The British colonialists did not come to Busoga, eastern Uganda, until six centuries had passed since the establishment of the Busoga Kingdom under the Igaga dynasty. Therefore, by the time the white people came to Busoga there was a kingdom with its headquarters at Nnenda Hill in Busambira in present day Kigulu County. It was very influential and both Bunyoro and Buganda competed for favours and support from it, particularly as far as access to the resources of Busoga was concerned.

The resources included gold and ivory. At times when there was conflict between the princes for the throne, the king would seek help from Buganda and or Bunyoro. However, Bunyoro and Buganda were competing local imperialists in Busoga

The Baise Igaga is thus regarded as the genuine true descendants of Prince Byaruhanga Ndahura. At the time Prince Byaruhanga Ndahura came to Busoga, the Kingdom of Bunyoro Kitara extended up to Karagwe in northern Tanzania and Waga in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo.

It was at Nnenda that the first agreement between the British colonialists and the king was executed between the king of Busambira and the Bazungu (Whiteman) in 1879.

Some of the colonial governors such as Andrew Cohen, used to go to Nnenda Hill for advice from the Isebantu. It is, therefore, of great historical and cultural significance to Busoga. The throne of the Isebantu is still in Busambira. Later agreements that the British colonialists made with Buganda, Toro Ankole and lastly Bunyoro, were preceded by the one they made with the King of Busoga at Nnenda.

As mentioned elsewhere in this treatise, the British established the presidency of Busoga Lukiiko with Semei Kakungulu as the first president of the Lukiiko, which was at Butaleja in present-day Mayuge. He was succeeded by Zibondo Wako.

Some of the kings at Nnenda in Busambira were: Kisambira Busumwa, Kisambira Izizinga, Kisambira Lukakamwa and Kisambira Ntakambi Wabiwa Taliyuwula, who ruled up to 1936. Kintu Bidiba, who was supposed to succeed Ntakambi, was poisoned and he died in May 1936.

Somehow the family of Zibondo manoeuvred and called itself a royal family of Baise Ngobi clan and even rose to produce a president of Busoga in the name of Zibondo Tenywa Ezekeri Wako (apparently Zibondo is the chief of Bugwere). Zibondo Wako later became the first Kyabazinga of Busoga in the late 1939s and was briefly replaced by William Wilberforce Nadiope II, who went to fight in Burma. When Nadiope left, Wako manoeuvred and his son, Henry Muloki became the Kyabazinga of Busoga. Nadiope ruled Busoga from 19 49 up to 1955 and then Muloki ruled again until 1960 when Nadiope took over again and ruled until Obote abolished kingdoms. Before that Nadiope tried to scheme so that Kyabazinga would be hereditary instead of being an elective and, therefore, a political office.

Nayenga (1979) describes how land was governed in precolonial Busoga. The control of land in precolonial Busoga was so central a factor that it had ramifications for almost all other aspects of that society. It was the Basoga chiefs that were previously in control of the land, and they were anxious that this would remain so after the colonialists established a protectorate over Busoga. However, by 1936, they totally failed to retain the control over land and instead became salaried civil servants and divorced from the land (Nayenga, 1979), which became British Crown Land. This explains why they became almost paupers when they retired from the colonial civil service.

Succession in Busoga Kingdom

The young did not succeed one who was older than him. Succession was in order of birth or marriage. The son of first woman in the senior house was the one who succeeded. If the child was not old enough to marry and sire children, he was the head of those who followed in birth in the house. Or else the woman who came next would succeed. The child, if a boy, was the one who succeeded in the home.

Indigenous Basoga as an ancient people of the Bantu ethnic group

The indigenous Basoga, according to one school of thought, are the second most ancient ethnic group after the Batwa of western Uganda, in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. It should, therefore, probably surprise no one that in Asia the great spiritual teacher – Buddha – had that name while the chief spirit of the Basoga – Budhagali has this name Budha as part of its own name. Since Man, Homo sapiens, is widely believed to have had his origins in Africa, Buddha in Asia and Budhagali in Busoga should be of great interest to humanists or those interested in both the origins and spirituality of humankind. However, while the spiritual influence of Buddha, which has stretched for close to 4,000 years, does not appear to be under any serious threat from development, the spiritual influence of Budhagali is under threat from violent development currently targeting Budhagali (Bujagali), the spiritual seat of Budhagali (the living Budhagali).

