When Bantu and Nilotic peoples met in northern, eastern, Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro they intermarried extensively and produced new communities and mixed economies of crop cultivation, herding and manufacturing. However, by the time the Nilotic Bahima (and later Batutsi under the new name of Bahororo) entered southwest Uganda (former Ankole district and Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district) they had decided against intermarriage with Bantu people and against allowing Bantu to own cattle as a form of capital accumulation. Nilotic Bahima and Bahororo people who were more powerful militarily but less advanced economically than Bantu chose to colonize the latter. By and large, colonization involves the colonizer depriving the colonized of their properties, disrupting their economic structures and imposing taxes or tribute in exchange for unsolicited law and order or protection.
For easy reference we need to know that before Nilotic people arrived in what later became southwest Uganda some six hundred years ago, Bantu people had developed dynamic and viable economic structures and systems that combined wild hunting, fishing and gathering, crop cultivation, livestock herding (short-horn cattle, goats and sheep) poultry rearing and manufacturing a wide range of products mostly based on iron ore. Food surplus and specialization had permitted the emergence of a ruling class of kings and chiefs or council of elders and a form of centralized governance system and diplomatic relations among different communities. In short, Bantu were civilized.
The Nilotic people came with long-horn cattle from southern Sudan which needed pasture. Bantu pasture for short-horn cattle was seized causing short-horn cattle which provided milk, meat and hides for clothing to Bantu people to disappear. Fortunately explorers and subsequent researchers kept pictures of those short-horn or hornless Bantu cattle (Robin Hanbury-Tenison 2010 and Eric Kashambuzi 2009) so nobody can deny that Bantu possessed cattle. Although Bantu continued to rear goats, they were deprived of goat meat which was monopolized by Bahima and Bahororo. Bahima and Bahororo despise sheep and grasshoppers and do not access their proteins. Bantu people who eat mutton and grasshoppers for protein in large part for lack of beef and goat meat are therefore despised as cheap people by Bahima, Batutsi and Bahororo.
Upon contact, Bantu were reduced to produce foodstuffs the bulk of which fed Bahima and Bahororo families, leaving inadequate supplies for Bantu families especially during poor harvest seasons. To focus on crop production as ordered by the new masters, many Bantu ceased manufacturing activities that had made them wealthy through selling products in local and regional markets. By the time Britain arrived at the start of the 20th century, Bantu people had been reduced from a world of plenty to subsistence and dubbed Bairu, or slaves of Nilotic Bahima and Bahororo people. Bairu had been defeated, marginalized, impoverished and reduced to powerlessness and voicelessness.
Without realizing that the tranquility in southwest Uganda was maintained by force, British colonial officials gave credit to Bahima and Bahororo who continued to administer the areas as British agents under the indirect rule system. They continued to demand tribute from Bairu in addition to taxes in cash and free labor for public works. Add on church tithes and you have an idea of the extent of deprivation that characterized Bairu who suffered from slave trade and double colonization before independence in 1962.
A window of opportunity opened when Bairu children were admitted into missionary schools initially created for sons of chiefs and their relatives. Bantu children were told by their parents that the only way to break the poverty trap was to study hard, get good diplomas, good jobs and good incomes. Bairu children listened to and heard their parents’ message. They studied diligently and many of them did well so that by independence time in 1962 it was well established that in a level playing field Bairu children were by and large smarter than Bahima and Bahororo children particularly in mathematics and science subjects. With numerical superiority, the sky was the limit for Bairu. But this would happen at the expense of Bahima and Bahororo of southwest Uganda who had been used to good life. They were not going to allow independence to change the status quo.
Mindful of their numerical inferiority, Bahima and Bahororo would not maintain their dominance by democratic means. Like in pre-colonial times they have resorted to flexing military muscles and under-developing the rest of Ugandans. Using the pretext of 1980 rigged elections, they led a destructive guerrilla war with support from Tutsi refugees in Uganda and financial support to the tune of $8 million from Tutsi government in Burundi. They came to power in 1986 under Museveni, a Muhororo. Some people believe he is Tutsi but this needs to be confirmed. Again using the pretext of structural adjustment conditionality, Museveni government has deliberately (many believe) destroyed food and nutrition, education and health systems and ignored the plight of the unemployed people and school dropout. Meanwhile, Bahima and Bahororo children are eating well, educated in well equipped and staffed private schools at home and abroad, getting treatment in well equipped and staffed hospitals at home and abroad and getting good jobs in public and private sectors in many cases not qualified for. In Uganda today where some 80 percent of economically active workers are unemployed, there is no Muhima, Mututsi or Muhororo who has failed to find a job.
The government used lobbyists and questionable statistics of inflation control, foreign direct investment, economic growth and per capita income and export diversification to hoodwink the international community that all was well. The government was betrayed. The diseases of poverty led by jiggers that have become a national scandal, malnutrition particularly of women and children and increasing neurological abnormalities due to mental stress and poor feeding on cassava and maize and intolerable unemployment levels especially of youth including university graduates have polluted the political and security atmosphere. Demonstrations have been met with disproportional use of force resulting in loss of lives and many injuries. In situations where criminal activity got out of hand and police was unable to act, the public has taken the law into its own hands, arrested criminals and handed down punishments some of them very severe.
While the diseases of poverty and crime are taking a heavy toll on the poor, the rich families are indulging in a life style of eating, drinking and smoking too much etc and are beginning to suffer from diseases associated with too much wealth enjoyed wrongly.
It is recommended that for the good of every Ugandan citizen, the rich most of whom have acquired their wealth through dubious means including robbery or corruption or getting contracts they do not qualify for need to realize that they cannot continue to graze in green pastures and shut others out. Sooner or later the poor, hungry and angry will force their way onto the green pastures by jumping over the fence or pulling it down all together. Building security forces and blaming the poor for being lazy and drunkard will not work. The world has witnessed the fall from power of leaders who had first class security forces! Restoring cultural leaders to confuse and silence subject people will not work either.
Ugandans are beginning to understand who is responsible for their plight. They are asking questions and want correct answers. Above all, Ugandans want to live in country where there is justice, freedom and equity for all irrespective of whether they were born in a palace or a grass thatched hut. The government must create those conditions without delay. That is what will save and sustain Uganda.