The People
Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda: The Land and Its People
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (28 October 2009)
ISBN-10: 9987930875
ISBN-13:9789987930876
Part Four:
The People
THE people of the area that came to be known as Uganda came from two directions: west and north.
Bantu ethnic groups migrated from west and central Africa about 2,000 years ago and settled in the southern part of the country. They were mostly farmers. They also had skills making iron including weapons and agricultural implements.
They also had their own ideas of social and political organisation and developed complex societies.
The earliest political structure which some of them established in the region was the empire of Kitara in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was followed by the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara and, centuries later, by Buganda and Ankole.
The other major wave of migration, which came from the north, was of the Nilotic people including the Luo and the Ateker. They entered the area from what is now Sudan around 120 A.D. They were cattle herders and subsistence farmers. And they settled mainly in the northern and eastern parts of the country.
Some of the Luo invaded Bunyoro and became an integral part of that kingdom.
Luo migration from the north continued until the 1700s and some of the new arrivals settled in eastern Uganda where they became integrated with the Bantu communities in that region. Others moved further east into what is now western Kenya and south into what is now northern Tanzania near Lake Victoria.
The Ateker – who are the Karamojong or Karimojong and the Teso – settled in the northeastern and eastern parts of the country. And some of them integrated with the Luo in the area north of Lake Kyoga.
The Teso or Iteso and Karamojong cluster of ethnic groups are the largest Nilotic populations in Uganda.
Arab and Swahili traders entered Uganda – before it became Uganda – from the east coast in the 1830s. They were followed by British explorers in the 1860s. The explorers were looking for the source of the Nile.
Protestant missionaries entered Uganda in 1877. They were followed by Catholic missionaries in 1879.
The United Kingdom acquired the area and placed it under the charter of the British East Africa Company in 1888. It became a protectorate in 1894 but not in its final form. Several other territories and chiefdoms were incorporated into the new colonial entity and it was not until 1914 that the Uganda Protectorate became fully established. It remained under British rule until independence in 1962.
The people of Uganda today are a diverse mix of ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups.
The vast majority are descended from the immigrants who came from the west and the north, waves of migration which formed a confluence in the Great Lakes region, one of the most distinctive parts of Africa.
None of the groups forms a majority of Uganda's population. And the 30 different languages spoken in the country represent an impressive array of ethnic groups and clusters.
In addition to Luganda, which is the indigenous language of the Buganda kingdom and most widely used local language, other main languages are Lusoga and Runyankore. Lusoga is the main language spoken in Busoga kingdom, and Runyankore or Lunyankole is the main language of Bunyankole.
Swahili is another important language in Uganda and other parts of East and Central Africa. One of its biggest advantages is that it transcends ethnicity and is not identified with any particular tribe or ethnic group, making it acceptable to people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
But its status in Uganda is somewhat controversial. It was approved in 2005 as Uganda's second official language, after English, but it has not found wide acceptance across the country. The Bantu groups in the southern and southwestern parts of the country have not accepted Swahili as much as many people in the north – where it's an important lingua franca – have.
It's also widely used in the police and in the armed forces which had very many northerners – including Idi Amin – during the colonial period and in the first decade of independence.
The language was introduced by the Arabs and other coastal people and was promoted by the colonial authorities to facilitate communication. But it never became widespread in Uganda as it is in Tanzania and to a smaller degree in Kenya. However, efforts have been made by some Ugandan leaders to make it a national language. President Yoweri Museveni has done so, as did Amin.
In terms of demographic composition, three main ethnic groups constitute most of the population in Uganda. These are Bantu, Nilotic, and central-Sudanic traditionally known as Nilo-Hamitic.
The Bantu are the largest. They include the Baganda, the largest ethnic group in Uganda, who live in the Central Province and who constitute 17% of the country's population; the Basoga who live in the southeast and make up 8.4% of the population; the Banyankole (9.5%) in the southwestern area; the Bakiga, (6.9%) in the most southwestern part of Uganda; the Banyoro (3%) in the mid-western area; the Batoro also known as Batooro (3%) who live in the mid-western part of the country; the Bagisu (4.6%) in the east; the Bahima (2%) in the southwestern area; the Bafumbira (6%) also in the southwest, and other much smaller ethnic groups.
The Lugbara who constitute 4.2% of the nation's total population live mainly in northwestern Uganda and the adjoining area of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The north is mostly inhabited by the Nilotic who constitute the second-largest group after the Bantu. They include the Iteso who live in the northeast and make up 6.4% of the country's population; and the Langi in the central north who constitute 6.1%. President Milton Obote was a Langi.
The other major ethnic group in the north are the Acholi who make up 4.7% of the total population of Uganda.
The Acholi and the Langi speak almost identical languages. They're also the two largest ethnic groups in northern Uganda.
Traditionally, northerners have also provided the largest number of enlisted men in the Ugandan army since colonial times. Idi Amin, the most well-known, was a member of the Lugbara and the small Kakwa ethnic group which straddles the Ugandan-Sudanese-Congolese border in the northwest.
The most well-known Nilotic group in the northwest is the Lugbara..
The Lugbara live in the highlands on an almost treeless plateau that forms the watershed between the Congo River and the Nile. The Madi live in the lowlands to the east. The two groups speak nearly identical languages and have strong cultural similarities.
Both groups raise millet, cassava, sorghum, legumes, and a variety of root crops. Chicken, goats, and, at higher elevations, cattle are also important. Maize, besides being grown for local consumption, is also used is grown for making beer. Tobacco is an important cash crop.
The Karamojong who make up 2% of Uganda's population live in the northeast. And the territory they occupy is considerably drier and largely pastoral.
Europeans, Asians and Arabs constitute 1% of Uganda's population. And there are other smaller groups who are equally an integral part of Uganda.
More than half of Uganda's population is under the age of 15. That's more than any other country in the world.
Non-indigenous people in Uganda include several hundred Western missionaries, a few diplomats and business people from many parts of the world.
Among all the indigenous groups in the country, probably the Baganda are the most studied. But they're not representative of Uganda in all fundamental respects in spite of the fact that their kingdom constituted the nucleus of the colonial entity when the British established the Uganda Protectorate more than 100 years ago.
And the ample literature about them, written during the colonial period and after independence, does not necessarily exceed that of other people in Uganda in all respects.
Yet they still constitute a microcosm of the Uganda nation. And much of what is written about them even today is applicable in other contexts including the study of other ethnic groups in the country because of the role they played in the evolution of Uganda as a political entity during colonial rule.
It was the largest of the former kingdoms in terms of area and constitutes slightly more than one-fourth of Uganda's total land mass.
Until 1967 when the kingdom was abolished, the Ganda society was highly centralised.
The kabaka ruled over a hierarchy of chiefs who collected taxes in the form of food and livestock. Portions were distributed through the hierarchy, eventually reaching the kabaka's palace in the form of tribute (taxes).
The kabaka made direct political appointment of all chiefs in order to maintain control over their loyalty to him. Many rituals surrounded the person of the king. Commoners had to lie face down on the ground in his presence.
There are more than 3 million Baganda today. And their kingdom comprises 52 clans, a social structure similar to that of other ethnic groups such as the Banyoro but not in all respects.
There may be some dispute on the number of clans but what is probably not indisputable is that there are at least 50 clans in Buganda. And at least six others claim clan status.
Within this group of 52 – or 50 – clans are four distinct sub-groups which reflect historical waves of migration to Buganda. They are Nansangwa, Kintu, and Kimera migration, and other clans, at least 20, which have either migrated to Buganda or have been created within the kingdom – mainly by the kabakas (kings).
The oldest group of clans is Nansangwa. It has six clans. And the name Nansangwa which is used to identify them collectively means “indigenous,” a term similar to a word in the Nyakyusa language of southwestern Tanzania, gwa kwanda which means “the first” or “the first one”; plural form is ba kwanda. In Swahili or Kiswahili, it's wa kwanza.
One of the major clan groups traces its origin to Bunyoro in the Kitara empire. The ancestor of these clans was Kintu, one of the most famous names in Bugandan – and Ugandan – history. He was the first ruler of Buganda and is considered to be its first kabaka, although some people contend that the institution of the kabaka was created later. Still, in terms of status, Kintu was the same as a kabaka (king).
The Kimera migration also traces its origin to the Kitara empire like the Kintu.
Kimera, the ancestor, migrated to Buganda with 11 clans. The Kimera migration was preceded by the Kintu migration which had 13 to 16 clans.
A group of related lineages constitutes a clan. And in terms of social organization, the Ganda society is patrilineal.
And traditionally, four or five generations of Baganda – with a common ancestry traced to one man and related through male forebears – constituted a patrilineage.
Clan leaders regularly summoned lineage heads who constituted a traditional council for the conduct of political and social affairs. And their decisions affected all lineages within the clan.
Many of these decisions regulated marriage which was always between two different lineages, forming important social and political alliances for the men of both lineages.
Lineage and clan leaders also helped maintain efficient land use practices. They also inspired pride in the group through ceremonies and remembrances of ancestors.
Most lineages maintained links to a home territory known as butaka within a larger clan territory. But lineage members did not necessarily live on that land.
Men from one lineage often formed the core of a village. Their wives, children, and -relatives-in-law joined the village. The people were also free to leave if they were not satisfied with local leadership. They took up residence with other relatives including in-laws and often did so.
Ganda villages, sometimes as large as 40 or 50 homes, were generally located on hillsides, leaving hilltops and swampy lowlands uninhabited to be used for crops or pastures. The villages were established usually around the home of a chief or headman, providing a common meeting ground for members of the village.
The chief had many responsibilities. They included collecting tribute from his subjects and giving it to the king (kabaka) who ruled the entire kingdom of Buganda. The chief also distributed resources among his subjects and helped those in need. He also maintained social order and promoted solidarity among his people.
But the traditional structure came under severe strain through the years as social and political changes weakened and sometimes undermined its foundation. And the villages became more dispersed as the role of the chiefs diminished in response to political turmoil, population migration, and occasional popular revolts.
Many of the changes were a result of colonialism. The imperial rulers introduced a new system of government and institutions which undermined the traditional society in many ways, forcing the people to adopt new ways of life.
But the traditional of life was not completely destroyed by the colonial rulers and many people in Buganda today live the same way their ancestors did. Even many educated people who have been exposed to Western civilisation cherish their culture, values and traditions, solidly anchored in their collective identity as Baganda.
The family in Buganda is often described as a microcosm of the kingdom. The father is revered and obeyed as head of the family. His decisions are generally unquestioned.
A man's social status is determined by the nature of his company – the people with whom he associates – and by the patron/client relationships he establishes. And one of the best ways of establishing a patron/client relationship is through one's children.
Baganda children, some as young as three years old, are sent to live in the homes of their social superiors in order to cement ties of loyalty among parents and to provide avenues for social mobility for their children. Even in the 1980s, Baganda children were considered psychologically better prepared for adulthood if they had spent several years living away from their parents at a young age.
The Baganda recognize at a very young age that their superiors also live in a world in which they have to obey rules just like their subordinates do, although some of the rules may differ because of age differences.
Social rules require a man to share his wealth by offering hospitality. This rule applies more stringently to those of higher status. Superiors are also expected to behave with dignity, self-discipline and self-confidence. And adopting these mannerisms sometimes improves a man's opportunities for success.
Authoritarian control is also a very important part of culture among the Baganda. In precolonial times, obedience to the king was a matter of life and death. And few defied that.
Another very important aspect of culture among the Baganda is emphasis on individual achievement. The Ganda are taught that one's future is not entirely determined by one's status at birth or position in society. Individuals can succeed by working hard and by choosing friends, allies, and patrons carefully. The work ethic is very strong among the Baganda, complemented by good judgement.
In spite of the strong emphasis the Baganda place on ethnic solidarity and cultural pride as well as collective identity, they have not insulated themselves from external influence. And they have historically welcomed outsiders because their culture tolerates diversity.
Even before the coming of Europeans, many Ganda villages included residents from outside Buganda. Some had arrived in the region as slaves and were absorbed and integrated into the society. And since the early 1900s, many non-Baganda migrant workers stayed in Buganda to work on farms.
Also, marriage with non-Baganda was fairly common, and many Baganda marriages ended in divorce. After independence, Ugandan officials estimated that one-third to one-half of all adults marry more than once during their lives.
Traditionally, the economy of the Baganda relied on farming. And even today the majority of the people of Buganda depend on agriculture for their livelihood.
Unlike many other traditional societies in East Africa, cattle ownership played only a minor role in Buganda. And among those who owned cattle, many of them hired labourers from the north as herders.
The most important crop and food commodity was bananas. As a staple food, it sustained the population. It also fuelled population growth.
It also provided a solid foundation for the traditional economy. And it's still the most important food crop in Buganda even today and plays a major role in the kingdom's economy.
One of the biggest advantages of growing bananas is that the crop does not require shifting cultivation or bush fallowing to maintain soil fertility. That's one of the main reasons why Ganda villages existed as permanent settlements as they still do today.
In the Luganda language, bananas are called matoke. It's a term almost identical to matoki in the Nyakyusa language which I learnt when I lived for many years in Mpumbuli village in the area of Kyimbila in Rungwe District – traditional home of the Nyakyusa people – in the Southern Highlands of southwestern Tanzania.
This linguistic similarity is a common feature among Bantu languages showing they're related.
