Alchohol, poverty are bedfellows

Jul 14, 2005

A recent warning by the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Uganda, Dr Rosabund Lewis, against the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption in the country was timely but mild. The caution emphasised mainly health problems associated with alcohol.

Onapito Ekomoloit

A recent warning by the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Uganda, Dr Rosabund Lewis, against the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption in the country was timely but mild. The caution emphasised mainly health problems associated with alcohol.

It was, however, silent on one danger: alcoholism as a great promoter of rural poverty in Uganda.

I am a teetotaller but absolutely at home with people who consume modest alcohol. Indeed, my home area of Teso is well known as the origin of ajon (a popular millet brew).

Many people get surprised that a through bred Etesot like me does not partake of the popular brew. It is unusual because a drop of the stuff was in the past given even to a newly born during the naming ceremony.

In the good old days ajon was consumed strictly during rest time. The time for drinking was in the evening, about 4:00pm, after gardening or grazing cattle. The sitting would be over by 8:00p.m.

These days it is different. For most folks in the countryside, it has degenerated into sheer alcoholism, with dire consequences for households.
The wisdom of the old was that people would drink only after work to ensure households had food and other necessities. The drinkers retired to bed early enough to wake up strong enough for the next day’s chores.

Sadly today in most Ugandan villages, some folks, especially men, live to drink. If they do any work, it is to get enough money for the day’s drink. Usually this involves selling something as petty as firewood at the nearest trading centre.

The net effect of all this is that some households are devoid of adequate food, decent shelter, leave alone money. With some men, and their wives too, spending much of the working hours drinking at the nearest trading centre, children are left to their own vices.

Free schooling under Universal Primary Education notwithstanding; some children are out of school because their parents put liquor above uniform in their budgeting.

You will meet a parent in such a drunken state that he will say: “It is up to Museveni to keep children at school.”
For such a drunkard, saving a shilling for the secondary education of a child is out of question. Yes, there is poverty in villages. Still a father can afford to drink up to sh1,000 per day (sh30,000 per month). Yet such a man will plead total helplessness in the face of a bill of sh50,000 per term as school fees in a nearby day secondary school.

Matters have been made worse by the fact that most folks are no longer drinking ajon, which is relatively mild and nutritious. Their favourite is the local potent gin a.k.a. waragi. The liquor has all kinds of other names — kasese, lira lira, etc.

With no authority regulating the distilling of these liquors, they are wreaking havoc on the population. Crude waragi has had effects as serious as blindness and even madness on some drinkers.

Some would-be decent folks have been turned into zombies by excess liquor. Just like drug addicts in the ghettos of the west, they are in a vegetative state.
Such citizens have neither the soberness nor the energy to embrace anti-poverty measures such as bonna bagagawale (wealth for all).

What is shocking is the deafening silence by both the Government and NGOs about the role of alcoholism in rural poverty. From my experience as MP, I know that because heavy drinkers dominate the electorate, they have scared politicians from speaking against the vice.

Instead, a typical politician has to play along by buying booze, as one of the winning formulas during campaigns. It gets even better if you drink like them — some politicians, including MPs, are right there.

If you dare take the higher moral ground on the issue, your opponents will have a field day casting you as arrogant. In Teso ajon is fondly referred to as “acoa Iteso (the wisdom of Iteso). Critics will quickly be reminded how Iteso were drinking long before they were in diapers.

As a way of holding citizens to their anti-poverty household responsibilities, alcoholism must be recognised as a serious stumbling block. It is time the Government took the bull by the horns.

Let our people drink, but responsibly. We need bye-laws regulating drinking hours and the quality of local liquors. Arua District Council reportedly passed such a law recently. Other districts should follow suit, with central government backing.

The nature of alcoholism in the countryside is becoming our own drug addiction-like problem. The countryside could ultimately become a fertile ground for hard drugs, since the essence of today’s drinking is to get knocked out as quickly and cheaply as possible.

The writer is press secretary to the president

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