Mamdani advises president on Bunyoro

By Raymond Baguma 

RENOWNED scholar Prof. Mahmood Mamdani has advised against reserving all elective leadership positions in Bunyoro for the indigenous people. 

President Yoweri Museveni made the proposal recently, arguing that it would reduce the ethnic tension between the Banyoro and migrant Bakiga. 

However, Mamdani said the idea would promote tribal sentiments in the country, creating a citizenry based on tribalism rather than nationalism. 

Museveni’s proposal was among others contained in a letter to top government officials and members of the Cabinet sub-committee on Bunyoro. 

Mamdani said the proposal makes NRM the first government in the history of Uganda to replace national citizenship with a version of tribal citizenship. 
He was on Friday speaking at the 3rd annual Abu Mayanja Memorial Lecture at Kampala Serena Hotel. 

The lecture is an annual event organised by the family of the late Attorney General, Abubaker Mayanja. 
Mamdani argued that with the dynamic economy of the country, more Ugandans were bound to live outside their native places of birth. The proposal would mean that Uganda would be condemned to an unending crisis, he said. 

People should have the same rights of citizenship, and the proposal will cause further divisions, privileging the natives and disenfranchising the migrants, he explained. 

He cited the Luweero Triangle as one of the most ethnically diverse areas of Uganda but with a united people; and NRM was able to receive support from the area in its armed struggle. 
Today, NRM seems to have given up and is focusing on winning elections, through further dividing the people by the creation of districts, he said. 

“This is the opposite of what was done in Luweero Triangle,” he added. 
On the relationship between Buganda kingdom and the central Government, he said Buganda had shown capacity to resist plans to divide it, through its demand for federo. 

Present at the lecture were minister Kirunda Kivejinja, former minister Prof. Ssemakula Kiwanuka and former Uganda Human Rights Commissioner Margaret Ssekagya. 

Source: www.newvision.co.ug