-- In the context of the whole country and the region, is
Mengo seeing well?
One Man�s Week By John Nagenda
FEDERO (the
slogan for those at Mengo who demand a federal state of government in Uganda)
stalks our land. Any pretext will suffice; this time it was the Buganda
Katikkiro's presentation to the Constitutional Review Commission, of the Buganda
kingdom's federo demands, among others. I will stick to federo. The ceremony was
preceded by a huge, rather ill-judged, procession through Kampala,
inconveniencing ordinary citizens going about their legitimate business of
chasing a crust. Fortunately for your columnist he was headed for Semliki to
deal with four-legged wildlife. I can't do better than quote Minister for the
Presidency, Prof Gilbert Bukenya: "When you excite the public, you create
unnecessary problems. Some people have hijacked a relatively good idea which
should be sold quietly to the whole country. Once you bring in opportunistic
superficial campaigners, then God help you�What is needed now is quiet kakuyege
(lobbying) to convince an Acholi in Gulu and someone in West Nile that federo is
good for them as well." The biggest task now was lobbying, not waving tree
branches. You will gather from that that many trees were mutilated that day.
(Incidentally, what happens to those hundreds of branches when the crowd's
fervour goes down; are they taken home to cook the evening meal? A lone person
with a branch is a strange thing!) Bukenya, in mentioning the Gulu Acholi might
have added a huge number of Baganda themselves, like this one. I am passionately
anti-federoist at this stage. I am a Muganda wawu (through and through) and as
such I know my fellow Baganda inside and out. I know that for every lover of
federo for noble reasons, such as proper pride for a tribe or a region and the
good competition that engenders, there are three or four others whose motives
are merely inward-looking and sectarian. The child of this is arrogance and the
restricting tendency to look down on others. Besides, now is the time to form
wider, not narrower, alliances in our African continent. Even Uganda as a whole
is a tiny fragment. How then do you chop it into smaller bits? This kind of
thinking leads to the laughable statement that Kampala belongs to Buganda. How?
Equally ludicrous is the claim that Baganda make up a population of five and a
half million. The Buganda population, (meaning those who live in Buganda) might
come to that, but half of those may not be Baganda. Are they likely to vote for
federo? As for the branch-waving and the bringing of Kampala to a standstill,
was this supposed to be intimidatory, to force a trembling hand-over of federo?
What a miscalculation! Some said they would show Museveni the depth of Kiganda
feeling on the matter. But the President is rather more sophisticated than that;
beside which he will not decide the matter. That role belongs to parliament, or,
in some cases, to two thirds of all the districts of Uganda voting in favour.
Perhaps they might do so in thirty to fifty years, by which time Ugandans might
have proved that they are one, and suspicions of one tribe against another is in
the past. Thus federo will no longer be divisive. Roll on that happy day.
Meanwhile give the trees a rest!
* * *
Few occasions have given me more
Ugandan pride than the wedding of Ankole Crown Prince John Barigye's daughter,
Keza Korwizi to her Irishman, Eamonn Ryan, a fortnight ago. It had everything.
Church, which I somehow missed, had the President arrive, call Barigye His Royal
Highness (even more than the bare words convey), donate a thick envelope, and
leave for his soccer match. The wedding party at Munyonyo could not have been
more delightfully relaxed, so much so that the main Irish speaker with sheaves
of pages which he could no longer discern, much less read, was a hard act to
follow. Nevertheless your columnist and the First Deputy Premier (Buganda
edition) did just that with a rendition of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, which
they were. I love the Irish. There were many other speeches, including a
love-blushing one by the bridegroom (it might have been the light). There was
more royalty under the huge wedding tent than you could throw a hat at, but for
my money none more elegant than the Nabagereka of Buganda, whose entrance
bespoke an inner glow. Lucky Buganda! But when Barigye spoke, it eclipsed
everything. In a typically unhurried half-hour speech, this gentle man, who has
suffered more than most, including the loss of three of his closest brothers
during the war, and of his throne by misadventure afterwards, could only say how
lucky he was, and loved by God. Did we hear him right? But he meant it. One of
the examples he gave was how he survived the fatal Rome aircrash some years ago.
He prayed God to see his little daughters again. One of them was the bride now.
By the time John finished I doubt there was a dry eye in the place. It is a very
complicated issue, but when ogres like Kony can be forgiven, I pray to
Banyankole of all persuasions to give back their throne to their son and father.
The Mulindwas
communication group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
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