Humanist

“Land theft and human plunder cleared the grounds for Trump’s forefathers and barred others from it,” Ta-Nehesi Coates writes about the United States of America.

Actually, Trump’s forefathers did the same in Africa – land theft and human plunder. And so it is troubling that President Museveni is canvassing Uganda’s countryside with the seeming intent to secure Uganda’s land for foreign investors.

“They (politicians) tell lies and scare away investors,” President Museveni is quoted as having said.

But who really is telling lies about Uganda’s land? Who are those investors? Why do they scare so easily if they are above board?

 “There is no country in this world where citizens block government from running its projects,” President Museveni is quoted as having said.

For whom are those government projects?  What happened to that whole democratic ideal of “government of the people, by the people for the people?”

If the projects are government projects, then within democratic ideals those projects are automatically the people’s projects.

And the people, according to the Constitution of Uganda, have a say on them, including blocking them, if the people so determine that those projects run counter to the people’s interests.

Government projects, for example, which run counter to your President Museveni’s wisdom, when he talks about modernizing agriculture in Uganda.

“When I talk of modernising agriculture, I mean ensuring that the farmers are taught how to use their land optimally.” President Museveni in bis book “Sowing the Mustard Seed”, page 201.

If a government project comes along that deprives Ugandan farmers of their land, surely Ugandan farmers should have the right to fight back in order to ensure that they do not lose their land on which they depend for their livelihoods.

And that if they must cede their land for the greater good, provisions for alternative land and or livelihoods are made for them.

The right of Ugandans to “block government from running its projects” is enshrined in the Constitution and it is those rights that are wanted removed from the Constitution, as proposed in Bill 133 of 2017 Amending Article 26.