In Swahili or Kiswahili which is a product of Bantu languages, the word for bananas is ndizi. But the term matoke or matoki is also used in colloquial Swahili. Many other Bantu languages have terms similar to that. And Luganda is one of the major Bantu languages in East Africa..
The Baganda have plenty of food. Besides bananas, they also eat cabbage, beans, peas, mushrooms, carrots, cassava, sweet potatoes, onions, various types of greens, eggs, fish, beans, groundnuts, beef, chicken, and goat meat among other foods. Fruits include pineapples, mangoes, passion fruit, and papaya.
Drinks include indigenous fermented beverages made from bananas (mwenge), pineapples (munanansi), and maize (musoli). A term close to mwenge in another Bantu language is mbege. Like mwenge, mbege is also an alcoholic drink made from bananas by the Chaga (or Chagga) of neighbouring Tanzania.
And the Luganda term munanasi is almost identical to mananasi which means pineapples in Kiswahili; nanasi, singular form. In the Nyakyusa language, it's inanasi in singular form and mananasi in plural form.
Coincidentally, both the Chaga and the Nyakyusa grow a lot of bananas just like the Baganda do.
The Baganda have very fertile land. Most of them are peasants who live in rural villages. Rich red clay on hillsides, a moderate temperature, and plentiful rainfall combine to provide a good environment for the year-round availability of bananas as well as the seasonal production of coffee, cotton, and tea as cash crops.
The Baganda are also well-known for their basketry, especially mat-making by women. The mats are colourful and intricately designed.
In Ganda society – or the Buganda kingdom – men traditionally cleared the fields and tilled the land while women planted crops. Men also engaged in commerce. There was a clear division of labour in many areas of life but those distinctions are now blurred in the modern economy.
However, differences remain in a number of areas. There are still many tasks which men or women are not supposed to do.
There are also many important economic activities which are no longer the exclusive domain of men. Some people, especially traditionalists, decry the change. Others, especially women and those of the younger generations, welcome it.
Some of the major changes which have taken place in the traditional society as a result of Westernisation include adoption of Christianity. It has transformed the traditional way of life so much that religious beliefs of the ancestors no longer play the kind of role they once did.
And the contrast is glaring. In the second half of the 1800s, most Baganda were practising an indigenous form of religion known as Balubaale.
It consisted of gods who had temples identified with them. The gods were each concerned with specific problems. For example, there was a god of fertility, a god of warfare, and a god of the lake.
The Baganda also believed in spiritual forces, particularly the action of witches, which were thought to cause illness and other misfortunes. People often wore amulets (charms) to ward off their evil powers.
The most significant spirits were the muzimu or ancestors who visited the living in dreams and sometimes warned of impending dangers.
But Balubaale is no longer practised by many people in Buganda. However, belief in the power of the departed ancestors and in witchcraft is still prevalent. And it probably will never die.
Another kingdom, Bunyoro, which played a major role in the establishment, evolution and growth of Buganda, had its own history of achievements which included the development of complex cultural and political institutions whose influence spread far beyond its borders.
Other political entities such as the princedom of Busoga, besides Buganda kingdom, also benefited from the achievements of Bunyoro. Their own institutions, at least some of them, were a byproduct of Bunyoro since some of these societies were partly established by the people who migrated from Bunyoro or were heavily influenced by Bunyoro.
The history of Bunyoro is a history of some of the greatest achievements – in terms of cultural, political, social and institutional development – in the history of pre-colonial Africa.
The kingdom was a product of the Kitara empire. It was originally known as Bunyoro-Kitara and was created when the empire of Kitara fell apart in the 16th century.
From the 16th to the 19th century, Bunyoro was not only the most powerful kingdom in a region that's now Uganda; it was also one of the most powerful in the entire East Africa. Even today, its traditional ruler, the Omukama, remains an important figure in Ugandan politics, especially among the Banyoro people of whom he is the titular head.
Traditionally, the Omukama was a divine monarch who also had the power to appoint local chiefs. And he held the kingdom together by invoking spiritual and temporal powers.
Located in western Uganda in the area east of Lake Albert, the kingdom of Bunyoro even today has strong traditional ties to Toro which was once part of Bunyoro. And the Bunyoro language is also spoken in Toro.
The Banyoro are Bantu. But their kingdom was founded by Nilotic people from the north.
Every Munyoro (singular) belongs to a clan which is a group of people who are descended from the same ancestor. They're therefore blood relatives.
The Banyoro are predominantly agricultural. But they also own cattle which play an important role in their lives. And while the kingdom's economy is heavily dependent on agricultural commodities as is the case in most parts of Uganda, the discovery of oil in the kingdom is expected to transform this traditional society in significant ways.
The Banyoro also contend that they're entitled to a significant share of revenues earned from oil. According to a report in one of Uganda's leading newspapers New Vision, entitled “Why is Bunyoro Demanding A Share of Oil Money?”:
“Bunyoro King Solomon Iguru and the late American literature professor Mason Cooley live thousands of miles apart but they have something in common. Cooley once said: 'Courage, determination and hard work are very nice, but not so nice as an oil well in the backyard.'
As though he were Cooley’s student, Iguru is determined to reap from the oil in Bunyoro’s backyard. So he has pulled out a four-page agreement his kingdom signed with the colonialists five decades ago and is demanding a share of the oil in the region.
1955 Bunyoro Agreement
The 1955 Bunyoro Agreement, signed between British Governor Sir Andrew Cohen and Omukama Tito Gafabusa Winyi IV on September 3, gives Bunyoro Kingdom rights to share in the region’s wealth.
Section 36 of the agreement states: 'In the event of any mineral development, a substantial part of the mineral royalties and the revenue from mining leases shall be paid to the native government of Bunyoro-Kitara.'
Based on this clause, Iguru has petitioned the President to allocate his kingdom an oil exploration block and that when oil extraction begins, Bunyoro should receive a substantial percentage of the royalties.
Shem Byakagaba, a legal expert, argues that the agreement is binding because it has never been annulled. Oil being a mineral resource, he argues, it is covered under section 36 of the agreement.
The agreement was signed to reduce the impact of the military attack on Bunyoro by the colonial Government in the 1890s and the economic deprivation in the early 19th century. In 1934, the colonialists banned the Banyoro from exploiting the mineral resources. They lost control of salt mines and other minerals which, according to Iguru, deprived the kingdom of revenue. After negotiations, the agreement was signed, improving the relations between Bunyoro and the colonial government.
These rights were rescinded in 1966 when former President Milton Obote abolished kingdoms. With the restoration of cultural leaders in 1993, Iguru argues, Bunyoro is still entitled to mineral rights specified in the 1955 agreement.
The Kingdom's Stake
Iguru further argues that the National Oil and Gas Policy should indicate how cultural institutions will share the natural resources.
But the energy minister, Hilary Onek, says the policy and the Mineral Exploration Act allocate royalties to districts where the mineral resources are located; and a percentage is also paid to the land owners; who in this case is Bunyoro Kingdom.
Bunyoro Kingdom consists of Bulisa, Hoima, Kibaale and Masindi districts. Of these, oil has been discovered only in Hoima and Bulisa. If the royalty goes to districts and not the kingdom, only these two districts would benefit. For this reason, the Kitara Heritage Development Association argues that the kingdom should be treated as a region and not in terms of districts.
But the Cultural Restitution Act of 1993 which restored kingdoms only limits traditional leaders to cultural roles. It does not assign them the role of managing public resources. As a result, the traditional institutions like Bunyoro are not part of the administrative system.
Nevertheless, Byakagaba argues that the Cultural Restitution Act did not annul the Bunyoro Agreement of 1955. He calls for an amendment of the Act to allow kingdoms to manage mineral resources.
'And receiving such money would mean the kingdom will be exposed to the institutions of Auditor General to account for the funds received,' he adds.
But this also raises questions on whether Bunyoro has the institutions to ensure that funds are utilised efficiently for the benefit of the region.
What Needs to Be Done
If Bunyoro is to benefit from oil exploitation, the king should set up companies, which will be subject to government audits.
Onek says if Bunyoro has sufficient funds to invest in petroleum exploration, the Government will let them acquire an exploration block. He, however, cautions that allocating Bunyoro an exploration block is no guarantee that they will find oil. He adds that natural resources should be shared by the entire nation. He cautions against sectarian demands.
But Byakagaba argues, 'Bunyoro is not a tribe. It comprises various communities that include Baruuli, Bagungu, Bachope and the Banyoro.'
He adds that since Bunyoro will be most affected by oil exploration, they should take an proportionate share of the proceeds.
Banyoro's Other Demands
Already, the kingdom is seeking compensation from the Government for the Waraga oil site in Hoima, saying the area was an important spiritual centre. The kingdom says the government and the oil investors tampered with the Bunyoro shrine, which was marked by mikooge (tamarind) trees. Waraga is said to be a spiritual centre set up by King Waraga, one of the oldest Bunyoro kings.
Bunyoro is also pushing for a university and petroleum institute at Kigumba, Masindi district.
Both the oil discovery and the 1955 agreement are not new. But campaigns for the 2011 presidential elections will start next year. Could the demand for royalties be a political calculation?” - (Raymond Baguma, “Why is Bunyoro Demanding A Share of Oil Money?,” in The New Vision, Kampala, Uganda, Friday, 1 May 2009).
The demand for a significant share of oil revenues by the Bunyoro kingdom is also inextricably linked with the kingdom's demand for greater autonomy – now enjoyed by all the kingdoms but only in the cultural sphere – and assertion of its identity as a cultural and political entity in the context of Uganda.
It's a demand that has been shared by other kingdoms in Uganda through the years since independence and found its most forceful expression among the Baganda in the mid-sixties when they wanted to secede and establish their own independent state.
The Banyoro may not have gone as far as the Baganda did in the mid-sixties, demanding full independence if their aspirations could not be realised in a federal context. But they have demanded nothing less in terms of autonomy. And they attribute many of the problems they face to the abolition of kingdoms by President Milton Obote in 1967. As Christopher Sabiti, chairman of a clans council of Bunyoro-Kitara, stated in his paper presented to a Federal Constitutional Seminar on the kingdom's status at Pope Paul Memorial Centre in Bunyoro, 9 – 10 May 1991:
“The immediate decline and decay of culture and cultural institutions in Bunyoro-Kitara in the last quarter of a century is largely and justifiably attributed to the abolition of kingdoms in Uganda.
The institution of the Omukama, as a cultural institution, is the one that embodies the cultural aspirations and accumulated wisdom of the people of Bunyoro-Kitara. Bunyoro-Kitara is part and parcel not only of Uganda but of the African continent where the role of culture in development, in the economy and in politics has been pronounced by many African leaders, politicians and intellectuals of no less stature than, for instance, Okot p'Bitek, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Modiba Keita, Chief Awolowo, Julius Nyerere, Tom Mboya, Jomo Kenyatta, Sedar Senghor and many others....
When we talk of 'nationality' we are talking for instance of Bunyoro-Kitara, Buganda, Busoga, Ankole, Acholi, Teso, Lango, etc., a common history, a common culture and which are capable, on their own, of self-determination....
We in Bunyoro-Kitara recognise the fact that the Banyoro have lost their cultural base. This is because the colonial masters pursued a policy of suppressing our people. By the time the NRM Government (of Yoweri Museveni) came to power this policy had not been reversed....
We have the right of survival and the right of self-determination. Every people should aspire to keep their cultural identity and to explore and exploit its positive potentialities....
We cannot run away from the fact that Uganda is a country of diverse cultures.
From north, from east, from south and from the west we have different languages, different cultures, different behaviour and different tendencies.
We should consider ourselves very lucky because what this means is that Uganda is culturally rich.
We are particularly fortunate because our different cultures tend to complement rather than conflict with one another, even though some conflict would in fact be quite natural.
We, as Ugandans, must maintain this equilibrium on the basis of mutual respect, tolerance and understanding, knowing that our cultures are but different pillars of one nation. Those who find it impossible to respect this position are enemies of the people and have no place in this country.
One pillar of Uganda's cultural diversity is the Bunyoro-Kitara axis.
Few people can dispute the positive contribution of Bunyoro-Kitara to Uganda's history and cultural richness in so far as all conception of kingship in the interlacustrine region of East Africa originates from Bunyoro-Kitara; and in so far as the kingdoms in this region, especially Buganda which was more favoured by the climate, were found by the first European explorers like Speke and Grant to preside upon the most advanced civilisations in East and Central Africa.
If I am to disgrace a little, the alleged centrality of Buganda in Uganda is only geographical. As far as history and culture are concerned, however, it is Bunyoro-Kitara which is central to Uganda. This has to be recognised as such because it is historically true that what is Uganda today was not so long ago Bunyoro-Kitara. Nothing will change this fact. If therefore I was to propose a new name for Uganda, and I have no intention to do so, I would call her Bunyoro-Kitara.
Just when Bunyoro-Kitara was beginning to pick up culturally in the reign of the Omukama Sir Tito Gafabusa Winyi IV (1924 – 1967 years of reigning) Milton Obote struck, starting a fresh era of terror and violence upon our people; an era of such consequences that to-day even the name of Bunyoro-Kitara has been erased from the map of Uganda....
To parody Taban Lo Liyong, we have no Spencer to sing our jingles; We have no Shakespeare to dramatise our tragedies, to extol our kings; We have no Milton to sing the music of our mbadwa gods – Kyomya Ruganda Amooti, Wamara Abooki, Ibona of Warage and many others; where is our Wole Soyinka, our Ecklas Kawalya, our Christopher Sebadduka to sing our clans, our Elly Wamala to give us a Kinyoro version of "Voila"?
