On June 8, 2022, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), in a documentary “Rare Earth Minerals Exploration in Busoga Subregion”, reported that the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development urged locals in Busoga to support Government efforts geared at fostering socio-economic development. Hitherto Busoga had been reported by the NRM government as second to Karamoja in “Poverty richness”. One wonders how a sub-region rich in poverty would support government efforts. But wait a minute.
In terms of money, yes, Busoga, once a prosperous sub-region, and Karamoja, are poor today. And given the way they are being governed under the NRM in a very challenging century, the two sub-regions will enter the 22nd century extremely poor if the governance strategy continues to be that of separating the people from their rich mineral resources. There is no doubt that parading the poverty richness of Busoga and Karamoja ignores the fact that both Karamoja and Busoga are extremely rich in mineral resources. Parading the two sub-regions as poverty rich is being accompanied by focusing the minds of the Basoga and Karamoja on the politics of National Resistance Movement; or else on boda-boda, sugarcane and leisure in Busoga and cows and security in Karamoja.
Busoga does not only have the largest freshwater lake in the world – Lake Victoria which is not only rich in fish but also rare minerals in its basement rocks. Mainland Busoga is also one continuous mine of numerous minerals, including Cerium, Dysprosiumerbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Holmium and Lanthanum. These are essential for the manufacture of medical equipment, smart phones, laptops and electric car batteries, among others.
Earlier, on October, 6, 2013 updated on January 2, 2021, The Daily Monitor, in its headline article “New Minerals Worth Trillions discovered in Busoga Region” was the first to break the news to Busoga, Uganda and the rest of the world that rare earth metals exited in Busoga. It mentioned Aluminous clays, Yttrium, Gallium and Scandium.
However, it is said, and I have always evoked it at every opportunity that behind every problem is the problem of leadership. Busoga lacks the correct leadership to guide it towards claiming an appropriate slice of its mineral wealth within the context of the British-created Uganda. Unfortunately, its current socio-politics dominated by the NRM politics of exclusion, domination and exploitation, with a small overzealous, greedy and selfish, ethnically oriented-group seeking everything to itself stands as the greatest roadblock to Busoga sovereignty over its mineral wealth.
We now know that virtually every district of Busoga is a mine. However, the people in each district continue to wallow in poverty. Busoga was demobilized first by the NRM – made Constitution of 1995, which strategically claimed that all the underground belongs to government. As if that was not enough, the Constitution placed the sovereignty over the resources in the hands of one man: the President. The President, for example, decided that Busoga should be developed by him, not by or with the Basoga through money bonanzas. So, he has reigned money-intensive schemes such as Bonna Bagaggawale, Myooga, Operation Wealth Creation and Parish Development Model as the only way Busoga can experience development, transformation and progress in the 21st Century. Ultimately, the communities of Basoga have not only been impoverished financially, but have also been deradicalized, depoliticized, dissocialized and de intellectualized.
In another article of mine I wrote two years ago “Extremely Rich Busoga, Extremely Poor Busoga” I wrote: “Busoga is like the Democratic Republic of Congo: Extremely rich in minerals but extremely poor financially and mind-wise. In fact, these days Busoga is publicly known to be the poorest region in Uganda. But we are not told that Busoga is actually the richest region in both Uganda and East Africa, and is only challenged in mineral wealth by some region in China”.
Government officials continue to say Busoga is poor because the people are lazy. But Busoga has now a new choice to rise to prosperity again: its mineral wealth. Perturbed by the NRM government exclusionary strategy to separate Busoga from its mineral wealth and then continue characterizing the Basoga as lazy and adding that their poverty is self generated.
If Busoga is to free itself from imposed poverty against the background of mineral wealth, it must resist the situation it has been plunged into constitutionally and politically: A situation of helplessness and haplessness in a sea of plenty. It must free itself from political poverty. It must become politically active, not in the overwhelming politics of the NRM, which is enslaving, dispossessive, exploitative and dominating, but in the politics of freedom to decide in its own interests.
The current interest requiring the collective decision of Busoga is how to benefit as a region from our vast mineral wealth well in the future to escape from proliferating and penetrating financial poverty. If we wait to be developed and liberated from poverty by others, it will never happen because our interests might be different from theirs.
We must begin by recognizing that “Poverty is political. It is the result of decisions made by those who hold power – governments and corporations – and a broken economic system which generates increasing wealth and power for elites at the expense of the majority of people on this earth. The most effective way to end it is by taking collective action to challenge the structures of inequality and injustice.
We must reject human rights abuse, exploitation, domination, dispossession and exploitation through legitimizing constitutional, political and economic processes that favour foreigners over the natives. Ours must remain ours and we must negotiate terms that recognize that we are the owners of our mineral wealth. Sugarcane, coffee or cotton will not liberate Busoga, and Basoga from poverty but our mineral wealth will. However, this will not be unless we re-empower ourselves with the full knowledge that others will not empower us because they are only targeting our mineral wealth for themselves.
For God and My Country
The writer (Prof. Oweyegha- Afunaduula) is a retired university lecturer and environmentalist
