Dear Henry Okello, Ugandans dying of hunger are not idiots

An audio-visual clip recently went viral. In the clip, Mr Henry Oryem Okello  (or someone resembling him) is heard saying that ‘Ugandans dying of hunger are idiots’.  The said Mr Okello is a junior minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters.

The irony of this ‘idiot’ remark (in what I think was an interview for public consumption) is that the media (later) ran a story about some people dying of hunger in some parts of Uganda. It was very disturbing for a minister to loosely drop remarks on a serious matter in a manner that Mr Oryem did.

Yet I have been told that the said Oryem, the son of a former president of Uganda, is known for his choice vocabularies. I was told he once used the word rubbish in response to a formal correspondence from a diplomatic agency. But then calling Ugandans who die of hunger idiots is crossing the red line. In fact I am going to petition Mr Museveni to sanction him over the uncharitable remarks he made on the suffering of Ugandans.

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Because of my sorghum and millet business in eastern DR Congo, I have had the opportunity to spend most of my time in Kiburara and relate with the community in a more candid way than before.

And my take-away is that no urban dweller is likely to appreciate the exigencies of soco-economic dynamics of rural Uganda; least of all the former first son.

Some time back, I had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall in a meeting between Kasese elites and Gen Salim Saleh. I was scandalised when the leaders of the Kasese team talked about the romantic story of two rainy seasons with enough rain to make Kasese the national breadbasket of Uganda (you know that type of English with educated people).

Fellow Ugandans, the romance of two rainy seasons in this country is gone. Dead. The two (former) seasons are now so erratic that reliance on them is clear case of suicide. Yet it (rain) is the still the major factor in socio-economics of rural Uganda. And the fellow who says Ugandans dying of hunger are idiots is clearly a case the latest arrival from Planet Mars. When educated people start going poetic on Uganda’s divine endowment of fecund soils and the best climate, there is a tendency for people to forget that what we need is water; not rain. For whereas we can control water, controlling the rains for agriculture is still God’s brief. And so long as Ugandans still rely on rains for agriculture, it will remain possible that Ugandans will ‘idiotically’ die of hunger.

On the quality of soil, Ugandans are endowed. But to raise verdant crops from our God-given fecund soils, we still need water. Not rain please. That is why I have argued elsewhere that it would have made more sense if Mr Museveni had put all the Parish Development Model (PDM) funds into mini irrigations. With water for production, may be Oryem Okello would have some locus to say that only idiots would die of hunger.

Even then, we have learnt that Mr Museveni has expressed frustration over the limited absorption of the PDM. Remember this is just putting money in the pockets of people.

I would have appreciated it if Oryem had posed and asked why policy absorption of the PDM is not optimal (even when funds are said to be available). On that note, Minister Oryem should be called out on his loose tongue on serious matters concerning Ugandans.

Mr Bisiika is the executive editor of the East African Flagpost. [email protected]