Where is our Chaucer to tell of hidden humour in our underworld?
Where are they all?
Who is to praise our rustic beauties – do we have an Okot p'Bitek? Do we have a Thomas Hardy?
Where is our Endymion, our Lamia?
Cultural barrenness, I think, is a crime; and the responsibility for this crime lies with our oppressors.
In less than one generation, unless the present situation is reversed, the whole question of our culture will be a completely forgotten issue.
As a first step to redress the situation, the people of Bunyoro-Kitara have instituted a cultural revival forum known as Orukurato Orukuru Oruteraniza Enganda za Bunyoro-Kitara (a clans council of Bunyoro-Kitara) of which I have the honour to be Chairman, which is a forum of heads of clans, elders and their descendants.
As the name implies, we are trying to put our finger on the pulse of our society to promote unity through the clans, to revive culture through the clans and to create an institutional framework on top of existing cultural institutions.
We would like to improve the inner vitality and supremacy of our people and to cherish culture as an instrument of development and production. We wish also to refine our morals, behaviour and social responsibility. We want to preserve our heritage, both man-made and natural....
Bunyoro-Kitara is a geographical, cultural and historical entity with her own distinct cultural heritage and values.
The Banyoro are bound together by block and cultural bonds and form an entity with irresistible psycho-biological linkages.
Our cultural heritage, values and institutions, our customs and traditions, are enshrined in the unique institution of clans, which in turn have their focal point in the institution of the Head of Clans, that is to say the institution of Rukirabasaija Agutamba the Omukama of Bunyoro-Kitara.
The institution of clans in Bunyoro-Kitara and the institution of the Head of Clans in Bunyoro-Kitara are one and the same thing. That is the cultural nature of our society. One is not only a reflection of the other, but it is the other, truly.
The clans and the Omukama jointly symbolise continuity, unity, stability, perfection and excellence.
All the arts, sciences, etiquette and decorum, and the best in the whole range of human achievement depend on these institutions.
In the Omukama's palace all the clans range together to uphold what is best in Bunyoro-Kitara. There is no other place where this is possible.
The institution of the Omukama is the most central of all our cultural institutions, and to derogate from its honour and dignity is a direct insult upon our people.... The way to appreciate fully the institution of the Omukama is to become a Munyoro because this institution, as cattle is to a Munyankore or to a Karamojong, is integrated in the blood and outlook of our people.
Bunyoro-Kitara was an independent kingdom long before Uganda was known, and though oppressed, she was governed separately by the British through 1933 and 1955 Agreements. This status enabled Bunyoro-Kitara to preserve her customs, traditions and cultural institutions.
The 1962 Uganda Constitution confirmed this position by granting some form of Federal status to Bunyoro-Kitara in which the enjoyment of our culture was guaranteed. This position could not be altered without the express consent of the Banyoro.
Since the Banyoro were never consulted on the abolition of the 1962 Constitution nor consented to the abolition, it follows that the Orukurato Orukuru Oruteraniza Enganda za Bunyoro-Kitara would not like to be party to constitutional arrangements that do not in the first instance, guarantee the position accorded to Bunyoro-Kitara under the 1962 Constitution.
Ultimately, however, Bunyoro-Kitara demands full Federal Status in order to be fully autonomous in certain vital spheres. Similarly, we would not like to be party to a Uganda Constitution that does not guarantee the cultural diversity of the people of Uganda.
Lastly, but not least, it should be stated categorically that there can be no question of culture without land. You cannot have culture hanging in the air. The most important aspect of culture is, in fact, land. The sentiments of our people are very clear on this matter of land in Bunyoro-Kitara.
The land belongs to the Banyoro and their children and their children's children.
Whereas we warmly welcome other Ugandans to come and settle with us, and even marry our beautiful women, wholesale alienation of land to non-Banyoro in Bunyoro-Kitara must stop as it is going to cause a lot of problems in the future.
We cannot have a cultural base when the land is being taken away. The fact that our people are peace-loving and have so far been silent on the matter should not be mistaken for their consent.
I think in future the clans should be allowed to decide on who comes in and who goes out. The Banyoro themselves must control the land.”
Christopher Sabiti, in his capacity as chairman of the council of clans of Bunyoro-Kitara, articulates a position not very much different from what many people in other traditional kingdoms and societies in Uganda say.
And that is the imperative need for traditional entities to have autonomy in a number of areas in order to maintain their identities and pursue goals in their own political and social contexts to best serve their people.
It also goes to the heart of what constitutes Uganda as a single political entity. And it raises fundamental questions about the nature of relations between the country's various ethnic groups and even challenges the protocols of association the nation's different ethnic entities have with the central government in the context of a modern African state.
While Uganda remains a unitary state, to the consternation of many people who would like to see a federal structure instituted, the authorities at the centre realise that there is a need for decentralisation to enable the people to realise their aspirations across the spectrum at the local and regional levels. Decentralisation also defuses tensions between the central government and the regions, helping maintain peace and stability. It also strengthens national unity and neutralises secessionist tendencies.
One of the areas in which the regions have demanded autonomy – as well as help from the national government – is education. Bunyoro is a typical example. As Milton Wabyona, a government minister for youth and cabinet secretary in the kingdom of Bunyoro Kitara, stated in his article, “Bunyoro Needs A Full University, Not Just an Institute,” in Uganda's Monitor newspaper, 29 April 2009:
“One of the good things that the government has done through the decentralisation policy is to bring education closer to the people. Uganda today has several regional public universities or at least a major tertiary institution in every region.
Bunyoro, however, still remains a peculiar case where even the former National Teachers’ College in Masindi is no more. I started hearing of a university in Bunyoro way back in 1998 and the signpost of Bunyoro University at Kwebiha Hostels in Hoima has since been standing although it has steadily faded – no indication of even a university book store.
Three years ago, government agreed to give Bunyoro a government-aided public university (like Gulu, Busitema, Mbarara etc), and one of the major faculties would be that of Petroleum Engineering. This was a very well-intended strategy given the oil and gas exploitation in the Albertine Valley which would provide the nearest stations for practical lessons.
The proposal to locate the university at the current Kigumba Cooperative College in Masindi District was highly welcomed since there was already some basic infrastructure that would enable a quick start.
Surprisingly though, the existence of Bunyoro University remains a dream to date. We hear it has now been decided that an Institute of Petroleum Engineering is going to be established as a constituent College of Makerere University, and relocate the present Cooperative College to Tororo.
Is an Institute of Petroleum Engineering in Bunyoro equivalent to a university?
Can the reasons the Banyoro sought a university all be summarised in this institute or the intentions and mission be well accomplished by just the institute?
Is transferring Kigumba Cooperative College to Tororo the price for having an Institute of Petroleum Engineering in Bunyoro?
Bunyoro Kitara region is rated among the regions with the lowest literacy levels in Uganda. This is also one of the poorest regions where over 70 per cent of the population can hardly afford quality education, and tertiary education in urban Uganda.
The medical superintendent of Hoima Referral Hospital recently told me that the major challenges that had caused the biggest numbers of deaths at the Hospital were lack of blood and medical staff.
The doctor lamented that Hoima Referral Hospital was the only one in Uganda that did not have a Nursing School or any Paramedical Institute and a Blood Bank.
These are some of the reasons why Bunyoro needs a university. When President Museveni visited Karuziika Royal Palace last year, he publicly instructed the Ministry of Education to operationalise Bunyoro University as a public government-aided university starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. I am not sure if this position has since changed or it has just not been followed up.
What is hindering the accessibility of such basic services to our region; is there anything we should be doing differently to get our share of the national cake?”
Others also demand their share of the national cake. They include the kingdoms of Toro and Ankole and the princedom of Busoga which together with Bunyoro and Buganda have earned Uganda distinction as the most “aristocratic” nation in East Africa.
But the Banyoro feel that they have a special claim to the wealth generated by oil found in their territory. And it has potential for disaster.
If the oil wealth is not distributed well, Uganda could have a situation similar to what has happened in the Niger Delta in Nigeria where the indigenous people have not benefited from the sale of oil pumped from under their feet.
Since the early 1950s when oil was discovered in Nigeria, the country has earned more than $600 billion. Yet the people of Nigeria are still some of the poorest in the world, and the indigenes in the Niger Delta some of the most exploited. They have nothing to show for all that wealth earned from their soil except polluted land and water including fish, endangering the lives of millions of people in the region.
There's no guarantee Uganda will avoid all that even if the situation does not become as extreme as it is in Nigeria. And the expectations of the people of Bunyoro are as high as those of their brethren in the Niger Delta. They bank on oil. According to The East African, Nairobi, Kenya, in its report, “Bunyoro Hopes of Oil Wealth Rise as Colonial Treaty is Found”:
“The Bunyoro region’s hopes of getting a lion’s share of the oil wealth from recent discoveries in the region now hinge on a 54-year-old colonial era agreement that assigned the kingdom “a substantial share” of proceeds from any mineral wealth exploited on its territory.
Kingdom officials tell The East African that they have initiated high-level contacts with the central government to bargain for a fair share of oil wealth based on an agreement signed between Bunyoro and colonial authorities in 1955.
Article 36 of the agreement between Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom and the British Protectorate government states: 'In the event of any mineral development taking place, a substantial part of the mineral royalties and revenue from mining leases shall be paid to the native government of Bunyoro Kitara.'
The agreement document, a copy of which The East African has seen, has surfaced soon after the executive approved a new National Oil and Gas Policy that designates the oil resource as a national asset.
Energy-sector sources say the government is still in the process of designing a new oil revenue law that will determine how oil proceeds are shared out between the central government, local authorities and landowners.
Bunyoro argues that while kingdoms were abolished in 1966 by the first Milton Obote regime, its agreement with the protectorate government was never annulled, so still remains valid and should therefore be the basis for any negotiations over royalties to the region.
Officials from the kingdom told The East African that they have written to President Yoweri Museveni on the matter, and are eager to start negotiations.
Bunyoro Kitara, one of the most powerful kingdoms in 19th century East Africa, is located in western Uganda, home to the oil-rich Albertine Rift.
The kingdom still commands respect among a significant portion of the country’s citizenry, and is currently involved in litigation with both the Ugandan and British governments, which if successful could strengthen their claim for a lion’s share of the oil wealth.
However, Hilary Onek, Minister for Energy and Mineral Development, said that the matter has not yet reached his desk, but advised that the government follow the new policy of managing oil wealth as a national asset.
'We now have a policy we are following, so if Bunyoro feels aggrieved, they should instruct their Members of Parliament to try to change the law through the House,' said Mr Onek.
On the part of the kingdom, what should be negotiated with government is not the validity of the agreement, but the share it deserves, an important issue not stated in the colonial pact.
'We originally wanted a share of 5 per cent, but we have since reviewed our position, and we would like to negotiate the share with government because the agreement does not state it,' said Yadezi Kiiza, newly installed Prime Minister of Bunyoro.
Hundreds of thousands of barrels’ worth of oil reserves have been confirmed in ongoing exploration activities in Uganda, validating prospects of substantial revenue from the country’s next main export.
As far as oil wealth sharing is concerned, the National Oil and Gas Policy stipulates that the biggest share will remain in national coffers, while smaller shares go to the local government in the exploitation area and the landowner under whose property the oil is drilled.
This amendment was a response to the kingdom’s demands for inclusion in revenue sharing, since the policy at the time focused on things like capacity building, licensing and monitoring exploration, and obtaining geological and geophysical data that would help attract oil companies to invest here.
'Nobody will be denied royalties, because according to the policy, royalties shall be paid to government, local government and the landowner, who (in the case of a kingdom) should be the king holding the land of the kingdom in trust,' said Mr Onek.
However, the kingdom of Bunyoro, unlike other traditional establishments in Uganda, does not hold land, which means that the new policy technically excludes it from the list of direct beneficiaries
It is also known that drilling and production of oil has been strategically situated in game reserves in Bunyoro, which are owned by the state.
Where the oil wells are not in game reserves, like a number in Bulisa County, the land is communally owned. It appears that local governments in Bunyoro region could ultimately be the prime beneficiaries there.
'But we are not ready to be knocked off the list so easily; we shall claim our share,' said Bunyoro Premier Kiiza.
With the colonial-era agreement in hand, Bunyoro has received a boost to ts campaign to reclaim its land.
Apparently, the British colonialists gave away parts of Bunyoro to the neighbouring Buganda and Toro kingdoms in 1899 in retribution for the resistance to colonial dominance by the then king of Bunyoro, Kabalega Cwa II.
Bunyoro has filed a case in the Uganda courts, and is to file another in Britain, both in pursuit of its land.
It is clear that Bunyoro fears losing out in the wake of the government’s repeated assertions that natural resources are national assets, and the areas containing them can only gain a little extra in provision of health services.
Mr Onek said, 'Some parts of the country do not have minerals, but they should benefit from national mineral assets. However, the government, through the policy, recognises the areas where the minerals are mined, and for that reason gives them something extra.'”
But in many countries, newly-found wealth – in whatever form – is not always what's portrayed to be. In all the African countries where oil has been found, it has been both a curse and a blessing.
In fact, in most cases oil wealth has been more of a curse than a blessing. And Uganda is no exception. Bunyoro may become the Niger Delta of the Great Lakes region, if not of the entire East Africa.
