Federo addressing imbalances

Opinion FEDERALISM August 27, 2007
Gen. Ali’s outbursts were unfortunate
S. Ssali Kiggundu

I would like to react to Lt. Gen. Moses Ali’s outbursts over Hon. Hussein Kyanjo’s statements calling upon Buganda to break away from the rest of Uganda and form an autonomous state like Eritrea did from Ethiopia, Southern Sudan, which is in the process of breaking away as an independent state etc.

Mr Ali’s outbursts were unfortunate and uncalled for because the same sentiments have previously been expressed by Gulu LC5 Chairman Norbert Mao and the late Teberio Oketch, former DP vice president.

Why didn’t he raise his concerns at that time if he is so patriotic as he is trying to portray in his attacks? Has he ever asked himself why the BAT factory was built in Kampala and not West Nile where most of the tobacco is grown or why there is no electricity in Koboko, Moyo, Yumbe and Adjuman since independence and yet he has been the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister for long?

Mr Ali should ask himself why he was promoted only upon retirement, and after being imprisoned in Luzira. Has he ever asked himself why there is a lot of development in southern Sudan after getting the semi-autonomous status from the Khartoum government?

These and many others are the imbalances, which force people to issue statements like those made by Mr Kyanjo, Mr Mao and many others. Buganda has been so much oppressed to the extent that people are not ashamed to say Kampala is not part of Buganda and yet the seat of Buganda is in Kampala.

Besides, people are taking our land uninterrupted. We have been called all sorts of names and when any one comes out to protest this mistreatment, people like Ali come up quickly to suppress the grievances.

To be sincere, Ali would have said the same words during the time the UPC government soldiers were persecuting people from West Nile region. The saying that “people don’t talk when they are eating” is so much relevant in Ali’s present thinking and those who associate with his school of thought.

Doesn’t he think if West Nile became a federal state, it could ably find solutions to all those problems listed above and foster meaningful development directly to the people of that region?
If Ali had ever thought about why regions like Busoga, Buganda, Bunyoro etc have put up their own universities when his West Nile has none, he would have been able to know why Buganda has a point in demanding a federal system of governance. Buganda will continue to suffer when we have in our midst the likes of Ali.

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