This week power changed at the National Unity Platform (NUP party with Mathias Mpuuga, the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP, former Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP) handing over to Journalist-turned politician Joel Ssenyonyi, 37. Mpuuga limped off as LoP after two and a half years without much to show in policy initiative or achievement except flourish language at the dispatch box. In fact, even his principal, Robert Kagulanyi a.k.a.

The last months of 2023 have been grey as rains pounded the ground soaking soils and wreaking havoc on infrastructure across Uganda as if to clean up stench from the now almost forgotten mabati scandal that had engulfed the country since February to end the year on a gentle breeze. When the putrid storm blew up putting a noose around over forty top politicians mostly ministers and MPs, many thought that the end of times written in the Bible had come. 

Last week on the 75th Human Rights Day, US embassy in Uganda on its X account, @usmissionuganda, formerly twitter, bragged; “In Uganda and around the region we have seen the brave work of human rights defenders everyday advocating for the most vulnerable, fighting in the courts, and championing the safety and wellbeing of those in need. We support you. As we mark 75 years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let us reaffirm our commitment to advancing human rights for all people, in every region of the world.”-AmbPopp.

Nomadic pastoralists christened ‘Balaalo’, originally from the Ankore cattle corridor have been with Uganda for ages especially when rinderpest and tsetse flies ravaged them forcing their herds and forced them to look for new areas to graze.  Then came draught which caused pasture and water shortage which blew them further to Bukedi, Busoga, Teso and Lango in mid-1970s. And then the ranching scheme of the 1960s that was meant to modernize livestock farming irrationally dispossessed many who remained in Ankore.