Dear Mr President,
Congratulations to you, the National Resistance Movement, and the heroes of the NRA war upon reaching 38 years of peace, development, and ideologically rich Pan Africanism.
One of the many great achievements of the NRM government in Busoga has been fighting ignorance through education. In 1985, the area currently known as Jinja North County hardly had a secondary school for the rural poor folk. The neighbouring Kiira College Butiki was for the rich. Jinja Senior Secondary School, the only community school nearby, was both far and expensive for the rural folk.
There were very few Primary schools too: Kivubuka Primary School, Buwenda Primary School, and Wakitaka Primary School, with its bold school motto, ‘Fight Ignorance’. It is at Wakitaka Primary School that the NRM’s historic mass fight ignorance campaign, the Universal Primary Education (UPE) program, found me in 1998.
I am a proud first cohort beneficiary of the UPE program, going to study journalism, attaining an MBA; and becoming a community mobilizer, farmer, and a media entrepreneur, founding Busoga Today, a community development newspaper through which I write to you about the issue affecting Jinja North Constituency and by extension Busoga— the proud hosts of this year’s Liberation Day celebration.
I anchor my letter on Democracy, Building an Independent, integrated and self-sustaining national economy, and restoration and improvement of social services; all those respectively being points No. 1, No. 5 and No. 6 of the Ten points as first published in 1984 as proposals for a political program that the both the political and military arms of the revolution believed could form a basis for a nationwide coalition of political and social forces that could usher in a better future for the long suffering people of Uganda.
Yet 38 years later, the average person in Jinja City North, and Busoga remains poor, despite the numerous pro development programs of the NRM government starting from the Entandikwa program. Indeed, in 2022, as you headed to Mayuge for the Bishop James Hannington Day, you peeped through your car window and wondered how people were surviving through the poverty you saw.
The high prevalence of infant malnutrition, idleness and drug use among a section of our young people, limited access to good health care, to education and the high unemployment rates in this area all have a dotted line to poverty.
But why has the region not tapped into the NRM largesse to solve the poverty problem? Whereas both the locals and their leaders share the blame; I accuse the leaders more for choosing political populism over a leadership that pushes for regional interests and mobilizes the masses for development.
Mr President, when Bujagali Falls were drowned in preference for electricity production, thousands of young people in the villages of Buwenda, Kyabirwa, Budhagali and Namizi who were working in the tourism sector as rafting and kayaking guides, others as artists lost jobs. Many of them are still idling in their villages.
Whereas the electricity project was important, there has never been a known intervention aimed at repurposing the thousands of young people who have since become jobless. Remember, the majority had not gone to school that they can always look for other jobs. They were naturalized Kayakers and Bujagali Falls guides. They had families. It is those families that have malnourished children, out of school children, and it’s those families that cannot access good health care. It is those families that are supposed to celebrate liberation today.
Two years ago, a young mother in Kabowa, a village on the fringes of Jinja North felt birth throbs, it was in middle of a heavy down pour. When she got to a nearby health center after a long wait for a boda boda, they couldn’t handle the emergency nature of her situation and referred her to Jinja Referral Hospital. She died before getting there. There was no ambulance and the heavy downpour had made the Amber Court Bukungu Road that passes through Budondo too slippery and unnavigable for the Boda Boda to drive on.
If the 22-year-old promise to tarmac that road had been fulfilled, may be that young lady wouldn’t have lost her life. That undelivered promise is not only affecting pregnant mothers. It is also affecting farmers.
Budondo and the neighbouring villages are known to produce vegetables which are sold in major markets in Jinja and Kampala. During the rainy season, the road is impassable for bicycles, Boda Boda and cars to navigate with the agriculture produce to market. In the dry season, the road is top dusty that the agriculture products and the farmers get to the market too dirty for competitive market operation.
To make it worse, thanks to the open trade policy in the spirit of the East African Integration, our Budondo farmers increasingly face competition from farmers from Kenya who cross into local markets with lowly priced vegetables and outcompete the Budondo locals who, because of the bad road show up to the market late or sometimes with dusty produce.
With a less active tourism sector due to the drowning of the Bujagali falls, agriculture, which would be their fallback option, is not competitive because of the impassable road to markets. It, therefore, becomes difficult to get the people of Budondo, in Jinja City North out of poverty. When you tarmac that road, tourism might be resuscitated focusing on Itanda and Busowoko falls even though they are way outside Jinja North, but they are in Busoga nonetheless, movement of agriculture produce will be faster and so will be access to social services.
Some corrupt leaders had blocked Makerere University’s acquisition of land on Budondo for expansion. They wanted to get some of the land for themselves or at least to be paid something. Recently good reason prevailed, and a promise was made to give the University land. I hope they don’t turn around and delay the process.
Over the last five years, there have been numerous efforts to skill the region’s young people in different vocational skills. This has helped solve a bad problem—an unemployable youth. It has, however, created a good problem—thousands of employable youths are walking around idle in communities. How do we address that good problem since not everyone is an entrepreneur? The Parish Development Model is a good solution, but the majority of young people are struggling to access the funds. Also, how have they been prepared to manage those loans during investment? Can we back up the funds with a bit of business education?
Busoga needs more leaders who are grounded in Community Mobilization for Development and less and less of those grounded in politics of populism and selfish scheming. Our people need ideological nourishment for development and not political populism. However, there is already uncoordinated movement of troops, with some leaders focused more on which constituency to contest from to ensure an easy entry into Parliament than focusing on finding solutions for the people.
The common man is alone
The Namulesa Market is already under threat of land grabbers. The people of Mafubira do not have a market to talk home about. The Bugembe Market is already overflowing. It is a ticking time bomb; so is the land question in the wider Jinja North. Most land ownership is not titled, and people are constructing randomly without proper guidance and approval. All this under the watch of their leaders. Without good leadership, a meticulous approach to urban planning and development, Jinja North will become a large poverty and disease-stricken slum.
With community mobilizers instead of populist politicians, the next 38 years of NRM should be able to lead to a much-developed Jinja North and much developed Busoga region. A self-reliant and conscious population.
In a few years, the NRM will be seeking a fresh mandate from the people of Busoga. In the last general election, the party’s historic block support was threatened by the opposition. The people lack information on what the NRM government is doing to change their misfortunes. They are not being mobilized for development.
Day in, day out, they are mobilized for political excitement, asked to be united and pray more, yet when they go back to their homes, they get entrenched in hopelessness.
Unity and prayer are good concepts, and most leaders are quick to point them out, but they should not be backed up by ideological bankruptcy. Without solutions that in the end bring full stomachs, full pockets, and good health, unity and prayer remain concepts of control than of progress. That vulnerability is what led the region into the temptations of the opposition. It should not happen again.
The writer is community mobilizer, farmer, and owner of Busoga Today Newspaper
