Muzee Kabulasoke from Gomba develves into the now catchy issue of Mailo land. Mailo land is one of the the land tenure systems in Uganda. It is prevalent and predominantly in Buganda and scarcely implemented in some parts of Bunyoro. The system is a creation of the British Protectorate which that came into force by the 1900 Buganda agreement.
Currently the president of Uganda, ignited debate aimed at making land reforms in which he wants to do away with Mailo land. In one of his national speeches, the president termed mailo land as an “evil system”.
He has determinedly gone ahead to appoint counsel Mayanja, an erstwhile ardent crusader against mailo land to, explore ways through which this land tenure system should be scrapped from the constitution.
However the president and his minister are roundly faced with a formidable force of citizens especially Baganda and non Baganda who have acquired chunks of this mailo land.
Why do people think a strong, prosperous and proud nation ‘Buganda or Acholi for that matter is bad for Uganda and therefore must be contained & dominated?
Mzee Kabulasoke begins his analysis with the above question. Read on.
A prosperous State of California, Texas or New York in the United States is the envy of everybody. People migrate from all over the World not just the United States to partake in the prosperity of these States. When a country has something good, the envy of everybody; the inspiration for everyone else should be to emulate what works in that entity and replicate the working model around the country.
I think the political calculus of humiliating, ridiculing, dominating, debasing and ultimately destroying Buganda as a nation is rooted in our mass low self esteem especially by people who hold instruments of power albeit irresponsibly.
Destroying Buganda with guess work intentions of rebuilding and reconstructing it to something unknown is retrogressive thinking.
Every Ugandan from all corners of the country who has come to Buganda has learnt something good about Buganda and Uganda for that matter. People being proud of their culture, which should be everyone’s civic duty by the way, is not reason to dismember or destroy that culture and humiliating its people.
We almost destroyed the people of Acholi with this same mentality of imperial subjugation by giving Museveni and his military a blank check to do whatever he wanted to the people of Acholi. Recently, in Kasese, emulating what he did in Acholi, he sent his military to humiliate the people of Kasese killing scores of peasants.
We can’t build an artificial creation called Uganda without the strong cultural pillars around which it must be formed. The ethnic tensions brewing in Uganda and the growing political resentment will not wane by the political class imposing its military will and economic domination of the people.
It is instead going to exponentially grow. It is not going to recede because we stop people from voicing their socio-political-economic frustrations. We are not building factories for young people to find work. We have sold off all public assets to our political friends and family on the cheap by the way through a culture of corruption. We have set up schemes to displace people off their land using the military and a deliberate policy of economic coercion. The people know who is displacing them off their land. It is army Generals. All land wrangles in Buganda have a UPDF General, a politically connected government official or proxy behind them. And the people know Buganda is now a victim of a well orchestrated scheme to destroy it by uncultured and low self esteem people.
Even if for academic argument sake, the destruction of “Buganda” was achieved; it is difficult to fathom what the outcome of this goal would be in the grand scheme of things for Uganda.
Civilized people do not destroy what is good; they build on that as a foundation for something greater and better. A modern, greater and better Uganda without a proud, prosperous and strong Buganda, Acholi, Lango, Ankole, Bukedi, Teso, West Nile is hard to understand how it would look like when the political calculation and machinations is perpetually intended for internal sabotage and implosion.
I don’t know which schools some of you went to and what exactly you learnt during your time. There is nothing wrong Buganda, Acholi, Lango, Bukedi, Teso, Karamoja being proud of their respective cultures and working together to build something bigger, greater and better together.
Mzee Kabulasoke.