The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
How the search for votes in Acholi has corrupted our president, leading him to disregard his core principles
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | President Yoweri Museveni has issued orders to evict all pastoralists (Bahima and Batutsi of Kinyankore and Kinyarwanda culture) from the Acholi region. These people, who are commonly referred to as Balalo, migrated to Acholi in search of land. Many of them sold their land, houses, and other assets in Western and Central Uganda, where land is scarce, and migrated to Acholi, where land is more abundant. In Acholi, they either bought or rented land from local people and settled there with their cows.
Some local elites in Acholi, led by the Chief Justice Owiny Dolo, began a campaign against Balalo. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact complaint against Balalo because this section of Acholi elites raises different issues at different times. Initially, they claimed Balalo had “grabbed” land from Acholi peasants. Balalo produced purchase and/or rental agreements with local people. These elites now claimed Balalo’s cows were eating the crops of Acholis (kwonesa). Museveni ordered Balalo to fence their land and create water sources inside their land or face eviction. Balolo complied.
On Wednesday, I appeared on television with the minister for Northern Uganda, Kenneth Omona, and the former MP for Agago and former leader of the opposition, Morris Ogenga Latigo, to discuss this issue. I listened to these two gentlemen in silent wonderment and failed to get their point. This is because they raise a hotchpotch of issues that are difficult to comprehend.
Latigo claimed Balalo had failed to integrate into the local community. Should anyone lose their cultural identity because they have left their “ethnic home” and settled elsewhere in the country? That Balalo buy land from impoverished Acholis cheaply. Who determines the value of land: Latigo or the market? Omona made a similar claim that the Acholi have just come out of internally displaced people’s camps (it’s 20 years now) and are poor and vulnerable. So Balalo buy land from them at giveaway prices.
A Mulalo interested in land meets the family or clan that owns the land. The family/clan writes and signs a declaration to sell the land. The meeting is attended by the Rwot Kweri, (cultural institution land representative) and local council officials. Then land is surveyed, a price is negotiated for purchase or rental, and the transaction is concluded. The purchase or rental agreement is endorsed and stamped by local council officials. Any Mulalo intending to take cows there must have all these documents from LC1, 2, and 3, plus the GISO confirming purchase or rental of land.
Then the Mulalo goes to the District Veterinary Officer (DVO), the LC5 chairman, and the RDC to get approvals. With this pile of documents, the Mulalo goes to the ministry of agriculture, where the minister MUST personally sign a certificate of compliance. Then a Mulalo gets a letter from the commissioner for animal health in the ministry of agriculture, which he takes to the DVO of his home area to be allowed to transport cows to Acholi. Obviously, not every Mulalo followed this process, but a majority have.
Why then is Museveni evicting Balalo? No one’s land has been grabbed forcefully from them. Besides, if that happened, the offender(s) should be punished as individuals, not the entire community. Aren’t Ugandans allowed to buy land and settle in any part of this country? Many Acholi leaders, including Dolo, have bought land and built homes in Kampala. Should Baganda ask for all of them to be evicted? In Toro (where I come from), many people from all over Uganda, but especially Bakiga and Banyarwanda, have settled there. Initially some elites tried to turn this into an ethnic issue but were resisted. Today we all live together in harmony. Hence some of the MPs from Toro are Banyarwanda, Bakiga, Bahima, etc.
The idea that Acholi peasants are being given low prices for their land is ridiculous. It is not only the Balalo who are buying land in Acholi. Some Europeans, Chinese, and Indians have bought land in Acholi for large-scale farming. Many Acholi elites are also buying land in Acholi. The Acholi politicians are not asking for a freeze on land purchases or rentals generally. Their claim is specific to one community, the Balalo. That is ethnic politics. I am disappointed that Museveni has joined this ethnicized anti-Balalo campaign.
This ethnic antagonism is a creation of colonial politics of divide and rule that post-independence African elites have bought into, often with catastrophic consequences. For instance, it is not true that Luos and Balalo are different people. I am inclined to believe that many Balalo are descended from Luos. My wife is a Muhima from Nkore. She has brothers who are tall, dark with black gums. Put on a street in Gulu or Lira, they are indistinguishable from local Acholis and Langis. I meet Tutsi of similar looks. The shared physical features are complemented by cultural ones.