Even neighbouring Tanzania with its substantial mineral wealth hardly gets anything from its newly-found wealth. Most of it goes to foreigners who work in collusion with many government officials to exploit the people.
Right next to Bunyoro, in the south, is the kingdom of Toro which once was an integral part of the large empire of Kitara. The empire included areas of present day central, western, and southern Uganda; northern Tanzania, western Kenya, and eastern Congo. The Bachwezi are credited with the founding of the Kitara empire.
In addition to founding the empire of Kitara, the Bachwezi are further credited with the introduction of the unique, long-horned Ankole cattle, coffee growing, iron smelting, and the first semblance of organised and centralised government, under the king.
No one knows what happened to the Bachwezi. There is a popular belief among scholars that they simply got assimilated into the indegenous populace and are, today, the tribal groups like the Bahima of Ankole and the Batutsi of Rwanda.
Usually, the Bahima and the Batutsi are tall and have a light complexion. It's said that the Bachwezi also looked that way. They're also herders of the long-horned Ankole cattle just as the Bachwezi were. And the blood of the Bachwezi still runs through the veins of many people in the kindoms of southwestern Uganda including Toro.
The Toro kingdom enjoyed peace and prosperity for more than 100 years after it was founded by a prince who was the son of the king of Bunyoro. He broke away from his father and declared himself king of the southern province of Bunyoro. And he was warmly received by the people of Toro province – the Batoro or Batooro – who became his subjects.
Like other Africans in most traditional societies, the Toro are conservative in general but probably more conservative than many other people in Uganda. For example, old taboos which have been observed for centuries are still observed today even when they're counterproductive. Some have to do with certain kinds of foods. Many Toros still don't eat those foods to their detriment.
Modernisation – a term synonymous with Westernisation – has had an impact on Toro society, sometimes in a profound way, but not enough to change the traditional way of life in all its aspects. The Toro themselves can best describe their society and how they live:
“The people of Toro are known as the Batooro (singular, mutooro; adjective, kitooro; language, rutooro). They are a proud tribe of about one million strong.
They enjoy a rich culture of oral tradition, tribal customs, indigenous handicrafts, patriotism, and very high self-esteem.
Like all African children, batooro children are taught to respect and value their elders. They are also taught to love and be proud of their tribe and country.
Pride in being a mutooro is a value of paramount importance that is inculcated into every mutooro child from birth. There are certain behaviors, manners of speech and personal conduct, therefore, that are considered to be beneath a self respecting mutooro.
Traditionally, for instance, a mutooro is not supposed to speak words or make any utterances that distort the mouth and make the person look undignified. Unfortunately, the observance of this norm made it difficult for many batooro to pronounce certain foreign language words effectively! A mutooro has to make a conscious effort to break with tradition in order to utter some foreign expressions that end in an open mouth or a distorted facial expression.
A mutooro must be dignified at all times. In fact the tribal name, batooro, is rooted in the word "omutooro" which means "ceremony".
Literally translated, batooro means "the ceremonious ones"; a possible reminder of the practice of putting on one's best attire to welcome guests, as carried out and passed on to us by our ancestors. This ideal of dignity has, at times, collided with modern lifestyles.
Traditionally, it is undignified to walk very fast, and yet we must do it in order to keep up with today's pace of life and work requirements.
A mutooro must sit down to have a meal, and must proceed to eat slowly, taking one's time to enjoy the meal. A mutooro must not eat on the run!
This is another clash with modern life where fast food is the order of the day.
Traditional eating habits of the batooro left them prone to malnutrition as their choice of acceptable cuisine was very limited. Many of the good, nutritious foods that abounded in their kingdom were taboo.
A mutooro did not eat "birds" or their eggs. So, for the longest time, the batooro did not eat chicken or eggs. A mutooro did not eat "frogs" (a derogatory name generalized over everything from the water, including fish).
It was ironic, therefore, that while Toro boasted of having two fresh water lakes teeming with delicious tilapia nilotica, they considered it beneath them to eat the fish!
A mutooro did not eat the meat of any animal that had upper teeth, because such an animal was like a dog. This ruled out pork.
For some reason, batooro women were, and still are, expected to be even more dignified than their male counterparts. Whatever the taboo was, it went double for the women.
As modern times slowly caught up with us, we slowly started breaking some of our long held traditions. To this day, however, there are some old batooro women who will not allow chicken, fish or pork to be cooked in their kitchens!
Social makeup
The batooro society has traditionally been demarcated along "economic activity" lines, rather than caste.
Two classes could be identified, the bahima and the bairu. The bahima were the cattle keepers, the bairu the land tillers.
The two classes lived symbiotically as one provided the needed milk, meat and butter; and the other provided the needed food products. Today, the line of demarcation is growing very faint.
Since the old days, the batooro have always considered themselves as one people, under the unifying leadership of the Omukama (king) who was, until 1967, their ruler. Under the Uganda constitution, the kings are recognised (only)as cultural heads of their tribe.
Family Ties and Genealogy
Every mutooro child born is automatically a member of the batooro tribe.
Apart from the standard naming ceremonies, which take place at a very early age, there are no strict rites of passage, as found in some of the other Uganda tribes.
The system of naming batooro children is rather unique, and needs some explanation for the sake of our Western friends.
Every mutooro child has his or her own "last name"! The reason for this is very simple. Kitooro names must have a meaning; they must say something about the prevailing conditions or circumstances surrounding the birth of the child being named.
A name may reflect a significant event that was taking place at the time of the child's birth.
There are standard names for twins and the children following those twins.
The names are chosen by the family elders who sit around a good meal, sipping some local brew, and informally choose a name for the new baby. This takes place when the baby is four days old in the case of males, and at three days old, in the case of females.
With the coming of Islam and Christianity, in the late 19th century, the tradition of giving the child a religious name on top of the traditional name started.
While the tribal name is always in the tribal language, the religious name may be an Arabic name for Muslims, an English or French name for Christians. Bible names are very popular with Christians.
Since circumstances and events are ever-changing and not the same for every child, it would be erroneous to give an umbrella "family" name to all the children born into a family.
Our Western friends may ask, 'How does one know one's blood relations?' The answer is simple; through one's clan.
The clan system is what lays out our lineage and establishes our blood relationships. This is very important and is taken very seriously to avoid inbreeding.
It is taboo for a mutooro to marry someone from his/her clan or that of his/her mother's clan. This taboo applies even to distant cousins several times removed.
An exception to this taboo has traditionally been granted to our royal family, who, in an effort to maintain their true blue blood lines, have been known to break with tradition and marry within their own or their mother's clans.
Every mutooro child born takes his/her father's clan. When 'girl meets boy,' they must disclose their clans and those of their mothers at the very outset, to avoid violating a taboo.
Empaako (names of endearment)
Unique to the people of Toro, Bunyoro (and one or two tribes in Tanzania and Congo) is a special name of endearment, respect, praise, etc., known as empaako.
In addition to the name the world will know the child by, each mutooro child is given one of the ten 'empaako' names.
The empaako names are: Abbala, Abbooki, Abwooli, Acaali, Adyeeri, Akiiki, Amooti, Apuuli, Araali, Ateenyi, Atwooki.
There is a twelfth one, Okaali, reserved only for the Omukama (king). Okaali is very special in that it is not for everyday use to greet the Omukama. It is used on occasions when our tradition elevates the Omukama to the rank of our gods.
When we 'worship' our king, we address him as Okaali. The Omukama is the only mutooro with two empaako names. Upon becoming the Omukama, no matter what his empaako was before, he takes the empaako Amooti. This is the one we use to greet him on an everyday basis. On special, traditional ceremonies and rituals, we greet him as Okaali.
Contrary to the norm that kitooro names have a kitooro meaning and say something, the empaako names do not mean anything in rutooro; because they really are not kitooro names in origin. They were brought to Bunyoro by the Luo who invaded Bunyoro from the north.
They have been assimilated into the language and tagged with special meanings; for instance, Akiiki bears the tag 'Rukiikura mahaanga' (savior of nations); Abwooli is the cat; Ateenyi is the legendary serpent of River Muziizi, etc. The empaako is used for respect, praise and love.
Children never call their parents by their real name; they use the empaako. Calling one's parents by their 'real' names is considered a sign of disrespect, even poor upbringing.
When batooro greet each other, they use the empaako, e.g. 'Oraire ota, Amooti?' (Good morning, Amooti?). Amooti is the empaako in this example. Very often one will hear an exchange like this:
'Empaako yawe?' 'What's your empaako?'
'Adyeeri, kandi eyaawe?' 'Adyeeri, and what's yours?'
Having established each other's empaako, they proceed to exchange greetings.
Our relatives, close friends, and (sometimes) important members of the community, expect us to know their empaako. It is impolite not to know it!
Sometimes one tries to ask other people while the relative, friend, important person, etc. is not hearing, so one can greet them without having to ask them their empaako.
Grownups can generically apply the empaako Apuuli to young male children whose empaako they do not know. The empaako Abwooli may be equally applied to young female children.” - (“The People of Toro,” from “Toro Kingdom”).
The Toro are also known for their traditional dances. They have two main ones. One is called ntogoroo and the other one is known as amatimbo.
The dances are accompanied by drum beating and metallic sounds. Both male and female dancers wear metallic beads woven together on soft material around their legs, producing sound when the people dance.
Their traditional foods are millet, sorghum, sweet potatoes, bananas, peas, beans, groundnuts, green vegetables including cabbage, and firinda.
Milk and butter are also part of their diet. The cattle-owing Bahima provide milk and butter, while the agriculturalist Bairu grow food crops.
In spite of the abundance of fish in the lakes of Toro, fish has never been an integral part of the Toro diet because of cultural taboos as explained earlier.
The Toro kingdom is, at this writing in 2009, led by a child-king; Prince Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, the youngest monarchial ruler in world history.
He ascended the throne in 2004 when he was three-and-a-half years old following the death of his father, King Kaboyo Rukidi III. This marked the beginning of a challenging and exciting period for the people of Toro. The child-king was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's youngest reigning monarch.
Regents were appointed to assist the newly enthroned young king as his gurdians to initiate him into his role as the cultural leader of the Toro kingdom.
King Oyo's regents included Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni; the king's paternal uncle Prince James Mugenyi; his paternal aunt and godmother Princess Elizabeth Bagaaya, and the other kings in Uganda.
King Oyo's palace is one of the most beautiful and most recent permanent structures in Fort Portal, the capital of Toro. It was renovated and a new giant circular administrative tower building was built with donations from Libya's President Muammar Qaddafi.
The coronation of the child-king was one of the most important events in the history of post-colonial Uganda especially with regard to the revival of the kingdoms allowed by President Museveni but only in the cultural context without any political power being wielded by the traditional kings as was the case before, mainly during the pre-colonial era.
President Museveni has said that the decision taken by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government to re-instate kingdoms and support cultural institutions was deliberate in order to maintain and preserve the cultural roots of Uganda's traditional societies.
But it was also a strategic move. The decision was clearly political. It was intended to win support across the spectrum and help consolidate his power.
The ascension to the throne by the child-king of Bunyoro was one of the most important political developments in the new politics of the New Resistance Movement government of President Museveni which re-instituted the old kingdoms.
It was also of highly symbolic significance in terms of relations between traditional rulers and the national government. Museveni himself played a major role in the king's coronation as one of the regents. His coronation was also a major achievement for the Toro.
But in spite of his status as king, he was still a child. As The New York Times stated in its report from Uganda on 7 October 2004 entitled “For His Royal Playfulness, Goats, Sheep, but Nary a Toy”:
“There are some distinct advantages, Oyo Nyimba Kabambaiguru Rukidi IV acknowledges, to being a king.
'You have many people who like you a lot,' said King Oyo, as he is known to his one-million-plus subjects in western Uganda's Toro Kingdom.
'Like' is actually an understatement. At ceremonies in his main palace in Fort Portal, worshipers get down on their hands and knees in front of him, kiss at his feet and bring him valuable offerings like live goats and sheep.
Then there is the overseas travel that comes with wearing a crown.
Uganda is a poor country, so destitute in fact that the average citizen makes not enough in an entire year to afford a plane ticket to see the world. But kings ride business class. King Oyo has been throughout Africa and has made trips to Europe and America as well, meeting a variety of V.I.P.'s in the process.
All the same, as King Oyo sat on a leopard skin that had been draped over an armchair in his other palace, in Kampala, the other day, he said that being king has some drawbacks for someone of his generation.
'My life is very different from most 12-year-olds,' said King Oyo, fidgeting with a rubber band tied around his royal wrist and looking both kinglike and kidlike at once.
Sure, King Oyo plays video games, goes off to school every day – where his classmates and teachers just call him Oyo – and runs around the palace yard with his three dogs when he is not doing homework.
But King Oyo also has bodyguards and rules over an elaborate administrative structure that includes a prime minister, a board of regents and a variety of parish councils. He cannot just walk out his front gate and mingle with the other children in his upscale neighborhood. Sometimes, he says, he feels a bit trapped.
'Sometimes I wonder, 'Why am I a king?' he said. That question is easy to answer, at least as far as the rules of the kingdom go.
His father, King David Patrick Olimi Kaboyo II, died when Oyo was 3½. In the Toro Kingdom, women cannot rule so Oyo's mother was out, as was his older sister. Although rather young, Oyo was crowned nonetheless on Sept. 11, 1995, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as a toddler king.
