Relocate the people of Bududa to Nakasongola

Mar 15, 2010

THE country and the entire region is still mourning the tragedy in Bududa district, eastern Uganda, where hundreds perished and more are missing in a mudslide.

By Ahmed Kateregga

THE country and the entire region is still mourning the tragedy in Bududa district, eastern Uganda, where hundreds perished and more are missing in a mudslide.

According to Bukedde March 6, David Wakikona the Mania county MP and state minister in charge of Northern Uganda, said the Government was considering settling the over 10,000 survivors in Bugerere or Kayunga district.

The minister said other areas like Kibaale district were not chosen because of the Banyoro versus Bafuruki conflict. The other one was Bunambutye in Sironko district bordering Karamoja sub-region which is an area prone to cattle rustling activities.

He said Bugerere was better because the Baganda were accommodative and, there is a significant number of Basabaaba settlers which, according to the 2002 national census, are 22,390 where the majority tribe is Baganda with 94,276, followed by Basoga who are 47,138.

The President, who also visited the scene, on March 3, directed against resettling the people, but relocating them elsewhere. Wakikona said the Government was already considering relocating them even before the mudslides occurred.

He, however, said the Government would not rush to resettle thousands of the people in Bugerere before it buys large chunks of land for settlement.

Relocating the people of Bududa to Bugerere or any other part of Uganda is long overdue, but justifiable. However, the country should accept blame for allowing people to settle in dangerous areas, which had already been gazetted as part of the national park.

It was due to populism that they were allowed to remain here. We shall have similar problems in south-western Uganda where even volcanic mountains are still active. Then there are, have those who settle in wetlands in and around Kampala, around rivers and streams like Nsooba, Lufuka, Lubigi and lower Mayanja.

Settling people in Bugerere and to an extent in Buluuli, now Nakasongola district, is not new. In the 1960s, the late Kabaka Sir Edward Muteesa ll, launched a campaign to settle Bakenyi in the same area.

Bakenyi, according to history, were Baganda who sought refugee in present day eastern Uganda during civil wars in Buganda in the 18th and 19th centuries.

They were originally called Bagenyi, a Luganda word for visitors, which became Bakenyi. The other group ran to the west and those are Batagwenda in Tooro and Banyaruguru in Ankole.

Justice Bart Magunda Katurebe, of the Supreme Court is one of them. While the Batagwenda and Banyaruguru were accepted in their areas of migration, the Bakenyi were never accepted and are used as scapegoats whenever there is a problem.

During the insurgency in Teso by the Uganda People’s Army under Peter Otai and William Omaria, some of the Bakenyi ran to Busiki county, now Busembatya district in Busoga in the early 1990s. But some Basiki, led by the then MP, the late Basoga Nsadhu, attempted to chase them away, claiming they were spreading the rebellion.

Yet Bakenyi have contributed to the development of eastern Uganda and the example is the Archbishop of Tororo, The Most Rev. Dennis Kiwanuka Lote. Although Bakenyi are one of the tribes listed in the national constitution, they are still seen as aliens by some people in eastern Uganda.

Muteesa’s scheme was abruptly stopped after kingdoms were abolished during the 1966 Uganda crisis. Now that the Government is considering relocating victims of Bududa, Bakenyi may also be encouraged to do the same if their problems still persist.

But more on the relocation of the Bududa victims, Bugerere is a vast land, but Buluuli or Nakasongola for that matter, is more vast and sparsely populated. l was in Nakasongola two weeks ago covering the President’s prosperity-for-all review campaign and l heard many locals saying the area still had plenty of free land.

Since the indigenous Baluuli and other immigrants like Baganda, Banyankore and Banyarwanda, are accommodative, the district should be listed among the recipients of immigrants. This will also help to defuse the occasional Baganda-Baluuli and Banyala rivalry, which has the potential to cause a national crisis like that of 1966. The more recent example being the September riots.


The writer is a journalist




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