by James Wasula in the Daily Monitor
Why is “tribalism” rife in Uganda? Answers may be as many as those willing to answer! However, the crucial fact is that Uganda is only a geographical expression. Sadly, none of the governments we have had has genuinely tackled this challenge. Ugandans demand transformation of Uganda into a nation that all of us shall be proud of.
But what is a nation? Ernest Renan (1823-1892), a French theorist stated: “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle.” I cannot agree more. A nation is a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own. The history of Eastern Africa’s Great Lakes Region, from AD 1500 reveals that a nation called Bunyoro-Kitara existed and stretched to as far as Rwanda. It had a particular territory and a large body of people sufficiently conscious of its unity who were content with a government peculiar to it.
Unfortunately, in July 1890 when the entire region north of Lake Victoria was given to Great Britain, the individual nations were merely bundled into Uganda. Since then, balkanisation has been the order of the day with no effort made to transform Uganda into a nation. Consequently, nationalities remain loyal to their nations as evidenced by the Banyoro expelling Bafuruki from their nation. A few weeks after, Buganda rioted due to the prohibition of their king from visiting one of his territories (Bugerere, Kayunga District).
What we need today is to understand how the nations that form Uganda want to be governed; not how we want to govern them. Legislations may be passed to regulate society but such legislations will never solve political questions.
A serious review of the Constitution is needed if we are to attain nationalism because some of the provisions of the 1995 Constitution are inconsistent with the aspirations and spirit of the people of Uganda as expressed in the preamble of the Constitution and the Odoki and Sempebwa reports (constitutional principles). If this Constitution were to be put before the Constitutional Court and tested against the constitutional principles and international laws, most likely the verdict would be in the negative.
Therefore in the run-up to 2011 elections, political organisations must start inquiring from the electorate how we want to forge a new unified and democratic nation called Uganda – bearing in mind that Uganda is conglomeration of many nations that already meet the description of a nation.
