Monday, February 2, 2004
JOACHIM BUWEMBO
Time for Acholis to Roll up Their Sleeves and Work
Of course the people who have the greatest stake in the imminent peace are those of the Acholi sub-region, which comprises the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader. Having known no peace for 18 years, the people in the three districts who numbered slightly above one million out of the country�s 24.6 million people according to the 2002 census, now stand to benefit most from leading a normal life like the rest of the country.
But besides just enjoying peace, the Acholi people also have a new chance to make a take-off that would make Acholi the supermarket of Central and North Africa.
Although they make up only four per cent of the population, the Acholi have well over 10 per cent of the country�s land area and many kilometres of the great river Nile with which they could do a lot of creative things.
Three additional factors among many give Acholi a unique opportunity to rise to prominence today. First is the area�s strategic positioning between Southern Sudan and the rest of East Africa. Second is the sense of urgency its people should now feel to catch up with the rest of the country that has been growing for 18 years. And third, are the Acholi people in the Diaspora who have accumulated a wealth of skills and money. There is a joke which could well be true that the Acholi now have more PhDs per capita that any ethnic community in Africa. This is because many of them who have been streaming to exile for the past two decades have ended up studying and attaining high academic and professional qualifications in Europe and America.
For immediate benefit, the Acholi should start growing tropical vegetables and fruits for sale in Sudan. Investors in the sub-region should quickly build decent motels for the many people who will be driving to Southern Sudan from the region and stopping over in Acholi before the final leg into Juba. Gulu international airport must get refurbished immediately.
For long-term development, the Acholi in the Diaspora who have been writing numerous media articles and running internet websites must go into real action. The time for being critics is over. Sitting back to criticise the government in Kampala is their right, but it is of less value than rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. An association of 1,000 Acholis in North America and UK alone can be the core of a powerful development engine � if it is formed now.
By forgoing lunch for just a month, such a group can raise a million dollars as seed money to launch an Acholi development company. The things that can be done in Acholi in light of a peaceful neighbourhood are almost innumerable.
For a start, from the 1,000 Acholi Phds out there, a team can draw a plan for making the entire Nile river navigable. Who would oppose such a plan by people from whose country the river originates anyway? That way, the cheapest form of transport would be opened to send tropical garden produce to North Africa and the Middle East. Another team can design an artificial lake of about 1,000 square miles in Western Gulu district in anticipation of the decades ahead when fresh water will become a commercial commodity.
In that lake, all the disappearing fresh water fish species, minus the destructive Nile perch, can be bred and sold expensively. No point sticking to low value stuff. Over 100 years ago, the Kabaka of Buganda had a lake made for him in Kampala. Today, the high tech Acholi can design a better lake and hold it as its values rises with time. In the drier areas of the sub-region, goats can be raised commercially so that a million of them are exported every year to the Middle East.
Besides being a supermarket for the arid neighborhood, Acholi can be sending teachers and medical staff to work in the new Southern Sudan for the next two decades until they educate and train their own. These professionals don�t even need to be fulltime residents of Sudan, and can be returning home on weekends.
The possibilities are simply enormous. What is needed is a master re-development plan for Acholi. And it had better be made by the Acholi themselves. That would be a better course of action than engaging in academic debates of who is to blame for the past 18 years of destruction.
Joachim Buwembo is Editor of The Sunday Vision of Kampala.
E-mail: i [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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