Basoga traditions, culture and spirituality as expressed by Jajja

Cultural governance is governance of culture and includes cultural policy made by governments but extends also to cultural influence exerted by non-state actors and to policies that influence a people way of life indirectly.

Spiritual governance, on the other hand, is a characteristic behavioural practice found among many of the world’s indigenous people who ritually protect most of the world’s biodiversity that lies outside of protected areas (Lynch and Alcorn 1993).

Both cultural governance and spiritual governance in Uganda were distorted first by the Uganda Constitution 1995 and the choice of corporatism and big money in development by the Tibuhaburwa Museveni government since 1987. This is being compounded by the choice by the government to dish out money bonanzas to individuals in the falsehood that the development of individuals will trickle down to communities.

Environments, biocultural landscapes, agroecological systems, cultural values and spiritual values are being destroyed. In Busoga, the grass culture based on sugarcane and oil palm for the sterile culture of money being encouraged by government is set to render the biocultural landscape fully open to the grazing system of the Chwezi in many parts of the subregion.

Ngobi-Igaga (2002) observed that Munene was brought in the dam process after the Bujagali EIA was done, which was a curious way of doing research and a good example of how lies, greed, dishonesty and political manipulations of a development process may combine to bring about the spiritual and cultural death of a people (Oweyegha- Afunaduula, et. al. 1999; Oweyegha-Afunaduula, et. al. 2005).

As Ngobi-Igaga (2002) observed, for a project of the Bujagali type, which would have very far-reaching consequences locally, nationally and globally, it was wrong for the interested party to collect data and then try to validate the research instrument and hence the results – vividly the case in the AES type of research.

It is difficult to imagine how Prof Munene could have been sucked into that kind of research and then remain an esteemed scholar. Yet as shown below, his work continued to be cited by Government to legitimise the Bujagali dam process. It is even more difficult to see how he can be a consultant on the indigenous Basoga people’s traditional religion and beliefs (Ngobi-Igaga, 2002) for which he must have been handsomely paid by AES Nile Power.

It is unbelievable that without being consulted by the clans of Basoga could have participated in consensus-building to bring about the extinction of the rich Basoga culture and spirituality. Even the living Budhagali whom proponents of the dam claim “agreed” that the shrines could be transferred has on several occasions pronounced itself to the “non-listening proponents” of the dam that he has no power to do so since the decision to move or not to move the shrines is spiritual rather than human (Ngobi-Igaga, 2002; Oweyegha-Afunaduula, et. al. 2005).

The discredited AES Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) preserved and updated by a foreign consultant, Scott Wilson Piesold, maintains – against Basoga traditional wisdom – that the cultural and spiritual site at Bujagali can be translocated by humans to another site. As expected, this deliberate abuse of the Basoga traditions is now causing a lot of concern among the Clans of Busoga because it is a big lie.

I belong to the Mulawa clan and accordingly represent this general concern by the clans of Busoga. Moreover, I was closely associated with Budhagali Falls in another sense. Being a son of a woman of the Nawamwena clan, I bear the name Kiira, which is the local name for the Nile, because that is what the clan calls such sons. This may explain why, more than any other Musoga, I led the intellectual, ecological and environmental struggle to save Budhagali from violent development.

By defending Budhagali he was defending my name, Kiira, and my identity without which I was nothing or empty. From what I did to try and stop the demise of Budhagali, it was easy to see that I was emotionally and psychologically attached to it because in the name Kiira I had a special attachment to the Nile in general and Budhagali in particular.

As far as the question “What is in a name?” is concerned, there is meaning and purpose in the name “Kiira”. It is this, which energised and compelled me all along to speak for the funereally silent, culturally and spiritually abused Basoga with ever increasing vigour. It is difficult to defend a site in a protracted struggle without such attachment. However, I was also a professional conservation biologist trained to conserve nature and manage its resources wisely.

The Basoga were even more concerned about the possible destruction of Budhagali by violent development because, those who pursued the construction of the Bujagali dam project did not want to recognise that the Basoga in their various clans) exist and that they must genuinely be consulted or allowed to participate fully in the Bujagali dam decision – making process. They hated to hear that their spiritual and cultural interests were being dealt with by the erroneous reference to the largely cosmopolitan migrant population that settled in the once tsetse fly infested area around the banks of River Nile (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, et. al. 2005).

In what could be characterised as technical quick–fixing and fast tracking of Bujagali dam, the government of Uganda connived with the dam developer to ensure cultural and spiritual quick-fixing where by the true Budhagali (Nabamba Budhagali) was replaced by an impostor, Nfudhu, for the purpose of giving the impression that the Basoga spirit had agreed to be shifted to another site.