Basoga as part of Uganda’s ethnic diversity

Basoga are reputed to be the most clanned indigenous community in Uganda and perhaps the rest of the world, with well over 100 clans. In their diverse clanism, they are a critical segment of Uganda’s cultural-spiritual and eco-social landscape. Therefore, the Basoga should be perceived as part and parcel of God’s vast creation and their psychosocial, just like their cultural-spiritual and eco-social set up, should be integrated fully in environmental design and the design of development projects. God, we are told by the Holy Bible, communicates to us through nature the same way we communicate to each other by telephone. He desires that we are in partnership with Jesus Christ, committed to saving all his creation from defilement by Satan and his agents. The Bible mentions River Nile. It is possible that the most ancient civilisation of Humanity was at the source of the Nile in Busoga, not at the mouth of the Nile where because of writing in Egypt it is well recorded

Accordingly, as far as Basoga are concerned, they should be saved from destruction concurrently with saving the total environment from destruction via violent development. Moreover, according to the Holy Bible, not only does God command us to exercise social responsibility but also environmental responsibility. As far as the Basoga are concerned, environmental responsibility should involve the conservation of their biophysical, biosocial and biospiritual landscape, which has shaped their emotional, ethical, moral ecological and psychological integration with the natural environment for many decades epitomised by Bujagali Falls.

Threat of big infrastructure development and money culture cannot be gainsaid. What this, therefore, means is that the Basoga clans in their entirety should be allowed to be principal participants in developing and saving their ecological landscape in conformity with their culture and spirituality. Development for them should not be made to mean denaturising, decentralising, despiritualising, demoralising and dehumanising the Basoga in the name of development, which in any case means simply the proliferation of the culture of money.

Unfortunately, in the past, the culture of money has clashed with traditional or indigenous cultures wherever it has proliferated unchallenged. Huge infrastructure projects have been the more often preferred vehicles for the proliferation of this culture, which has ended up bringing about the extinction of such cultures and reducing the [bio] cultural diversity of humanity. Because of this, there has since the late 1990s been increasing talk of “cultural approach to development”, which, unfortunately, current development dynamics on country, regional and global levels continue to largely ignore.

Spiritual consciousness of the Basoga

At the national, regional and global levels, both conservation and management practices are highly pragmatic (Posey, 1999). However, from the view of indigenous and traditional peoples such as the Basoga, these knowledges are regarded as emanating from a spiritual base. To them all creation is sacred and the sacred and secular are inseparable. Spirituality is the highest form of consciousness and spiritual consciousness is the highest form of awareness (Posey, 1999). Governance whose accumulation takes in account traditional ecological knowledge, is driven by strong cultural and spiritual foundations, is called “Community Ecological Governance (CEG).

According to Posey (1999) a dimension of traditional knowledge is, therefore, not local knowledge as such but knowledge of the universal as expressed in the local. In indigenous and local cultures experts exist who are peculiarly aware of nature’s organising principles, sometimes described as entities, spirits or natural law. Thus, knowledge of the environment depends not only on the relationship between humans and nature but also between the visible world and the invisible spirit world. Posey (1999) quoting Opoku (1978) writes that in traditional African religion, the distinctive feature is that it is:

“…. A way of life [with] the purpose of…order[ing] our relationship with our fellow men and with our environment, both spiritual and (non)spiritual. At the root of it is the quest for harmony between man, the spirit world, nature and society”.

Therefore, as far as African religion is concerned, the unseen is as much a part of reality as that which is seen – the spiritual is as much a part of reality as the material. In fact, there is a complementary relationship between the two, with the spiritual being the more powerful than the material. The community is of the dead as well as the living and in nature behind visible objects laid the essences or powers, which constitute the true nature of those objects (Posey, 1999).

To this end indigenous peoples are and regard themselves as guardians and stewards of nature. Moreover, they invariably recognise linkages between health, diet, properties of different foods and medicinal plants, and horticultural/natural resources management practices – all within a highly articulated cosmological /social context (Hugh-Jones, 1999; Posey, 1999). The Basoga, therefore, should be seen in this light is vis-à-vis Budhagali falls. The Falls were a critical element in what can be called the sacred balance of the Basoga with nature.