Africa has a smattering of kings, in Ghana, South Africa and, most notably, Swaziland, where his majesty has drawn criticism for his free-spending ways and for his practice of plucking a virgin girl out of the masses during an annual festival to become one of his many queens.
King Oyo is dull in comparison. He does not even have a girlfriend. His mother controls the household spending. There has not been any particularly dramatic palace intrigue under his nine-year reign.
Uganda's kingdoms go back hundreds of years but former President Milton Obote outlawed them in 1967 as part of his effort to consolidate rule.
It was not until 1995 that the government of President Yoweri Museveni reinstated the country's four kingdoms – Buganda, Ankole, Bunyoro and Toro – although more as cultural institutions than the ruling monarchies they once were.
King Oyo's father was living in exile when the kingdoms were reinstated. He returned to much rejoicing among the Toro. His rule was short, however.
Soon, young Oyo was wearing the Toro crown, which has a giant white feather sticking out the top, and the gold-laced vestments.
He had no choice, really. It was his duty to become the 12th king of Toro.
That is what the queen mother, Best Kemigisa, regularly reminds him. 'Bringing up a king is a serious responsibility,' she said of her role in the kingdom.
Despite her best efforts, sometimes King Oyo's lack of enthusiasm for the role is rather hard not to see.
Some observers said his face seemed glum last month at the anniversary of his coronation, which along with his birthday is celebrated with much pomp among the Toro.
Weeks before the big day there is a cleaning of everything in the palace. When the anniversary arrives, his subjects gather and King Oyo is presented with the royal ax, the royal bow and arrows and the royal sword. The royal troupe plays drums and royal flutes.
There is a milking of the royal cows, which is performed, as one might expect, by royal milkmen. At one point, King Oyo must stride around the grounds, although palace functionaries scurry ahead of him to ensure that his feet touch straw mats and not the earth.
The royal publicist is on hand, reminding the uninitiated that it is an 'abomination' to turn one's back to the king. Most are too busy gawking at King Oyo to consider such a thing.
There was a recent attempt to further curtail the limited powers of Uganda's kings, but the country's many monarchists would have none of that.
Mr. Museveni, the president who some critics say acts like a king, proposed that Parliament be allowed to remove kings who violate the Constitution.
An uproar ensued and the government has since backed away from the proposal.
King Oyo's mother – who sits by his side, adjusts his crown and helps him navigate the difficult world of being a king – voiced her kingdom's disapproval with the government plan. 'These members of Parliament are below the king,' she said bluntly. 'They are subjects of the king. How could they remove him?'
As she spoke, King Oyo, who had earlier excused himself, was outside the palace kicking around a soccer ball, acting more kid than king.”
The child-king has helped to put his kingdom in the international spotlight partly, if not mainly, because of his age.
But the kingdom of Toro also has a number of tourist attractions. They include the king's palace, the Amabere ga Nyina Mwiru caves, the Nyakasura hills, crater lakes such as Saka, Kigere and Nyabikere, and Kibale Forest National Park.
It's a small kingdom in terms of area. But with a population of more than one million and a rich and dynamic history, the Toro kingdom stands out as one of the most prominent traditional societies in Uganda and in the entire East Africa.
Another major kingdom is Ankole, one of the big four in the Great Lakes area of what later came to be known as Uganda.
While the identity of Toro is inextricably linked with that of Bunyoro, the former being a product of the latter, that of Ankole stands on its own in a number of ways. But Ankole was also heavily influenced by Bunyoro, as were the rest of the kingdoms, since Bunyoro was the most powerful in the Greal Lakes region for centuries.
The people of Ankole are called Banyankole or Banyankore; in singular form it's Munyankole or Munyankore. And the Ankole kingdom is also known as Nkore.
It was traditionally ruled by a monarch known as mugabe or Omugabe of Ankole, a title equivalent to that of the kabaka in the Buganda kingdom.
The establishment of the Ankole kingdom is attributed to the Hima, also known known as Bahima, who conquered the Iru (Bairu) before the 19th century. They became a dominant force in the Great Lakes region until they were replaced by the colonial rulers as the dominant power.
The Banyakole are also well-known for their cows known as Ankole. In fact, one of the most famous breeds of cows in East Africa is Ankole. Ankole cows are known for their long horns.
But there are also fears that it may be a dying breed. They have been an integral part of life in the Great Lakes region for centuries. But that may no longer be the case after a few decades. According to a report from Uganda published in The New York Times and entitled “Herd Extinct: The Ankole Cow Could Disappear Within 50 years,” 27 January 2008:
“Gershom Mugira comes from a long line of cattle-keepers. His people, the Bahima, are thought to have migrated into the hilly grasslands of western Uganda more than a thousand years ago, alongside a hardy breed of longhorns known as the Ankole.
For centuries, man and beast subsisted there in a tight symbiotic embrace.
Mugira’s nomadic ancestors wandered in search of fresh pasture for their cattle, which in turn provided them with milk.
It is only within the last few generations that most Bahima have accepted the concept of private property. Mugira’s family lives on a 500-acre ranch, and one sunny day in November, the wiry 26-year-old showed me around, explaining, with some sadness but more pragmatism, why the Ankole breed that sustained his forebears for so many generations is now being driven to extinction.
As we walked down the sloped valley path that led to a watering hole, we found a few cows lolling beneath a flat-topped acacia. They looked like the kind of cattle you might encounter in Wisconsin: plump and hornless creatures with dappled black-and-white coats.
Mugira, a high-school graduate, was wearing a pair of fashionably baggy jeans and spiffy white sneakers. To a modern African like himself, he said, the most desirable cattle were the American type: the Holsteins.
In recent decades, global trade, sophisticated marketing, artificial insemination and the demands of agricultural economics have transformed the Holstein into the world’s predominant dairy breed.
Indigenous animals like East Africa’s sinewy Ankole, the product of centuries of selection for traits adapted to harsh conditions, are struggling to compete with foreign imports bred for maximal production. This worries some scientists.
The world’s food supply is increasingly dependent on a small and narrowing list of highly engineered breeds: the Holstein, the Large White pig and the Rhode Island Red and Leghorn chickens. There’s a risk that future diseases could ravage these homogeneous animal populations.
Poor countries, which possess much of the world’s vanishing biodiversity, may also be discarding breeds that possess undiscovered genetic advantages. But farmers like Mugira say they can’t afford to wait for science. And so, on the African savanna, a competition for survival is underway.
Mugira was just about to tell me what made the Holsteins so valuable when suddenly, Dr. Grace Asiimwe, a veterinarian and my guide through western Uganda’s ranchlands, shouted, 'The Ankoles are coming!'
In the distance, I glimpsed a bobbing line of white horns swooping down the hillside. Without a word, Mugira dashed down the dirt path, hopped over a fallen tree branch and disappeared around the side of a huge weed-covered anthill.
'He has to keep them separated,' Asiimwe told me, lest the Ankoles gore the Holsteins.
We found Mugira by the watering hole, whistling and waving a wooden switch called an enkoni, frantically trying to keep his Ankoles away. His herdsmen were supposed to bring the two contingents to the water at different times, but someone made a mistake.
'You know, in Uganda, we have to look for survival of the fittest,' Mugira said once he finished sorting out the confusion.
'These ones, they are the fittest,' he went on to say, gesturing toward his Holsteins.
In physical terms, there was really no contest between the tough Ankoles and the fussy foreign cattle, which were always hungry and often sick. But the foreigners possessed arguably the single most important adaptive trait for livestock: they made money. Holsteins are lactating behemoths. In an African setting, a good one can produce 20 or 30 times as much milk as an Ankole.
Mugira explained that, unlike most of his peers, he was holding onto some longhorns, mostly for sentimental reasons. His father, who died in 2003, loved his Ankoles. One of them wandered over and nuzzled Mugira, who placed his hand gently on its forehead.
In the days before Christianity arrived in this part of Africa, the Bahima made offerings of milk to herdsman gods. Their language contains a vast catalog of cattle names, which refer to characteristics like color and hide pattern. This cow was called Kiroko, indicating it had some white patches on its face.
The ideal Ankole, Mugira told me, has a lustrous brown coat and gleaming horns that curve out and then inward, forming a shape like a lyre. 'They are naturally good,' Mugira said. 'They are beautiful. In our culture we preferred these. But then we developed another culture, from Western culture.'
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an agency of the United Nations (UN), recently reported that at least 20 percent of the world’s estimated 7,600 livestock breeds are in danger of extinction.
Experts are warning of a potential 'meltdown' in global genetic diversity. Yet the plight of the Ankole illustrates the difficulty of balancing the conflicting goals of animal conservation and human prosperity.
An estimated 70 percent of the world’s rural poor, some 630 million people, derive a substantial percentage of their income from livestock. Increase the productivity of these animals, development specialists say, and you improve dire living standards. The World Bank recently published a report saying it was time to place farming 'afresh at the center of the development agenda.' Highly productive livestock breeds, the World Bank asserts, are playing an important role in alleviating poverty.
'You do have local animals with various kinds of disease resistance and whatever other kinds of things you don’t want to do away with,” said Chris Delgado, an agriculture policy adviser at the World Bank. “But there’s a problem: They are kept by very poor people, and they don’t want to stay poor.'
Every cow in the world is the product of some human agency. The extinct feral ancestor of all cattle, the auroch, was a fearsome horned creature that could grow to be six feet tall.
There are two theories about the taming of wild aurochs. The traditional view holds that it happened around 6000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent. But recent archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that domestication may have first occurred in Africa 2,000 years earlier, in the then-lush plains of the eastern Sahara. Then, beginning around 2,000 years ago, Arab merchants introduced humped cattle of Indian origin to East Africa, which were crossed with the indigenous longhorns to produce breeds like the Ankole.
For millennia, changing a breed’s genetics through husbandry required a long trial-and-error process. But today it can happen in an evolutionary eye blink. Multinational breeding companies, many of them based in the United States, collect semen from prime bulls, freeze it and export it to the developing world.
Official estimates say there are about three million Ankole cattle in Uganda and smaller populations in bordering nations. An unknown – though by all accounts large – percentage of them are in the process of being turned into something else.
After one cross with a Holstein, the brown Ankole cow will produce a black calf with darkened horns. After two, the horns will shrink and a dappled coat will appear. The third generation will basically look like American dairy cattle. With each cross, the offspring will produce more milk.
The World Bank estimates that 1.8 million small-scale farmers in East Africa are benefiting from such genetic changes to their cattle and that some 100 million cows and pigs are created through artificial insemination in poor countries each year. Those numbers substantially understate the extent of genetic interchange, because half the offspring produced by artificial insemination are male and spread their genes the old-fashioned way.
To see the evolution in Ugandan dairy cattle, I visited a farmer named Jackson Sezibwa, who lives down a reddish dirt path outside the central Ugandan town of Mukono. A weather-beaten man of 46, Sezibwa greeted me in a torn, muddy shirt. He showed me to the metal-roofed stall where he keeps his Holstein, Kevina.
Before he received the cow, Sezibwa said, he was hungry and destitute. All he owned were some banana trees and a one-room house roofed with thatch. Then he and his wife were given Kevina by a charity called Heifer International. Founded in 1944 by Dan West, an Indiana farmer, Heifer’s mission is to take quality livestock to impoverished places. In Uganda, the cattle breed Heifer prefers is the Holstein. 'The American cow,' said Dr. Margaret Makuru, Heifer’s deputy country director, 'once you feed it, it is a factory.'
Like any factory owner, Jackson Sezibwa had to think about inputs and outputs. Making milk requires energy, which means eating grass. Holsteins require much more grass than Ankole cattle, but unlike Ankoles, which need to roam, Holsteins can be kept in pens.
Sezibwa owned just a small plot of land, so the Holstein was perfect for him. All day long, Sezibwa refilled Kevina’s trough with feed, a mixture of elephant grass and protein-rich leaves and legumes that he grew in his field. Each time he milked the cow, he fed her a store-bought meal full of nutrients. Otherwise, his largest expense was medicine.
Holsteins originated in Northern Europe and were taken to America in the 19th century. They don’t have any resistance to tropical diseases like trypanosomiasis – colloquially known as sleeping sickness – and East Coast Fever, which is spread by ticks.
With intense maintenance, Sezibwa’s cow functioned marvelously. Kevina churned out around six and a half gallons of milk a day. (A typical Ankole would have given him between a quarter and a half gallon.) His family drank some of the milk, and he sold the rest, netting around $100 a month after expenses.
In a country where an estimated 85 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, that’s substantial income. The money finances school for Sezibwa’s six children. There were ancillary benefits too.
Kevina was impregnated four times via artificial insemination. Sezibwa gave away her first calf to a neighbor, in keeping with Heifer’s philosophy of 'passing the gift.' The next two – both males – he sold to farmers eager to acquire Holstein genetics, making enough profit to build himself a nice brick house. He kept the fourth calf, another female, for the future. Heifer also paid to install an underground system that harnessed methane from the cows’ manure to power gas burners and a light inside his house.
Jackson Sezibwa is just one man, but Uganda’s economy is made up of millions like him. Agriculture accounts for 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, and 10 percent of that comes from the livestock sector.
The World Bank’s October report claimed that 'G.D.P. growth originating in agriculture is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty' as other types of growth. The report pointed out that the industrialization of Europe and North America that began in the late 18th century was preceded by a period of farming innovation, and that the Green Revolution that took place between the 1940s and 1960s catalyzed Asia’s fantastic economic growth.
During the Green Revolution, scientists invented high-yielding strains of corn, wheat and rice and planted them around the Third World, and they also promoted the introduction of better livestock.
