In my culture – and I believe in all cultures – parents have three principle responsibilities: to feed their children adequately so that they do not fall sick; prepare them for successful adulthood; and preserve land for them. I watch movies about wild life a lot. What is common among all creatures – birds and animals alike – is that they make sure their young are fed well and protected against danger; the young are taught how to survive and succeed in a dangerous environment on their own and cared for when need arises; and protect the territory for present and future generations. Recently I watched a movie in which a lion strayed into monkeys’ territory. All the monkeys – young and old, male and female – gathered around the lion and harassed her until she left the area. The monkeys re-conquered their territory with great joy!
Museveni as father of the nation has failed on the first two responsibilities (food security and care for the youth) and is beginning to fail on the third (Uganda land). Infants are born underweight because their mothers are under-nourished and children are starving and dropping out of school because they are hungry while Uganda exports huge amounts of food to feed children in other parts of the world. Museveni has neglected the youth through unemployment and blames them for being lazy. Museveni is dishing out Uganda land to foreigners without transparency. Museveni keeps talking about government land available to him to dispense as he likes. I think what we have is public land for which the government under President Museveni is a trustee. So the president cannot dish it out as he likes because many Ugandans think that it is not his as president! This matter needs to be clarified before it is too late. Cabinet, parliament and the legal establishment need to come up with a solution urgently notwithstanding the limitations of the first two institutions that largely rubber stamp president’s decisions. The balance of the article will focus on food and nutrition security since colonial days.
British colonial authorities should be commended for preserving Uganda land for Ugandans. They made sure that in every household there were two gardens: one for growing foodstuffs for home consumption and another for cash crops like tobacco, cotton, coffee and tea. They made it compulsory that every household must store food. Beans and maize/corn were mixed with ash which served as pesticide. Green vegetables were dried for longevity and securely kept. Cassava which stores well in the ground served as a famine crop. They developed fisheries including fish ponds for the primary purpose of providing proteins to low income families. They also established nutrition centers including Mwanamugimu at Mulago hospitals for treating malnourished children and teaching mothers how to prepare balanced and safe meals.
Government efforts were supplemented by Mothers’ Union that did a tremendous work in teaching food and nutrition security and hygiene especially washing hands with soap before eating and drinking boiled water. (Washing hands with soap reduces the incidence of diarrhea by 50 percent and greatly reduces the risk of respiratory infections like pneumonia and other diseases like trachoma. When soap is not available hands can be washed with ash {acts of Life UNICEF et al 2010}). Food and nutrition security was introduced in schools besides health science. Health inspectors and chiefs at various levels monitored compliance and corrective measures were taken as appropriate. Thus, parents had enough food to eat and a balance that was packed for school lunches.
Mush of this commendable colonial work was inherited at independence and built upon in the 1960s. Even during the troubled period of Amin’s regime of the 1970s, parents managed to put food on the table at least one meal a day. Many switched from cash to subsistence agriculture to meet food requirements. Spaces in urban areas were turned into gardens that produced food for household consumption. The pangs of hunger were checked. But gaps remained.
In the ten-point program chapter of his book “Selected Articles on the Uganda Resistance War” published in 1985, Museveni wrote effectively and authoritatively about the importance of food and nutrition security in nation building and the urgency to balance production for domestic consumption and for export. He even advised his peers at one of the OAU Summits about the significance of food and nutrition security in human capital formation. Museveni lamented low calorie and protein intake among other food and nutrition challenges. Consequently, he observed that Ugandans still suffered from diseases long forgotten such as worms, malnutrition and jiggers. “Crowning all this is the perpetual outflow of resources from the country indeed like other developing countries to the advanced economies due to uneven economic relationships” (Yoweri Museveni 1986). He denounced in strong terms previous Uganda leaders for neglecting the production of nutritious food crops such as sorghum, peas and finger millet etc. He concluded that much of this was due to political mismanagement and narrow economic policies. That was in 1985 when Museveni was campaigning through the barrel of the gun to become president which he snatched from Okello in 1986.
Whether by design or under external pressure or both, Museveni has not kept the promise on food and nutrition security. What is puzzling – and Museveni himself can explain the puzzle – is that since he became president his government has drawn up excellent programs which clearly demonstrate the intent to end poverty and improve food and nutrition security for all Ugandans. The modernization of agriculture, poverty reduction action plan and plan of action for nutrition etc contain clear messages about eliminating hunger. Yet Museveni has failed to implement these laudable programs when he has funds from donors, remittances and export earnings? On balance, many believe this has been deliberate for political gain through weakening and marginalizing Ugandans.
