Nyamutale appointed new Busongora Kingdom prime minister

CULTURE

The council of elders last week appointed Yosamu Nyamutale as the new prime minister of Busongora Kingdom following the death of Samuel Ntungwa last month.

Nyamutale was sworn in on Saturday by elders in Busongora at Ikamiro royal palace in Kihara Kasese municipality.

Nyamutale said top on his list of priorities is to foster unity among the Basongora pastoralists as well as promoting the teaching of Rusongora in schools which are dominated by the Basongora.

"Because of the nature of our work our language has been distorted we need to teach our children our cultural values and norms and that should be done in schools dominated by the Basongora," Nyamutale said.

He said that there was a need for the establishment of a farm school so that people can be taught modern methods of farming since the majority of them are herdsmen.

  "We need our people to embrace modern agriculture so that they can get profits from their farms many of our people still keep large numbers of animals but they have not got profits from them," Nyamutale added.

He said there was a need for the cultural institutions in the Rwenzori region to work together for the development of the entire region

The Basongora are a pastoralist community who were part of the ancient empire of the Bacwezi in the greater Bunyoro Kitara Empire.

Dan Kashagama Nadahura II the cultural leader of Busongora said that the kingdom was in final plans of constructing a museum in Hima town council as one way of boosting tourism.

"We need to establish projects that will generate income for the cultural institution we have identified several projects as a kingdom which we shall help to generate income among them utilising some of the kingdom's land in Hima," Kashagama said.

Kashagama tasked the new Prime Minister to preach a message of peaceful coexistence among tribal diversity in Kasese district.

The Basongora are one of the minority ethnic communities in Kasese district who mainly occupy the lowlands of the district.

"It has been the efforts of the elders who revived the identity of the Basongora with the aim of promoting peace and unity. I am, therefore, directing the Prime Minister and his cabinet to work towards uniting the Basongora with other tribes living in Kasese and the whole country at large," Kashagama said.

Eric Kafuda the chairman of the council of elders commended Kashagama for promoting peace and unity among the people.

"As elders, we are happy that since Kashagama was installed as our cultural leader in 2016 a lot of work has been done and we are seeing a lot of development," Kafuda said.