"Museveni blocks shs 96 billion sugar project in Nakasongola”, Daily Monitor, Monday, April 23. According to the story, President Museveni blocked a private investment worth $40m to grow sugarcane in Lwabiyata Sub-county, Nakasongola District because the project would displace 500 people.

 

The managing director of Tirupati Development Uganda, Mr Miraj Barot, said his company had bought 9,500 acres from private mailo owners on a willing seller-willing buyer basis to establish a sugar industry in Nakasongola. Subsequently, a licence for that purpose was issued to the company by the line minister, Ms Amelia Kyambadde.

The President’s action raises several issues: First, who will refund the purchase money to the company? Will it be the taxpayers? Surely, the government has no available alternative land to offer the company. Whatever alternative land it will offer will have to be acquired using taxpayers money. Is it fair? Did the Minister of Industries not do due diligence? How could she issue a licence which the President ignored as irrelevant? How does the government work?

 

Third, is there shortage of sugar in Uganda? How can the President insist that Amuru residents should be evicted from their land to give way for sugarcane growing while he does the opposite in Nakasongola? It looks like this Animal Farm thing where the people of Nakasongola are more equal than the people of Amuru.

 

Fourth, the President has been talking of economic saboteurs in respect of those who defend the land rights of their people. Where does the Nakasongola case leave him? Has he voluntarily joined his own list of “economic saboteurs?”

 

Fifth, I have travelled through Nakasongola District since 1962 when I first came to Kampala. The population of this district can broadly be divided into two: the indigenous population who are farmers and the migrant population who are cattle-keepers. Who sold land to Tirupati Development (U) Limited and who are the squatters on that land? Can Mr Museveni throw more light on this?

 

Let me take this opportunity to thank and congratulate our mothers, wives and sisters in Amuru for stripping themselves naked before the Madhvani people and their lackeys. Women undressing before anybody in broad daylight is the worst curse and highest level of expressing anger in Acholi tradition.

 

Amuru RDC Milton Odongo is an outsider and has nothing to do with cleansing that curse. His talk of buying animals for cleansing is nonsense. What if everyone, especially the women concerned refuse to cooperate as is likely to be the case?

 

Never before has ‘an investor’ insisted on investing where he is not welcome the way Madhvani Group is doing. It is becoming clear that the Group is a mere proxy. As I have said before, the eyes of the State and those of Madhvani Group seem to be glued on what is beneath Amuru land. They want to acquire that land and deny our people their natural rights to the royalty for what is beneath their land.

 

As long as the State and Madhvani Group do not give up, the women, men and youth must only intensify the efforts to defend their motherland. The Acholi Parliamentary Group must be in the forefront in this fight to defend our land. Acholi in the Diaspora and at home must all stand up and be counted. The few Acholi who support or collaborate with land grabbers, apparently for financial favours, are committing “treason” against their own people. There is no question about this. The good thing is that they are a very small minority.

 

In conclusion, let me thank Mr Museveni for exonerating the people of Amuru in particular, and Acholi in general, by his action in Nakasongola. Him, his people and Madhvani people should now stop their crazy desire to take over control of land in Acholi sub-region.

 

J. L. Okello-Okello, Consultant Valuer / Former MP Chua