The spirit Budhagali has enormous spiritual influence over the 100 or so clans of the Basoga and is, therefore, an important organising factor of the social fabric of this indigenous community each of whose clans has a chief spirit subordinate to Budhagali, which then is a uniting factor socially and culturally. This means that the Basoga possess the cultural, spiritual and even intellectual rights over Bujagali Falls. The extensive clan system of the Basoga is a type of organisation, which has ensured that the community enjoys maximum cultural and spiritual endowment and, therefore, access to cultural and spiritual property rights. In this respect, the Basoga are genuinely a unique people who must be allowed to preserve and enjoy in uniqueness the natural right of being part and parcel of human biocultural diversity and biospiritual wealth nationally, regionally and globally. So, if one wants to disintegrate the Basoga and to abuse these rights then the obvious way to do this is to erect a dam at Bujagali. The Uganda Constitution, as pointed out elsewhere in this article, recognises this right. The question is, why should anyone familiar with the constitutional rights of the Basoga with regard to culture, bioculture, spirituality, biospirituality and landscape relations choose to violate them unless one wants to convert them into “modern nomads” this century? What is the motivating force?

The Threat of ignorance to Busoga traditions, culture and spirituality

In a 2005 unpublished article by the title Ignorance will kill River Nile, I said, “We should not do what used to be done decades ago – building big dams as potent symbols of both patriotic pride and the conquest of nature by human ingenuity. We should not build big dams to implement the amorphous concept of creating capitalist wealth or as monuments of [political] power and domination. These are ancient attitudes being perpetuated in an era of respect for alternatives. We should not celebrate them. We should also learn that wherever in the poor world they have been built and at the expense of alternatives, large dams have been much more than simply machines to generate electricity and store water. They have been concrete, rock and earth expressions of the dominant ideology of the technological age: icons of economic development and scientific progress to match the nuclear bombs and motor cars”.

Besides, large dams contribute to increase of evapotranspiration and hydroelectric power stations associated with them do not only warm water, thereby increasing risks to aquatic organisms, but they are also significant contributors to atmospheric pollution with greenhouse gases and, hence, to the rise in atmospheric temperature by some 2 degrees centigrade over recent decades.

We can, therefore, state here that large dams are partly responsible for the debilitating phenomenon of climate change and to the depletion of the Ozone layer. The Ozone layer protects us and other beings from the destructive ultraviolet light of the Sun. Most governments, financial institutions, donors, developers and consultants promoting or sustaining the craze for large dams are aware of these facts but are thriving on the larger public ignorance to advocate for more and more of these infrastructure developments.

Threat of social irresponsibility and the bankruptcy of leadership

And in their article “Bujagali dam: civil society-government alternation of engagement and disengagement continues to undermine “development”, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Muramuzi (2005) write:

“Only the social irresponsibility and bankruptcy of leaders can explain diversion of financial resources intended for the present and future social and health security of citizens and their families or communities to concrete, self-aggrandizement or political advantage. Clearly, if any leadership is socially irresponsible and bankrupt, then it is irrelevant and a burden to society and, therefore, cannot be expected to be an agent of change that will bring about an enhancement in the quality of life of the majority citizens. In reality that leadership manifests as a roadblock to development and progress in the long- and medium-term. Environmentally speaking, one cannot expect such leadership to spearhead a national crusade for environmental rights, justice and peace. It is the kind of leadership that a country will suffer in terms of environmental corruption via its (leadership’s) policies regarding environment and development”.

Civic action to save nature from violent development

The National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) and Save Bujagali Crusade (SBC) have consistently, persistently and determinedly committed themselves, since the late 1990s, and tried to commit the government and all the citizens of Uganda to the principles of environmental justice in the face of the threat to Bujagali Falls to the environment, culture and spirituality of the Basoga as well as the total environment of Uganda. This has sometimes involved engagement and disengagement with government and its “development” partners and continuous engagement with the citizens. NAPE and SBC were recently joined by Save Mabira Crusade (SMC) in…the agendas of environmental democracy and justice in Uganda. SMC was opposed to the simplification of the Mabira rainforest by converting it into grassland in form of sugarcane, which President Museveni’s government desperately desired.

Oweyegha-Afunaduula and NAPE Executive Director Frank Muramuzi at a wedding function of one of the staff of NAPE, Geoffrey Kamese, submitted:

NAPE and SBC have held the conviction that without the commitment of government and the citizens to the principles of environmental justice, we shall continue to regard the erection of concrete and huge infrastructures as development and our local environments, cultures and spirituality as primitive encumbrances to development, which must always be destroyed first before “development” begins to take place.

They have believed that this approach to development and the attendant policies continuing to be hatched and pursued by government are the principal causes of environmental collapse and decay, conflicts, injustices and undemocratic practices in environment and development and, therefore, peace as a myth, which unfortunately is then pursued militarily, which only complicates the situation further. They have also believed that the development partners are aware of and understand this unfavourable situation very well but pursue business as usual for corporate and monetary interests, thereby being partners in abusing environmental justice and fuelling our calamity.