Ngobi-Igaga (2002), writing on “The culture and religion of the Basoga” in his timely “Rejoinder to the Report of AES Nile Power” made it clear that Budhagali, was the supreme or the archbishop of all the spirits (Misambwa) of Busoga, and who resided at Budhagali Falls, and was called Nabamba, cannot be translocated to another place. He says:

“Just like the Vatican is the focal point of the Catholics, Canterbury is that of the Protestants; and Mecca is that of the Muslims, Budhagali is that of the Basoga traditional religion”. Just like with Namugongo Martyrs Shrines, the Misambwa or Nkuni cannot be translocated since they are not manipulable [by human beings]”.

Therefore, when government and its accomplices said that the spiritual and cultural issues of the Basoga had been resolved, it was a gigantic lie. They never provided evidence of consent by the clans of Busoga because they had never sought this consent. It is unfortunate that they decided to rely on the immigrant population in the Bujagali area and the Kyabazinga of Busoga who is a political head rather than cultural leader of the Basoga, his office having been erected by the colonialists for administrative convenience.

Kyabazinga vis-à-vis Busoga traditions, culture and spirituality

Long before the White people colonised Busoga the institution of Kyabazinga existed. Kyabazinga was the prime minister of the Isebantu institution at Nnenda Hill at Busambira. The current institution of Kyabazinga was perverted to serve colonial interests and over the years has tended to be in league with neo-colonial forces residing in the post-colonial government. The Kyabazinga is electable and is not a king but a political head of what the 1962 Uganda Constitution called Busoga Territory. This was created by the colonialists who reduced the eleven kingdoms of Busoga, which they found existing in the area to counties.

However, real cultural and spiritual leadership of the Basoga, as we show elsewhere in this book, still remain with the clans of Busoga although the Uganda Constitution 1995 makes the Kyabazinga a traditional, spiritual and cultural head of Busoga. Yet by being electable, he is actually the political head of Busoga who is supposed to speak on behalf of the Basoga on matters of policy, rights, justice, equity, sustainability, development, survival, food production, environment, et cetera through his Katukiiro (or prime minister) and deputy Katukiiro (deputy prime minister). However, in the Bujagali dam decision-making process, the effectiveness, relevance and legitimacy of the Kyabazinga institution in protecting the cultural and spiritual survival of the Basoga was seriously tested.

Apparently the Katukiiro of Busoga, Mr Martin Musumba, of the Iwumbwe clan and who was the founder of SBC never declared publicly that his government was committed to protecting Bujagali from destructive development. It is, however, noteworthy that in the struggle for environmental justice that Mr Musumba had not denounced his leadership of SBC despite being the Katukiiro of the Kyabazinga who was reported in AES Nile Power’s EIA documents to have endorsed the Bujagali dam. As pointed out elsewhere in this treatise, it was a plot by the Government of Uganda to cause the Kyabazinga to appoint Musumba so that he would abandon the struggle to save Budhagali from destructive development.

Nabamba Budhagali cannot undermine Basoga traditions, culture and spirituality

There is no real Musoga in his or her good senses who can pretend that he or she can say yes to the destruction of Budhagali. Even the living Nabamba Mandwa Budhagali, who is the supreme diviner for the Basoga, cannot do it although official government documents, continued to put words in his mouth that he agreed to translocate the shrine. It was a deliberate abuse of the collective intelligence and knowledge of the Basoga for this great lie to be continuously transmitted as an official truism. Traditionally, it is the diviner who moves to the Musambwa and not the other way round (Ngobi-Igaga, 2002).

Bujagali as a political rather than development issue: anti-culture, anti-spirituality

When commenting on the assumptions in the AES Nile Power EIA Report that the Basoga and the Kyabazinga (President) of Busoga had welcomed or endorsed Bujagali dam, Ngobi-Igaga (2002) had the following to say:

“What all this means is that the people of Busoga and those at and around Budhagali had been so much perforated by “consultants” and other interested agencies that those decisions have to be examined in their individual context in order to make sense out of them…. the project had been turned into a political issue whereas it should be a socio- cultural-economic one. The politicisation of the issue has obliterated the important issues of destroying the environmental sites, the religious heritage and the psycho-social impact on individuals who will have to move elsewhere or be resettled in new places”.

Dismissing AES Nile Power’s assertion that Nabamba Mandwa Budhagali supported the Bujagali dam project and that he agreed to the translocation of the Budhagali Shrine, Ngobi-Igaga (2002) writes:

“Nabamba is reported to have consulted Misambwa about the building of a dam at the Budhagali and that he supports the project. In a later interview he denies having done so. He denies having presented a statement to that effect at the Public Hearing [on AES Nile Power’s EIA] in Jinja in August, 2002. It is most likely that Nabamba was not fully educated on the long-term implications of the dam to the falls and hence the Nkuni Budhagali”.

Commenting on the eagerness of people around the proposed Bujagali dam site, Ngobi-Igaga (2002) has this to say:

“That there are people eager to move if required is understandable. The Budhagali area is made up of a multiplicity of ethnic groupings. It is highly probable that the people who would be happy to move if required are those who had nothing or little to lose and more to gain if “compensated”. This group includes some non-Basoga who have no sentimental and/or ancestral connection with Budhagali and the Basoga as a whole…They want money”.

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.