For instance, Latigo’s middle name is Ogenga. Banyarwanda have a name, Mugenga, which I suspect is a Bantunized version of Ogenga. In Tooro, we refer to Langi, Acholi and Alur as Abakidi. Our former king was called Rukidi, meaning son of Bakidi. The grandfather of the current director of legal affairs at KCCA, Frank Rusa, was called Mukidi, i.e., Alur, Langi, or Acholi. The Langi and Acholi have a name, Okidi, in place of our Mukidi or Rukidi. In my homestead in Kanyandahi, I have two nephews: Ocaaki and Oli. Another cousin is called Ocaya. This is not to mention our king being called Oyo or having names like Okwiri, Olimi, or Oleeti. The empaako of Batoro and Banyoro are all Luo words.
Therefore, many Balalo have Luo (and Ethiopian and Somali) ancestry. When they go to acquire land in Acholi, they are returning home. I feel a strong affinity to Luos in large part because when I recite my ancestors’ names, after the fifth, the rest of the names begin with O. Who is Omona or Latigo to deny my right to return home with my cows if land in Kanyandahi is limited? This is ethnic politics that we must reject.
Museveni is opening a Pandora’s box when he supports the idea that land ownership must be based on one’s ethnicity. That to buy and own land in Toro, one must be a Mutoro; in Buganda, a Muganda. This was the colonial policy. It undermined the evolution of a shared national identity and consciousness. Every African saw themselves as members of a tribe, not the country. It MUST end NOW!
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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug
Andrew Mwenda: To defend land grabbing in northern Uganda in the face of Uganda’s ethnically skewed distribution of power, land, and economic opportunity is not just lazy journalism, it is complicity in a deeply entrenched system of injustice. Since Museveni rose to power in 1986, the Bahima, a tribal minority representing less than 10% of the population, have ascended from peripheral landowners to dominant custodians of Uganda’s economic and political lifelines.
This did not happen by accident. It was a deliberate, systematic project of capture. Strategic appointments in the army, intelligence, revenue authorities, and parastatals have disproportionately favoured Museveni’s tribesmen and inner circle. The result is not only exclusion but strangulation of other ethnic groups from accessing the same levers of state power, wealth, and security.
Before Museveni, the Bahima owned less than 7% of Uganda’s land. Today, they control estates, ranches, and critical land corridors, often acquired through military influence, political proximity, or backdoor allocations disguised as “investments.” The state has become a family business, and the national treasury an ethnic ATM.
To call this anything other than economic apartheid is dishonest. While western Uganda blossoms with secure land titles, the north and east and Buganda remain trapped in cycles of land evictions, and militarised suppression. The regime is not merely corrupt, it is ethnocentric by design.Mwenda has traded his conscience for comfort. Uganda’s problem is not just dictatorship, it is the ethnic capture of the republic.
A good one.
Mr. Onyango, I couldn’t agree with you more. Mr. Mwenda’s article reads simply like a desertation which has as an objective (logically) driving home his point. He thinks and writes like a sophist.
But does this journalist called Andrew M9, carefully read such wonderful rebuttals? If he ever then he MUST acknowledge the fact that his hay days of logical journalism expired a long time ago, and far beyond the point of diminishing marginal returns!! Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t realized it; thus far, he continues churning out such half cooked crap, just because he has unfettered access to the print and electronic Media!
Insightful
Mwenda, lets all agree that free range grazing is outdated n primitive. Given the population growth, I think Its not sustainable because land his becoming scarse. They hv been evicted before from Bulisa and soroti for the same reasons. Advise ur Balalo friends to adopt advanced cattle keeping methods-they hv the money, or else let them try coffee growing.
The way to deal with the issue of pastrolists in this regionlies with having an honest and friendily relationship with Rwanda. Herdsmen have lived and integrated in all the communities in this region including Acholiland (most herdsmen speak fluent Luo compared to other Bantu ethnicities resident in the North.).
Most communities suspect these herdsmen of owning illegal arms and have long term designs of grabbing their land and exterminating the indigenous peoples.
Events in Rwanda have not helped alley these fears- from the genocide to the closure of the border with Uganda and the events in the DRC, they are viewed with suspicion .what will follow are land conflicts. And in all cases you will hear that these pastrolist are infiltrated by others from Rwanda.
And to quote any provisions in the constitution especially with regard to land is futility. The framers of the 1995 constitution were just greedy clever men and their document has not stood the test of time. Most of the land cases end at state house for a reason.
