OPINION

By Ssalongo Muwada Namwanja

On February 6, Ugandans celebrated the 43rd anniversary of Tarehe Sita, which is aimed at remembering the patriotic bush war fighters and collaborators, including the 27 fighters led by Gen. Yoweri Museveni.

They took a brave decision and attacked Kabamba army barracks, which triggered the start of a five-year resistance war that brought into power the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in 1986.

We thank these heroes, those still living and the departed and their collaborators, whose actions have contributed to the sustained peace that Ugandans have enjoyed for the last 38 years. The triumph of the NRA/NRM should be the real national independence of our time, forever we shall remember these gallant fighters.

We also commend Ssabalwanyi Museveni for his efforts to lead the country to development and prosperity, especially the strategies he has put in place to fight corruption and diversion of public resources.

However, we appeal to the commander-in-chief now, more than ever before, to turn his attention to the actions of the Local Council (LC) leaders, the majority of whom have become a problem in their respective communities. LC leaders have negatively impacted the NRM’s support in communities, where the majority of them involve themselves in illegal land transactions that have caused misery and untold suffering to their people.

As mentioned before, land grabbing is the worst experience our people are currently witnessing since this government came to power. Thousands of innocent people, including the elderly, widows and orphans are enduring a lot of suffering at the hands of land grabbers.

The land grabbers, who include big people in the Government and security agencies, are using illicit means to snatch land, destabilising thousands of Ugandans, especially in the central region, who have been enjoying years of peace brought by the NRM Government.

Mr. President, many of the land grabbers connive with the LC councils, whom they bribe with commissions from the transactions, which mainly go to either the chairperson alone, or a few members of the council and in return endorse false or forged land sale agreements, and use the documents to evict genuine bibanja owners. This makes land one of the biggest challenges that we are grappling with as leaders.

Mr President, every day we witness helpless people weeping and looking for help from the Government after they have been thrown off their land, on which they have lived for decades, and from which they earn a living. Often their food crops and homesteads are razed, making them homeless in their country.

All this is often done in collaboration with local leaders.

The victims, after failing to get help from the Government, they blame it for their woes, often comparing it with the past governments.

This not only pains us as leaders who interact with these victims every day, but it has also affected our party’s support in rural communities.

We now report to you, Mr President that your much-cherished LC leaders have since deviated from the NRM’s principles and are major players in land grabbing. We, therefore, appeal to the President to institute urgent investigations into these leaders, before the next LC elections take place. If need be, patriotic training should be organised. It will help to reduce these incidents.

For example, in Masuliita, such cases are rampant and we have cases of LC leaders conniving with land grabbers and moneylenders to sign forged agreements for various transactions or the multiple sale of land. Communities are faced with violent conflicts that are a result of the actions of LC leaders. It is unfortunate because local leaders are the ones mandated to protect the name of this Government and speak positively about its programmes. The majority of the LC leaders countrywide belong to the NRM and their bad reputation is affecting the entire party. Remember, the NRM gets its strength from the wananchi.

Before organising the next LC elections, the Government needs to sort out some critical issues, including change in the laws and mandate given to local councils so that their extreme powers are checked. We need to have patriotic leaders who can fight for the interests of their people instead of targeting bribes and commissions from land grabbers and other criminals. Surprisingly, LC leaders use the official stamps to forge letters of administration and agreements they give to land grabbers to steal land and other property belonging to orphans, widows and vulnerable elderly citizens.

These illegal activities have become rampant because land in the central region has risen in value, but we would have expected leaders to be patriotic and pro-people and remain on the side of their people. We, therefore, appeal to the President that unless he intervenes, the NRM support is badly affected, especially in central region.

We need to quickly come up with a programme to educate LC leaders on how to handle land matters and help them work with a spirit of patriotism and speak positively about government programmes like PDM, Emyooga and others.

I, therefore, suggest that through the Office of the National Chairman (ONC), the President appoint more co-ordinators at various villages and parishes and sub counties to help in gathering instant information about the activities of the local leaders, whose actions in their respective communities are staining the image of our party.

As we lay strategies to strengthen our party ahead of the 2026 general elections, we need to target the grassroots support so that we are not caught unawares. It should be noted that our LC leaders are no longer patriotic. They fight to get into positions because of the incentives and money generated through these illegal activities.

There is a big difference, if you compare our current LC leaders with the Mayumba-kkumi who served without attaching money to anything. The Mayumba-kkumi would mobilise people and distribute items from the Government without any favour. But today we see LC leaders discriminating among the people they lead when it comes to who benefits from PDM and Emyooga programmes and tend to favour those who accept to share money given to them.

The Mayumba-kkumi, Muluka and Batongole leaders were lose to the people, but today many of the NRM leaders seem to be detached from their people.

In Wakiso district for example, NRM leaders led by Haji Abdul Kiyimba, have for the last 10 years tried to make an appointment to meet our party chairman Gen. Museveni without success. We, the leaders, cannot convince people when we have for 10 years failed to convince our party chairman to meet us. The gap between NRM district leaders and the national chairman seems to be growing bigger yet there are issues that can only be solved by the national chairman.

The NRM leaders are unable to help in solving the problem of service delivery that is lacking in communities, especially with many incidents of corruption and diversion of government resources at almost all levels.

We finally commend the President for the skilling programme in Kampala, but we ask him to extend it to other parts of the country beginning with Masuliita, Kapeeka and Nakaseke that championed the bush war. We believe the skilling programme will benefit the youth where we live so that they avoid idling and the use of drugs and get instant employment.

We also thank Gen. Museveni for offering treatment to our elders, including Prince Wasajja of Masuliita and the Secretary in the Office of the President, Haji Yunus Kakande who also comes from Masuliita. Kakande had a health challenge, but the President sponsored his treatment abroad and he is back in office, for which we are grateful.

The writer is an NRM supporter from Masuliita in Wakiso