English call being disingenous. Maybe it is part of Sandhurst training.

Peace,

Serumaga

Journalist/Member of the ‘UAH’ forum

………………………………………………………………….

For clarification,in principle, saza and gombolola land estates were in principle, handed over, although actually, they have not been done so.