But then, broadly speaking, foreign-aid donors moved away from such interventions, which were viewed as meddling with the free market, and shifted financing priorities to areas like education and AIDS. Today, even after recent increases, the World Bank devotes less than 10 percent of its development assistance to agriculture, down from 30 percent a quarter-century ago.
Recently, the notion of helping poor farmers by making farming more lucrative has been dusted off by a new generation of economists. And Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation have promised to finance a second Green Revolution. But governmental aid agencies have been slower to rediscover the importance of agriculture. Farming initiatives now account for just 4 percent of the assistance distributed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of the world’s most developed nations.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) budgeted $392 million for agricultural programs last year, including a significant proportion to promote milk production. Crossbreeding is an important component of its strategy.
In Uganda, where the agency recently completed a five-year, $8 million dairy-modernization project, about half the money went toward artificial insemination. One partner in the program was Land O’Lakes International Development, the aid arm of the Minnesota butter company. 'We should be able to do farming as a business, not sentimentally,' said Dr. Paul Kimbugwe, the Land O’Lakes country manager. 'Making money means you have to crossbreed. And crossbreeding means that you are doing away with the genetics of that cow,' meaning the Ankole, “which I also encourage.'
Not everyone in Uganda, however, agrees that the foreign breeds are an upgrade.
President Yoweri Museveni once imposed a ban on imported semen. Museveni belongs to the Bahima ethnic group. When he was a baby, in a sort of Bahima baptism ritual, his parents placed him on the back of an Ankole cow with a mock bow and arrow, as if to commit him symbolically to the defense of the family’s herd. Museveni, now in his 60s, still owns the descendants of that very cow, and he retains a strong bond to the Ankole breed.
Two years ago, I accompanied a group of Ugandan journalists on a day-long trip to one of the president’s private ranches, where he proudly showed us his 4,000-strong herd of Ankole cattle. At one point, a reporter asked if the ranch had any Holsteins. 'No, those are pollution,' Museveni replied. 'These,' he said, referring to his Ankoles, 'the genetic material is superior.'
If the Ankole cattle are able to mount a comeback, it will be because circumstances have endowed them with a unique set of defenses, both evolutionary and political. Members of President Museveni’s ethnic group populate the upper ranks of Uganda’s government.
Some prominent Bahima have started an organization devoted to preserving Ankoles, under the patronage of a one-eyed army general who spends his free time painting rapturous portraits of cows.
One afternoon, at a pricey restaurant in Kampala, I had lunch with the organization’s chairman, Samuel Mugasi. Dressed in a dapper gray suit and a French-cuffed pale blue shirt, he told me he was a civil servant and part-time rancher.
'They have tasted the money,' Mugasi said of the farmers who switched to Holsteins. 'They are excited about having these big earnings, and they are forgetting the cultural aspect.'
Kimbugwe, the Land O’Lakes representative, has a ready reply to such arguments. 'Culture – fine, it’s good to have,' he said. 'But first, the stomachs.'
He views the Ankole as an atavistic indulgence for the country’s elite.
Once, cattle were like currency, and the wealthy displayed their status by maintaining huge free-ranging herds.
Competition for land is forcing cows onto smaller pastures. Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world, and despite its poverty and diseases like AIDS, the population has more than doubled since 1980.
There’s a long history of tension between the Bahima and an agriculturalist ethnic group, the Bairu, which coexist in western Uganda, at times less than happily. This is a common dynamic across Africa.
In Rwanda, a similar ethnic conflict between cattle-keeping Tutsis and farming Hutus culminated in genocide in 1994.
A number of experts say the 'ethnic' war in Darfur is really a fight over grass.
Uganda has not experienced that level of conflict, but the local newspapers are filled with stories of violent skirmishes between farmers and encroaching pastoralists. This is one reason that some say Holsteins represent the future.
Rwanda, now ruled by longhorn-loving Tutsis but trying to address the causes of the genocide, is enthusiastically encouraging the breed’s introduction, with assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
One of the biggest dairy farmers in western Uganda, Kezekia Rwabuhenda, told me he was the first person in his area to adopt Holsteins, back in the 1970s. At the time, he said, many traditionalists maligned him, saying he was conspiring to 'slaughter' the cattle they loved. 'Afterwards, when they realized what the cross was producing, they started visiting me, asking for a bull,' he said through a translator.
The elderly rancher still kept a hundred Ankoles, but they were for his wife, who was attached to them. He was sure that when he died, his children would dispatch them all to the butcher shop.
No one knows how many Ankole cattle exist. 'We’ve been saying the Ankoles are 50 percent of the national herd, but I don’t think that’s true anymore,' said Dr. Denis Mpairwe, an animal scientist at Uganda’s Makerere University. 'The crossbreeding the last five years has been so intense.'
The International Livestock Research Institute predicts that if present trends continue, the Ankoles could go extinct within 50 years. But Mpairwe says he believes it could happen much sooner.
I went with Mpairwe to visit Uganda’s cattle country earlier this fall, along with Dr. Okeyo Mwai, a Kenyan biotechnology specialist who works for the livestock institute.
I lived in Uganda between 2002 and 2004, and I couldn’t believe the change.
Hillsides where graceful brown Ankoles once grazed by the hundreds were now dotted black and white. 'Look at the calves,' Mwai said, as our pickup truck passed a herd. 'Almost 100 percent are crosses.' He pointed up toward the hilltops, normally gently rounded and green, but now sandy in large patches from overgrazing.
The two scientists are studying how high-producing cattle interact with the African ecosystem. If cows are like factories, you could say an Ankole is powered by a water wheel, while the Holstein requires a nuclear reactor.
The principle of the 'tragedy of the commons,' perhaps the most famous metaphor in ecology, is a cattle parable. It was first described by a 19th-century British economist and popularized by the biologist Garrett Hardin in a 1968 Science magazine essay about human overpopulation.
Hardin was trying to refute the view that an unregulated free market invariably produces beneficial outcomes.
'Picture a pasture open to all,' Hardin wrote. The benefit of adding a single calf went to each individual farmer, while the cost of adding that calf (the grass it would consume) would be distributed to all pasture users. 'Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit — in a world that is limited,' he wrote. The commons, he predicted, would inevitably be picked clean.
With the introduction of the Holsteins, something similar seems to be happening in Uganda. Farmers aren’t literally increasing the sizes of their herds, but they are creating herds that consume unsustainable amounts of dwindling resources. And something else is being obliterated: genes.
Each time a farmer crossbreeds his Ankoles, a little of the country’s stockpile of adaptive traits disappears. It isn’t easy to measure genetic 'dilution.' What is evident, however, is that the Ankoles possess much worth saving. For instance, their horns, often seen as ornaments, actually disperse excess body heat.
Holsteins don’t like heat. While a poorly adapted animal can survive for years in a harsh ecosystem, even a slight worsening of their conditions can have devastating effects.
One rancher I met, John Kamiisi, told me that he’d lost his herd of Holsteins in a 1999 drought. He only avoided ruin because he kept some Ankoles, which could live on less water.
Kamiisi told me he loved his sturdy Ankole bull 'like my own life' but said he was starting to crossbreed again for financial reasons.
Another elderly rancher said his whole Holstein herd died during Idi Amin's dictatorship, when chaos and inflation made it difficult to buy the imported medicines the cattle needed. He started again with a few Ankoles his neighbors gave him out of pity.
'For countries on the equator, I think in almost all cases the Holstein is very poorly suited – maybe the least-suited breed,' says Dr. Les Hansen, a professor at the University of Minnesota and a leading expert in cattle genetics.
Often farmers are making decisions that are informed not by science, he said, but by sales pitches devised by multinational breeding concerns. 'As I travel the world,' Hansen adds, 'my biggest challenge is countering all of the misleading marketing propaganda.'
The world market in cattle breeding is controlled by a handful of companies, several of them based in the United States. The companies maintain facilities where they extract semen from bulls, keep genetic databases, publish rankings and cultivate a sort of bovine star system.
Two legendary Holsteins, Chief, born in California in 1962, and Elevation, born in Virginia in 1965, fathered tens of thousands of offspring in their lifetimes – and beyond, since their sperm was cryogenically frozen for future use.
Hansen’s research suggests that every Holstein is descended from Chief and Elevation, and that 30 percent of all the Holstein genes in the world are traceable to those two bulls.
That has created a serious problem with inbreeding, which has adverse effects on fertility and mortality.
But overseas markets like Africa are, so to speak, virgin territory. According to industry figures, American companies exported 10 million “doses” of cattle semen in 2006. In Uganda, a company called World-Wide Sires, the international marketing arm of two American breeding cooperatives, is working with aid agencies to increase dairy production.
'The proof is in the bucket,' said George Nuwagira, a dairy farmer who is also the World-Wide Sires sales representative for western Uganda.
I met him one morning in the market town of Kabwohe. A stout, garrulous fellow, he was wearing a yellow baseball cap with a smiling cartoon cow on it. He ushered me into his insemination center, a narrow tumbledown storefront that also sold sodas.
At one end stood a wooden counter that was decorated with a flier advertising a bull named Earl, 'the Dairyman’s Dream,' which pictured Earl’s daughters posed in such a way as to accentuate their enormous milk-swollen udders. Behind the counter sat a metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen.
Nuwagira unscrewed its cap, and a thick cloud of white vapor billowed out. He retrieved a cluster of brightly colored plastic straws filled with premium semen.
We were at the far end of the global semen supply chain.
Nuwagira handed me an empty green straw. It was marked with the name 'Theseus' and a long serial number, which indicated that the semen it had contained was collected at a facility near Plain City, Ohio, on Dec. 30, 2004. Three weeks before, he used Theseus’ semen to impregnate one of his own Holsteins.
Nuwagira took me to see the expectant mother. On the bumpy ride to his farmland in a breathtaking green valley, he told me that he was from the west’s agriculturalist ethnic group, not the Bahima. He didn’t care about the Ankole. 'To me as a modern farmer, the horns don’t mean anything,' Nuwagira said.
He didn’t name his cows like the Bahima but instead referred to them by numbers. He told me he owned just 35. 'You know, it was used as a status symbol in the past, to have so many head of cattle,' he said. 'Those who had hundreds wouldn’t sit with those who had less than 30. But these days, things have changed. When you talk of animals they don’t ask you the numbers. They ask you the production.'
Nuwagira’s biggest problem was getting his product to market. 'You feed them, they will give you the volumes, but there are times when we find we are stuck having nowhere to sell it,' he explained.
Milk is perishable, and Uganda is a country where roads are bad and refrigeration is rare. The dairy trade in rural areas is largely controlled by bicycle vendors who sell raw milk from aluminum jugs.
There used to be a more sophisticated network of government-affiliated dairy cooperatives, but most of these were dismantled in the 1990s, during a World Bank push for market liberalization. The private sector was supposed to fill the gap but never did. Anyway, some Ugandan tribes don’t drink milk. They’re lactose-intolerant.
Crossbreeding follows the logic of the arms race. All the ranchers I met complained that Holsteins required expensive upkeep, and many didn’t want to abandon tradition. But they’ve had to change because their neighbors are changing.
The volume of milk produced in Uganda doubled between 1993 and 2003, but in the absence of a surge in demand or improved delivery systems, the product has literally flooded the market. As the price per liter has fallen, dairy farmers have had to rearm with Holsteins just to maintain their usual profit margins.
International organizations realize that increased productivity means little if it’s not accompanied by market growth. That’s why the U.S. Agency for International Development is spending millions across Africa to promote dairy cooperatives and pay for advertisements inspired by America’s famous 'Got Milk?' campaign.
But changing distribution and diets isn’t as easy as changing breeds. 'A lot of consumers don’t understand how important milk is,' says Jim Yazman, a livestock specialist with the agency.
Economic forces can push a breed to extinction with frightening swiftness.
In Vietnam, where pigs are the most important livestock species and the government has encouraged leaner foreign breeds, the percentage of indigenous sows has fallen to 28 percent from 72 percent since 1994, and 13 of the 15 local breeds are classified as either extinct or in danger.
There were several million Red Maasai sheep in Kenya until the 1970s. Then, in just 15 years, indiscriminate crossbreeding with woollier imported sheep nearly drove them out of existence. But the wool sheep fared poorly in the Kenyan environment, in part because of intestinal parasites to which the Red Maasai were resistant. By the time that was discovered, though, purebred Red Maasai were almost impossible to find.
Many tropical breeds may possess unique adaptive traits. The problem is, we don’t know what is being lost.
Earlier this year, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization released its first-ever global assessment of biodiversity in livestock. While data on many breeds are scant, the report found that over the last six years, an average of one breed a month has gone extinct. 'The threat is imminent,' says Danielle Nierenberg, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental group. 'Just getting milk and meat into people’s mouths is not the answer.'
As the world’s climate warms, and the environment becomes more inhospitable to the major breeds, humanity might need the genes that allow animals like the Ankoles to flourish in the African heat. The challenge is to safeguard the resource.
There are two possible approaches: putting the animals in cold storage, or changing the economic equation.
Proponents of the first option desire something like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a doomsday depository for plant species that an international consortium is building in the Arctic Circle.
But storing sperm and embryos is far more expensive and technically difficult.
Biodiversity advocates say that it would be preferable, anyway, for breeds like the Ankole to go on living in their pastures. The most obvious way to do that would be to create incentives to entice farmers to keep them.