In theory Museveni talks convincingly about balancing production for domestic use and export. He has addressed the vital issue of protein as an essential component in body growth, protection and repair. In practice, Museveni has done the opposite. He has encouraged farmers to grow food for cash and not for the stomach. Museveni has persuaded peasants to grow high-value crops as well for sale and forgot about balanced production. And the response has been impressive but at a high price.
Various studies have shown that “… commoditization of food is affecting the health status of children, as women sell more nutritious foods, such as eggs, fruits, and vegetables, to generate incomes and then spend some [if not more] of the money they earn on medical care for problems of malnutrition” (B. House-Midamba and F. K. Ekechi 1995). In Rukungiri much of the food produced is sold leaving almost zero or little for children (T. Barton and G. Wamai 1994). Since Rukungiri got connected to Kampala by a tarmac road, truck loads of food are leaving the district daily for Kampala. The cash earned is spent on non-food consumer items such as mobile phones (that have become a drain on poor families’ meager incomes), radios, watches, alcohol etc while malnutrition has become one of the heavy burdens on children health.
Because most of the food is sold as advised by Museveni, there is not enough for household consumption, much less for school lunches. Consequently, some 10 million Ugandans go to bed hungry and 40 percent of under-five children are under-nourished undermining their physical and mental development. In these circumstances, it does not make sense for leaders to advise parents to pack lunches for their children as one of the presidential advisers is reported to have advised parents of Rukungiri district recently. Leaders should be careful about what they say, lest they are misunderstood as being reckless or uncaring especially when their own children are well fed. They need to do home work first and find out what obtains on the ground in specific locations. Generalized statements are not helpful. They smack of arrogance and ignorance. The majority of Rukungiri district people are so impoverished that they have sold much of their land and do not have space to grow food for sale as mandated by Museveni through the policy of production for cash rather than for the stomach and generate surplus for home consumption and school lunches.
The involuntary incorporation of Kagunga sub-county into Rukungiri municipality has condemned the current land owners who are largely Bairu (slaves) to permanent conditions of landlessness and pennilessness. With little or no education, these Bairu people have depended on their plots of land for their livelihood. Land is the only asset they have! With land becoming property of municipal authorities it will soon be surveyed into plots (soon after elections in February 2011) and advertised for sale at throwaway prices as peasants do not have bargaining power.
The decision to incorporate the entire Kagunga sub-county into Rukungiri municipality without consulting occupants is a serious violation of human rights (what others have termed political robbery) exercised by the powerful over the weak. The powerful in Buyanja sub-county (where the chairman of the District Council comes from) and Nyakagyeme sub-county (where Rujumbura Member of Parliament comes from) refused their land’s incorporation into expanded municipality boundaries. In fact it is the Member of Parliament Major General Jim Muhwezi (whose responsibility as MP is to protect the interests of his constituents) that has dispossessed them by presenting the bill to parliament (instead of the mandated local government ministry) without consulting his constituents (an emergency session of district council was held on a Friday afternoon and the following Monday Jim Muhwezi was in parliament presenting the bill which was approved. One wonders when the documents for parliament’s consideration were prepared and distributed and whether MPs had time to study them and to clearly establish the new boundaries). Requests for an explanation from the Speaker’s office have not been responded to.
Museveni’s obsession with foreign currency to cater to the needs of the few rich families has done damage to Ugandans through massive export of foodstuffs especially the nutritious beans and fish the main source of protein in low income households and encouraging well educated and experienced Ugandans to go or stay abroad, earn foreign exchange and remit it to Uganda.
With high and rising levels of infants born underweight with permanent physical and mental abnormalities, impaired brain development during the first three years of human life because of under-nutrition, under-five child under-nutrition and lack of school meals, Museveni is not preparing adequate human capital for Uganda in a knowledge-based globalized environment. Uganda will therefore be unable to compete and will likely slide from third world to fourth world status if drastic changes in governing Uganda are not made quickly. Already we are seeing skilled jobs in Uganda going to foreign workers because Ugandans do not quality. India is joining the developed world club because Nehru India’s first prime minister and his successors have emphasized high quality and technical education modeled on Imperial College in UK and MIT in USA. Singapore which Museveni is trying to emulate has high quality and technical-based education system for students who are well fed.
In order to get back on the right development track, Ugandans must understand that the interests of Uganda and her people supersede those of an individual irrespective of how he came to power. Many believe strongly that time has come to have another leader of Uganda to stop the country from falling off a steep cliff. Museveni as father of the nation has let down the children and youth of Uganda. For this and other reasons Museveni must go.
Between now and election day in February 2011, all Ugandans must pray hard that the Almighty gives them courage to vote Museveni out of power. God has felt your pain, has seen children dying of hunger while Uganda is exporting food, will hear your prayers if they are genuine and won’t let you down. Amen.