It is true. The President of Uganda did not want to reintroduce Kingdoms in whatever form. He said he did not go to the bush to reintroduce Kingdoms.
There was a lot of pressure on him, especially from the Baganda, to reintroduce kingdoms. He knew what to do and he did it. He introduced what he called cultural institutions, which was a distortion, since the Kingdoms had political, spiritual and cultural institutions.
The strategy was to de-politicise the former Kingdoms and make them completely dependent on the centre, which wanted to use them to achieve its political ends. This strategy made the LC1 politically more powerful than “the new cultural leaders”. LC1 is the lowest level of political organisation of government.
The President chose the strategy of sustaining the cultural institutions with money. The government gives a salary of shs60m to every cultural institution. Only the Kabaka refused to accept the salary and instead demanded to be paid the money that his institution was demanding from the government.
There is evidence that the money given as salary to the cultural leaders is not only weakening the cultural institutions but is also dividing them.
Currently, the Kyabazingaship is in crisis because of money from the centre clandestinely being used to destroy the cultural institution. One school of thought is that people called mafias do not want a strong leadership of Busoga because that will strategize to ensure that her mineral wealth benefits Basoga and Busoga, thereby making it difficult for the mafias to exploit its mineral wealth for their own selfish interests.
For Busoga to stand the test of time as a constitutionally-created cultural institution without political power will be extremely difficult. Politics is where decisions are made.
Without political power Kyabazingaship, unlike in the past, will not be able to decide how Busoga should be governed nor how and when its mineral wealth of uranium, oil, gold, diamonds, platinum and rare earth minerals should be exploited in the interest of the area and its people.
Currently, the central government is strategizing to exploit Busoga’s oil and to use its uranium to build a nuclear plant in Buyende but the Busoga cultural institution is not involved.
Besides, Busoga’s gold, platinum and rare earth minerals are being exploited by mafias and exported but the cultural institution is outside the trade.
Busoga is a sleeping giant that is captured as a region and cultural institution. There is a need for Busoga leaders to rethink their current conflicts and resolve to reject divide and rule for the sake of Busoga. They must know that together they sink or rise.
Our future generations are in danger of not belonging to Busoga and losing their identity because foreigners are penetrating the area not only to exploit its resources at the expense of Busoga, but also create a new belonging and a new identity that has nothing to do with Busoga.
The writer is a retired professor and former lecturer of Makerere University.