But even those who want to save endangered breeds recognize that subsidizing unproductive livestock in hungry countries is problematic.
In November, at a conference sponsored by the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, Dr. Edward Rege, the organization’s biotechnology director, gave a speech listing several 'inconvenient facts' about conventional wisdom in the field, adding that conservation approaches can effectively amount to 'saying that farmers should remain poor.'
The best hope for the Ankoles may reside at a modest, terraced complex on a breezy hillside in Uganda overlooking Lake Victoria in the old colonial town of Entebbe.
It was constructed by the British in 1960, at the height of the Green Revolution, as an artificial-insemination center and a staging ground for introducing new breeds – animals that mostly died off during the subsequent wars and dictatorships.
Now called the National Animal Genetic Resources Center and Databank, the facility’s new mission is to save indigenous animals like the Ankoles by giving them better care and selectively breeding them to compete in production.
The center keeps a dozen bulls of different breeds, including two immense Ankoles that once belonged to President Museveni.
Twice a week, technicians collect semen, which is used to inseminate cows at government farms or else packaged and sold directly to farmers.
If it’s successful, the program could offer a model to other developing nations. If, on the other hand, the Ankole cattle can’t be saved even with such government support, it’s difficult to imagine how any threatened breed will survive.
'They can produce milk and they put on meat,' said Dr. Dan Semambo, the center’s executive director. 'People don’t know what they have.'
Ugandans rave about the fresh milk out west, and every rancher I visited there served me a cup. It has a delicious sweet thickness.
No matter how well nourished they are, though, the Ankoles probably can’t produce as much milk as the Holsteins.
Instead, the breed’s salvation could lie in the slaughterhouse.
President Museveni says he believes that Ankoles make exceptional beef cattle and wants to export their meat. Some studies suggest that Ankole beef is unusually lean and low in cholesterol. Mpairwe and his colleagues at Makerere University are completing a study in which Ankoles and crossbreeds were kept on nutrient-rich diets. In early December, the cattle were slaughtered and an 'expert panel' of faculty and students conducted a taste test, with encouraging results.
Shortly before I left Uganda, I convened an expert panel of my own. We met one evening at Le Petit Bistro, a European-owned restaurant that serves Kampala’s best steak.
While we waited for our orders, I went back to the kitchen to meet the cook, Everest Neretse, who was wearing a white chef’s jacket and flip-flops. He told me he came from the west. 'Ankole cattle, they are the best,' he said. 'I can tell in the tenderness.'
I had my filet with a little garlic butter. When I cut into it, rich reddish juices spilled out, and the texture was so soft that I hardly needed to chew. It was almost as if you could taste the contentment of an unbounded life on the open range.
The panel agreed: it was extraordinary, it was beautiful and in no time every trace of the Ankole was gone.”
But even when the Ankole cow is no more, if the breed will indeed be gone one day, the people in the Great Lakes region who have relied on this domesticated animal for centuries will continue to live the same way.
They're still going to have cows, only of a different breed or breeds.
And the people of the Ankole kingdom, well-known as cow owners and as farmers, will always be among those who will benefit the most from the new breed or breeds of cows as they continue to live their traditional way of life but only with different results.
The cows they're going to have are going to be more productive, giving them more milk, hence more economic security and better health.
But it will also be tragic. The old ways, of owning the Ankole cows and all that it entails in a cultural context including its spiritual dimension since this breed of cows has been an integral of life in the Great Lakes region for centuries, will be lost forever.
Just like other Africans, the Ankole are a proud people. They're proud of their culture and traditional way of life. And they don't want to lose it. They're also proud of their ethnic identity as Ankole different from other ethnic groups.
And theirs is “the land where milk and honey freely flow down the village paths.”
But they also have differences among themselves. One of those differences has to do with the status of the Ankole kingdom – whether or not it should be restored. As one Ugandan observer states about the Banyankole and their land:
“Ankole is a blend of mystery and fascination. Cattle are part and parcel of a Munyankole from Ankole. The Ankole land is a mixture of various vegetation animals, birds as it is a mixture of personalities.
Life in this place is a comical contrast of extremes. On one hand you have long-horned cattle that seem to have more horn and bone than flesh. Probably weighed down by the grotesquely oversize horns, they crawl along, passive and pondering.
In contrast, the people are full of life and passion and basically bursting with good health. They move about briskly and gaily, calling out greetings to one another with an enthusiasm that rubs onto the observer.
When you crack a joke to a Munyankole, chances are he will laugh loud and long and then tell you a much better version of the same joke.
But when you talk about Omugabe the mood slows down. Either, 'We have no king and never you say that around here!' Or: 'Museveni and Co. have denied us our right to a Kingdom and enjoyment of culture.'
The bitter division about their kingdom – or what is left of it – is obvious.
One fine afternoon in September 1967, Ankole's Enganzi (Prime Minister) left his Mbarara office to grab a bite at home. He intended to return that afternoon to complete the kingdom's duties for the day.
A casual phone call shattered his programme: 'Don't you bother – or dare – return to office. Kingdoms have been abolished.'
The kingdom's offices were taken over by the government. As the Baganda broke down and wept, there was jubilation in many parts of Ankole.
The 1971 incoming of Idi Amin raised hope for restoration of kingdoms, especially when he returned the body of the late king of Buganda, Sir Edward Mutesa II.
A delegation of Baganda met Idi Amin, asking him to restore the Buganda Kingdom.
But 'Big Daddy' casually told them to forget the idea. He did not like the idea of an embrace when he thought a handshake was enough.
The Banyankole apparently got the message fine. When a delegation of elders – led by former Omugabe Sir Charles Gasyonga – met Big Daddy later that year, they presented a signed memorandum asking him not to restore the Ankole monarchy.
Amin pumped their hands happily in a fresh round of greetings. He soon gave Gasyonga's heir-apparent Prince John Barigye an ambassadorial job.
(Prince) Kahigiriza denies this story. But it is supported by articles from the press of the day and the testimony of witnesses.
Ankole today is split in two
On one hand, is a self-assured Banyankore Cultural Foundation (BCF) saying to hell with Omugabe. The monarchy, argues the anti-Omugabe camp, encouraged class distinction based on occupation and is the embodiment of division in Ankole. It was a caste system – people were ranked in hierarchy: the King on top, then the Bahinda royal clan, Bahima pastoralists then the Bairu cultivators.
So reviving it means reviving social discrimination and injustice because the institution belongs to the Bahinda as a clan and was supported mainly by the Bahima.
'With the abolition of the monarchy, the basis for social differences was removed because the Omugabe was a basis for social differences,' says Makerere law don Dr Jean Barya.
'The unity that has been growing in Ankole would be in danger if the monarchy were restored because these social categories and differences were slowly dying out, especially with education, access to economic resources and political power by the majority of Banyankole since 1967.'
BCF draw their strength from the fact that popular opinion in Ankole does not favour the monarchy. And equally importantly, from the fact that President Museveni is openly against the idea of Omugabe. Knowing they are politically correct seems to boost their confidence.
On the other hand is a much less assured Nkore Cultural Trust (NCT) parading an inferiority complex in articulating their demands. They are openly timid because of the lack of enough public and political sympathy.
'We do not want to be seen against government,' says James Kahigiriza. 'But the kingdom has not been restored because of funny politics. Those who object do so because of jealousy and sectarian tendencies, that is why they are playing the Bairu-Bahima card.'
In 1993 the National Resistance Council (NRC) enacted the Traditional Institutions Statute that stipulated that any community could revive the institution of traditional leadership if the people of the relevant community so wish.
But it did not say how that (whether people want) should be determined.
Article 246 (2) of the Constitution says 'In any community, where the issue of traditional or cultural leader has not been resolved, the issue shall be resolved by the community concerned using a method prescribed by Parliament.'
This, says, Barya, was put there specifically for Ankole and means that since there is a dispute the matter has never been resolved.
'The NRC as a whole was opposed to general restoration of kingdoms – not those from Buganda,' says Barya.
'What Museveni did (at that time thinking of Buganda which was demanding) was to hold a closed session of the NRC in April 1993 in which he persuaded – or cajoled – them to allow the Buganda monarchy to be restored.
'Buganda had threatened to vote against the Movement in the CA (Constituent Assembly). But the CA could not make a law addressing Buganda alone; so they made a general one – Traditional Leaders (Restitution of Properties) Statute 1993.
'The only kingdom automatically returned by law is that of Buganda. The others would only be returned through consultation and negotiation, because government was not sure whether people in those areas wanted the kingdoms restored.'
Barya adds that Museveni's only concern is that since the institution is unpopular it could cost him votes. But he does not wish to antagonise the monarchists so he gives them hope that the Omugabe will be restored through discussion and compromise.
'That way he gets votes from both sides – each side in the hope that it will triumph. Otherwise the matter would have been resolved one way or another, by now, says Barya.
The kingdom regalia is also in dispute. NCT says it is Barigye's property. But BCF says it is a symbol of kingship but belongs to the kingdom rather than an individual. And that when the kingdom was abolished in 1967, the regalia reverted to central government – like all the others.
Subsequent developments since the enacting of the Traditional Institutions Statute have not favoured the pro-Omugabe camp.” - (“Monarchies: Ankole Kingdom”).
Yet the people of Ankole are united as a single cultural entity whose ethnic bonds transcend political differences. Traditionalists and modernists, even ethnic chauvinists and nationalists who want one Uganda as a single nation, are all inextricably linked, constituting one of the most well-known ethnic groups in Uganda and in the whole of East Africa.
Like other Ugandans, they are a people with their own traditional homeland, their own customs and way of life handed down through the generations. And they cherish the memory of their history and keep alive the traditions of their ancestors just as other Ugandans do.
Although Uganda is a product of a few old kingdoms and many smaller independent chieftaincies, its traditional landscape – in terms of prominence and importance – is dominated by only a few traditional institutions.
The communities which have been organised in traditional institutions of kingdoms – and princedoms – are the Baganda under the kabaka, the Banyoro under the omukama, the Banyankole under the omugabe, the Batoro also under the omukama like the Banyoro, the Basoga under the kyabazinga, the Alur under the rwoth-obima, the Ateso under the emorimori, and the Bakonjo under the omumbere.
The kingdom of Ankole reached a level of sophistication during pre-colonial times which even impressed European explorers. They were amazed at the sophisticated and cultured societies they found not only in Ankole but in neighbouring kingdoms.
The kingdom of Ankole in southwestern Uganda was known not only for its long-horned cattle – as it still is – but also its absolute ruler, mugabe (king) who claimed that all the cattle in the land belonged to him. And the chiefs under him were ranked on the basis of how many cattle they had.
It was also a society divided on the basis of social classes. It was a kind of caste system although not as rigid as the one in India. The cattle owners, the Bahima, belonged to the higher class, and the Bairu farmers to the lower class.
And the country was excellent for livestock, with its rolling plains covered with abundant grass. But grazing land has diminished through the years because of high population growth.
The Banyankole are also known to be good story tellers. Riddles and proverbs are also very important in conversations and as a means to impart wisdom and teach the young their proper role in society. Combined with tales and legends, they also teach proper moral behaviour to the young. Of special significance are legends surrounding the institution of the kingship, which provide a historical framework for the Banyankole.
Although Christianity is prevalent, many Banyankole – including a significant number of Christians – pay a lot of attention to traditional secular and religious practices. The belief in ancestor spirits is very strong. Many Banyankole believe that if you neglect a dead realative, you incur the wrath of the ancestors. And an offering such as meat or milk must be offered to appease them.
In many respects, little has changed since the good old days especially in terms of customs and traditions mainly in the rural areas.
Like all other Africans in pre-colonial times, the Banyankole were an independent people. As Ghanaian philosopher Willie Abraham says, independence is a state of nature.
But the coming of Europeans changed all that. It signalled the beginning of the end of independence for the Banyankole and for the people of other kingdoms in Uganda.
The British signed a treaty with Ankole in 1894 and proclaimed the kingdom a British protectorate, ending independence for this traditional kingdom. It was a blow to these proud people.
The Banyankole strongly resisted British domination but were no match for imperial might. Crushed by British troops sent from Kenya and other nearby colonies ruled by Britain, the Banyankole were forced to sign an agreement with the colonial rulers which led to the formal incorporation of their kingdom into the Uganda Protectorate.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the colonial rulers greatly reduced the power of the Ankole king, the omugabe, and the political independence of the Ankole kingdom.
The British rulers were unpopular in Ankole. And they were more concerned about reaping economic benefits than with meeting the demands and aspirations of the people including preservation of traditional institutions – as well as the power and trappings of the monarchy – on terms stipulated by Ankole leaders. The Banyankole were a conquered people, reduced to a vast pool of cheap labour for the colonial rulers.
Ankole was less developed than other parts of the Uganda Protectorate and resentment against British rule fuelled Ankole nationalism during World War II, leading to the growth of a vibrant Ankole nationalist movement.
Opposition to British rule was not confined to Ankole. It became widespread in the southern part of the protectorate which was predominantly the land of kingdoms. As James Minahan states in the Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations:
“The kingdoms of southern Uganda increasingly opposed inclusion in Uganda as the British territory moved toward independence in the decade after World War II.
The growing opposition to domination by Uganda's non-Bantu northern tribes pushed the Hima, Iru and Chiga to bury old differences and begin to identity with Ankole nationalism.
In the late 1950s, agitation for autonomy or separate independence swept the kingdom, but after extensive negotiations the Ankole finally accepted semifederal status within independent Uganda.