How does the whole of Mr.Andrew Mwenda be this shallow in his research and thoughts about a national Crisis. This is uncalling. This is a lot of self misrepresentation given the fact that he has been in the journalism business for decades. I would say the tribal sediments he talkes about he’s coming from himself that has narrowed on any efforts from to find out what really the gist of this matter is , of which I believe he clearly understands it and just not wishing to agree with it .
Mr Mujuni Andrew M9, even some of us idiots know that your idol Tibuhaburwa is an opportunist, right from 1986 to date. And with your permission, we can illustrate this opportunism with less ado:
In the year 2002, Mr Tibuhaburwa actively backed then Resident District Commissioner (R. D. C) of Mbarara District, Ngoma Njime (a Musoga from Kigulu, Iganga district) to stand as a member of Parliament to represent the people of Mbarara Municipality against the incumbent Hon Winnie Byanyima (a Muhima/ Munyankore from Mbarara). Though the former lost amidst massive rigging to the latter, when he chose to petitionp@pp High Court up to the Court of Appeal, it’s Mr Tibuhaburwa who picked all legal costs using the tax payers money! At the same time, in the then Greater Kibaale District, in the same year 2002, the Local council five race pitted Mr Fred Ruremeera (a migrant Mukiga clinical officer from Kabale District), against Mr Sekitoleko, (an indegeneous Munyoro). The later stubbornly refused to campaign, reasoning that he was “alone” in the race since his would be opponent is not an indegeneous!
Mr Fred Ruremeera won the race with a landslide.
Come the D-DAY of swearing in a new LC V Chairperson. The one who lost in the race mobilized his fellow indegeneous Banyoro community and they blocked all the roads to the District headquarters, the venue for the slated ceremony.
Guess what. Mr Tibuhaburwa personally sided with the indegeneous Banyoro community and physically visited Kibaale District and discouraged not only Bakiga BUT any other migrant community from vying for any political office within Bunyoro subregion. Thus far, he declared the infamous “Ring-fence” of political office to strictly the indegeneous Banyoro community!!
Permit me an idiot, (if idiots also have a right anyway), Mr Mujuni Andrew M9, to ask you this stupid question: if the above illustration is NOT an example of opportunism, what is it then? Kindly waiting for your response Sir. Thanks, yours Faithfully.
Chief Idiot (Lumpens, Amateurs, Hooligans all inclusive).
My name is sekakoni Joel am mechanics my certificate for DIT frame work
My name is 0763814793
First: museveni by not settling this all for once he has left this problem open even to the next president… second: m7 has set a very bad precedent on the balaalo incident which might even cause a genocide at one time because uganda has 58 tribes,which are so many ofcos but if they all choose to gang up against each other their can be a serious bloodbath here. The idea buganda was for the bagandas and acholi for acholi ankole for banyankole ended in the fourteen hundreds 1400’s ……that arrangement can only happen in utopia and a fantasy world but not in the real world…. Uganda is a multi ethnicitic state that largely survives on interdependence…. actually not uganda alone but world over states and societies are so fused up and that is the natural construct of reality and nature ….any deviation to it is likely to get us in serious trouble the world has never seen….its not a matter of if trouble will come its a matter of when ……
Because of the magnitude of the issue I also have this to say:::: in the reality of the world actions have consequences can’t the acholis suffer the consequences of their poor choice of selling land like other tribes have done … This should be a wake up call to all other people living in every corner of this beautiful country..the acholis needed some rude awakening .and further more this was a leadership and competence test for the president….in leadership you should stand for something and even be willing to die for it though not kill it …. leadership should rule over politics not politics riding over leadership though it’s a catch 22 …..I guess after elections he will reverse his decision after fixing his scores on this issue cos the reality is politics like most of the things is moved on deception…… against the balance of probabilities I can still give m7 the benefit of doubt to switch sides after elections cos serious this came at a sensitive period which is the campaign period..any politician would play these politricks like jaja has done 👍…am optimistic for a better ressolve from a revolutionary man m7 has always been….
We need a lot of wisdom to resolve this issue. Its more than just an academic thesis. If not done carefully we can easily witness dangerous civil war which will pull the whole country apart. Land is the cause of wars across the globe, Gaza, Ukraine etc. Even here in the United States Trump won on the issue of immigration……