In this case the development efforts they support such as Bujagali dam are a manifestation of what one can characterise as “environmental racism”. In fact, what has been happening is that “development” business (wrongly called development) has been made, often clandestinely and projected as if it is absolute and used to ransom the poor, ignorant and often unsuspecting citizens to criminal enterprises in which the rulers may have been the principal participants.

Even laws have been made, often of course under Executive compulsion, direction and control for the sole purpose of serving the interests of foreigners or foreign companies in the name of development.

At worst, corporate interests have completely taken over the policy-making functions of Cabinet (as in the decision to dam Bujagali Falls or form the National Environmental Management Authority) or the law-making functions of parliament (as in the enaction of the Electricity Law, 1999 or the legitimisation of AES Nile Power’s Power Purchase Agreement in respect of Bujagali dam). This is both environmental and legislative racism, which nevertheless is being implemented by government as its own innovation!

The problem is that environmental and legislative racism is discriminating against the Basoga environmentally, ecologically, socially, culturally and spiritually, thereby destroying their identity and confidence in the future. As a people they never gained from the demise of Owen Falls and Ripon Falls in the name of economic development, and the more informed and enlightened do not see how they will gain from the demise of Bujagali Falls for the same reason.

There is evidence that government is combining greed of some key figures in the high echelons of power with the overwhelming governance of Ugandans of the Ultimate consequences of demanding of the Nile to serve corporate interests.

Threat of white science to Busoga traditions, culture and spirituality

Apparently, the agenda of environment racism or discrimination use words such as “undeveloped”, “backward”, or “primitive” to describe our society simply because it is less industrialised and monetised than the West even when, in many cases, our people may be practising lifestyles that are relatively sustainable. These terminologies are being recited by the rulers, almost religiously, and relayed to the people like a priest would the word of God. As if this is not enough our best and brightest have been, and continue to be, co-opted by “white science” and turned against their own cultural practices, which they now call “backward” and “primitive”. Without perhaps knowing, they have become tools of injustice.

The Psychology of Destruction

Take, for example, Psychologist Prof. J. C. Munene, who was the director of the Institute of Psychology at Makerere University and nearest to industrial psychology with limited touch on environmental and social psychology or cross-cultural psychology (Ngobi-Igaga, 2002).

When NAPE raised with Uganda’s ministry of energy and mineral development the issue of cultural and spiritual wealth of the Basoga as a continually neglected environmental resource in the Bujagali dam process, the ministry cited Munene as the specialist that participated and gave expert advice in a culture [and spirituality] mitigation programme (of AES Nile Power), which claimed that the Spiritual Heads of Busoga and the Living Budhagali agreed that the Budhagali shrines as they are called be moved from Bujagali Falls to give way to a dam. Yet we know that the clan cultural and spiritual leaders were a neglected entity throughout the Bujagali dam process.

For God and My Country

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA). They saw their innovation as a new opportunity to demystify disciplinary education and open up academia and society to new, interlinked knowledge and solutions to complex or wicked problems that disciplinary education cannot solve. To this end, the CCTAA promotes linking of knowledge through the knowledge production systems of Interdisciplinarity, Crossdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity and Extradisciplinarity (or non-disciplinarity), which allow for multistakeholder team knowledge production instead of individualised knowledge production, which glorifies individual knowledge production, achievement and glorification.

The issue of alternative analysis towards deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge is taken seriously at the CCTAA. Most recorded knowledge needs deconstruction and reconstruction within the context of new and different knowledge production systems listed here in. Therefore, instead of disciplinary academics, scholars or professionals, we can begin to produce new ones. We can, for example have professors of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity or non-disciplinarity. Besides, academics, scholars and/or professionals, civil servants, researchers, etc can choose to reorient themselves via the CCTAA and become enhanced learners via the new and different knowledge systems.

It is attitudinal change to thinking, reasoning and practice in knowledge production and use towards solving simple and complex problems! We are all learning beings, and by virtue of the construction of our brains we are supposed to continuously learn and to be good at thinking correctly and reasoning effectively.  As learners who can engage in critical thinking and alternative analysis, we become more open to change and alternatives to development, transformation and progress of society, embrace change, imagine possibilities, learn through the activity of experience, and rejuvenate ourselves and ourselves continuously. The CCTAA is committed to enabling this to happen. It does not abhor resistance but creates opportunities for meaningful resistance that opens opportunities for all.