The independence government of Milton Obote, a non-Bantu northerner installed as Uganda's first president in 1962, quickly moved to curtail the powers of the southern kingdoms, over vehement Bantu opposition.
In 1966, amid growing tension and moves toward secession, the Obote government ended all Ankole autonomy and in 1967 abolished the four kingdoms.” - (James Minahan, Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: S-Z, Westport, Connecticut, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p.132).
Abolition of the kingdoms galvanised opposition to Obote's rule among southern Ugandans and was a major factor in encouraging them to form an alliance in pursuit of a common goal.
They wanted to reclaim the power the kingdoms enjoyed before the advent of colonial rule. They also wanted a federal form of government in which they would enjoy autonomy and exercise considerable power in the context of a united Uganda if they could not secede. And they wanted Obote out of power.
The opportunity to get rid of Obote came in 1971 in a coup led by a fellow northerner, Idi Amin:
“Firmly opposed to the Obote government, most Ankole supported the revolt, led by Idi Amin Dada, that overthrew Obote in (January) 1971. Quickly disillusioned with the mercurial Dada, whose administration became even more repressive than Obote's, the Ankole withdrew their support.
Following an abortive secessionist revolt in 1972, Dada loosed his mainly Muslim army on Ankole (he was a Muslim himself). Thousands died in brutal massacres, and refugees streamed across the borders into Zaire and Rwanda.
Its leadership decimated, murdered, or disappeared, the Ankole national movement collapsed.
Idi Amin Dada, one of Africa's most brutal dictators, was finally overthrown in April 1979 and fled the country, but several successor governments lasted only short periods until Milton Obote again became president of Uganda in 1980.
The Ankole, with vivid memories of Obote's earlier rule, gave their support to a southern Bantu rebel movement led by an ethnic Ankole Hima, Yoweri Museveni. The rebels drove Obote from office in 1986 and installed Museveni as the head of Uganda's first Bantu-dominated government.” (Ibid.).
The insurgency was launched from Buganda which became the main operational base for the offensive against Obote's regime for strategic reasons. The seat of the national government was Kampala which is located in Buganda. The kingdom is centrally located. And the Baganda constitute the largest and most influential ethnic group in Uganda.
Museveni and his colleagues in the rebel movement were aware of all that. In fact, most of the support for the military operations by the insurgents came from the Baganda. They also provided the largest number of fighters. And Museveni promised them to restore their kingdom once he seized power.
After he seized power in January 1986, he restored peace and stability, which made him popular in many parts of the country, especially in the south, the ethnic stronghold of his fellow Bantus, except in the north, the homeland of both Obote and Amin.
But he still wanted even more support and also to consolidate his position as the nation's supreme leader. And his promise to re-institute the kingdoms was a tactical manoeuvre to help him achieve this goal.
Restoration of the kingdoms was a strategic decision that was brilliantly executed by Museveni and his colleagues in the government.
But it was also a strategic gamble which could backfire by fostering and fuelling regionalism and separatism – as well as secessionist tendencies – among some people in all the traditional kingdoms. And it did in a number of cases in varying degrees.
It also offended many northerners who were already opposed to his rule and who saw the restoration of the kingdoms as a nefarious scheme by Bantus to establish and perpetuate their hegemonic control of the country to the detriment of non-Bantu northerners who are predominantly Nilotic.
But the re-institution of the kingdoms also had unintended consequences for President Museveni and his government:
“Relative peace since 1986 has, paradoxically, allowed Ankole nationalism to resurface even though firmly opposed by President Museveni.
Led by the more militant Protestant minority (the majority of the Banyankole are Catholic), the nationalist movement is buoyed by nostalgia for the former monarchy and the memories of the peace and prosperity the kingdom enjoyed until 1967.
Ankole nationalism is sustained by the belief that an independent Ankole would have been spared the horrors and desolation of the years since 1962.
In 1992 the Ugandan government announced a radical decentralization of government, transferring power to councils in local areas, prompting calls for the restoration of the Ankole kingdom.
In July 1993 a new law restored all the former Bantu kingdoms except for Ankole.
Firmly opposed to the restoration of the Ankole kingdom, President Museveni refused to listen to Ankole arguments.
In November 1993, in defiance of the president, John Barigye was crowned king, and the restoration of the kingdom declared.
The proclamation, declared illegal by the Museveni government, set off a serious crisis between the Ankole government, backed by the nationalists, and Uganda's central government.
The Bantu majority of Ankole support restoration of the monarchy as a means of safeguarding their unique culture but have refused to consider the restoration of the Hima institutions of domination that formerly were an integral part of the monarchy.
In February 2000, President Museveni stated that he would consider the restoration of the monarchy if the majority of the people in the concerned districts demanded it.
The Nkore Cultural Trust (NCT), a pro-monarchy organization, began consulting leading members of the Ankole community about the delayed process of restoring the Ankole monarchy.
Nationalists want the restoration of the monarchy partly for tradition but also to unite the Ankole people, as politics and religion have failed to do.
The Ankole remain bitterly divided over the future of their homeland. Some want a restoration of the kingdom and autonomy or independence. Others, mostly non-Ankole, but also many Ankole, in the outer areas of the old kingdom, reject the monarchy but support greater autonomy.
In 2001 nationalists proposed the creation of a new Ankole to include the Ankole-populated districts of Mbarara, Bushenyi, and Ntungamo. Nationalists also claim the Rujumbura and Rubado counties of Rukungiri District, which is inhabited by ethnic Ankole.
Economic and political instability in the Great Lakes region of Africa has fueled the growth of Ankole nationalism. The prohibition on political organizations in Uganda and a lack of even the traditional democratic traditions of the Ankole kingdom makes nationalism an attractive alternative to many young Ankole.
The largest nationalist organization, the Banyankore Cultural Foundation (BCF), although openly nationalist, rejects the monarchy as an antiquated caste system that divided Ankole into classes or castes. Reviving the monarchy, according to the group, means reviving social injustice and endangering the unity that has been growing in Ankole.” - (Ibid., pp. 132 – 133; Samwiri Ruharaza Karugire, A History of the Kingdom of Nkore in Western Uganda to 1896, Fountain Publishers, 1971; Martin R. Doornbos, Not All the King's Men: Inequality as A Political Instrument in Ankole, Uganda (Change and Continuity in Africa), Mouton, 1978; Ramkrishna Mukherjee, Uganda: An Historical Accident, Class, Nation, State Formation, Africa World Press, 1985; Francis A.W. Bwengye, The Agony of Uganda, from Idi Amin to Obote: Repressive Rule and Bloodshed: Causes, Effects, and the Cure, London & New York: Regency Press,1985).
Among the Banyankole, the quest for the restoration of the Ankole kingdom is not only fuelled by nostalgia for the past but also by contemporary necessities in the political and economic realms.
It's the only former kingdom which has not regained its former status. But it may also be the only kingdom in Uganda where a significant number of people don't want to re-institute the monarchy while at the same time retaining pride in their political and cultural achievements and ethnic identity.
And as these groups – traditionalists versus modernists including a combination of both – vie for leadership and influence in Ankole, they have been equally adept at seeking government assistance to promote their agendas for the benefit of their people as a whole especially in the economic arena where competition between them for resources would be to the detriment of the Ankole as a collective entity.
Also, the refusal by President Museveni to restore the kingdom's former status should not be misconstrued as anti-Ankole. He's Ankole himself. But many Ankole are adamant in their demand for the restoration of the Ankole kingdom in one form or another.
And as Yoga Adhola, former editor-in-chief of The People newspaper of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) which was Obote's ruling party, stated in his Op-Ed in the Sunday Monitor, Kampala, Uganda, entitled “Ankole Kingdom Was Also Conquered”:
“There is something weird about President Museveni's perspective of history. It has tendencies to select either a phase of history or particular sections of history and go on to act as if that is the whole history.
He acts as though the causes of the issues he deals with begin with independence. He does not delve into the historical circumstances which led to those issues. It therefore becomes very easy for him to set up caricatures and treat them as real issues.
In his recent history lesson again he was selective. He argued that the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Buganda and Tooro were conquered by Luos, and then went on to make the claim that since the Luos did not reach Ankole, Ankole was never conquered.
But at the very time in history that President Museveni says the Babito conquered Buganda, Bunyoro and Tooro, the Bahima also arrived in present day Ankole. They found indigenous people there, subjugated them and now call them Bairus.
Unlike the Luos who got assimilated into their respective societies, the Bahima established a ruthless caste system which survives today. The caste system was marked by race and certain prohibitions.
The Bahima depended for their livelihoods on cattle while the Bairu on agriculture. The Bairu were not permitted to own productive cows. If a Mwiru came to possess a productive cow, any Muhima had the right to take it from him.
The Bairu were not allowed to marry Hima girls yet Hima boys could take Bairu girls for concubines.
The Bairu were barred from military service and no Mwiru could hold high official positions. Furthermore, they had no political status.
The Bahima organised and evolved a state apparatus. Centred around the Omugabe (king), the Hima state provided protection against foreign aggression and also subordinated the Bairu.
When the British came, they merely refashioned the Hima state and, through the system of indirect rule, used it to run this part of the colony. Thus British colonialism, entrenched Hima domination.
As time went on, colonialism occasioned social development that undermined social stratification along caste lines.
'The effect of modern education was to instill egalitarian orientations and aspirations among an increasing number of Bairu giving rise to a growing sense of dissatisfaction over their status as second class citizens.
Bairu also developed an awareness of greater self-sufficiency from this mastery of modern skills, as well as from new sources of income made available to them through the cultivation and sale of cash crops.'
This led Bairu to demand for equality, particularly following the Second World War. The late 1940s was a period of very intense struggles at Mbarara High School between the Hima and Bairu students. It was as a result of these struggles that an organisation of Bairus called Kumanyana to articulate Bairu interests was formed.
One of the greatest achievements of Kumanyana was the election of Kesi Nganwa as the Engazi (Chief Minister) of Ankole. Nganwa was the first Mwiru to hold that post, and his election was very uplifting to the Bairus. They gave him the title of Ruterengwa which means nothing compares with him. The Hima strongly objected to this because it implied that Nganwa was of higher status than the Omugabe.
The rise of NRM has essentially restored the status of the Bahima. It has done so not just in Ankole, but extended it to the rest of Uganda.” - (Yoga Adhola, “Ankole Kingdom Was Also Conquered,” Sunday Monitor, Kampala, Uganda, 20 April 2008).
The logic for the restoration of the kingdoms may be convoluted, according to some people, and is probably best exemplified by President Museveni himself. But it serves the president well as part of his Machiavellian tactics to rule Uganda and perpetuate himself in power until he's ready to step down on his own terms. As Machiavelli says, “It's better to be feared than loved.” In the case of Museveni, it's also better to be complex and divisive and confuse your opponents than please them.
The people of Ankole also use the vote and political support as a bargaining tool in an attempt to extract concessions from the government and have threatened to withhold their support if they don't get what they want.
They also demand their share of the economic pie, not only as Ugandans but as a people who collectively constitute one of the four major kingdoms in the country which lost their powers during colonial rule and even their status as kingdoms under President Obote. According to a report in the Uganda Heritage News:
“The Ankole Cultural group is demanding president Museveni to extend kingdom facilitation to their area. President Museveni recently offered 4 billion shillings to the kingdoms of Busoga, Bunyoro and Buganda.
Moses Kanaala, the chairman of Ankole Cultural Group says that Museveni should not be discriminative but extend the kingdom facilitation to all tribes, districts and races found in Uganda.
Although there is no recognized kingdom in Ankole region, Kanaala reminds Museveni that Ankole was a full kingdom under Omugabe in the written history of Uganda and so the president should not forget to extend kingdom facilitation to them.
Kanaala says the people of Ankole would not give Museveni support come 2011 if the president doesn’t extend financial facilitation to Ankole Cultural Group. Kanaala says Ankole Cultural Group is a registered cultural association under the rules and procedures in the laws of Uganda.
Kanaala says the ultimate goal of Ankole Cultural Group is to have Ankole kingdom restored. Kanaala claims that it's president Museveni frustrating the restoration of Ankole kingdom.” - (“Ankole Cultural Groups Demands Kingdom Facilitation,” Uganda Heritage News, 22 April 2009).
The demand for the restoration of the kingdom is supported even by some of the most ardent Ugandan nationalists among the Banyankole who are committed to maintaining the territorial integrity of Uganda as a single nation. They don't see any contradiction between the two. And they are committed to achieving both.
The debate over the status of the kingdoms is a divisive issues among many Ugandans in different parts of the country. And it may not end until all the kingdoms regain their former status even if with diminished influence in terms of political power.
And they all have been accorded that status except Ankole, even though there are still some demands from all the kingdoms which have not been met by the government.
Full restoration of political power, and the establishment of a federal form of government with extensive devolution of power to the kingdoms and the regions, are the biggest demands which have not yet been met. And they probably never will in the context of modern Uganda.
But that has not stifled nationalist aspirations at the micro-national level in the kingdoms which in many ways still see themselves as nations, as they indeed once were during pre-colonial times, regardless of how anachronistic they may be in the context of the modern African state which eschews and transcends ethnicity.
And among all the kingdoms, the most vocal demands come from Ankole because it has not been allowed to regain its former status as a traditional kingdom....
Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda: The Land and Its People
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (28 October 2009)
ISBN-10: 9987930875
ISBN-13:9789987930876