Some people from Karamoja have asked the Kabaka of Buganda, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, to help build hospitals and roads in their area.
They claim that successive governments in Uganda, including the ruling NRM, have neglected the sub-region. Karamoja remains the poorest sub-region in Uganda where a mix of semi-arid conditions, lack of infrastructure and violence has kept the place restless and unproductive.

The request to Mutebi is contained in a memorandum presented to the Katikkiro, J.B. Walusimbi, by the Programme Coordinator for Karamoja Peace and Environmental Protection Services, John Bosco Akure.

This was on February 2, at Bulange Mengo, during a visit by the Uganda Federal Alliance.

“Karamoja has been suffering since the NRM party came to power. We suffered during the British colonial rule and hoped that there would be change following the coming of the NRM to power as they pretended to be peace promoters. I am sorry to say, but I wonder what this government is doing.

It has failed to establish modernisation in our region with only one hospital in Moroto District, which was constructed by Sir Edward Muteesa…,” he said.

Akure added that Muteesa, Uganda’s independence president and Mutebi’s father, reportedly used his monthly salary to build a health centre in Moroto after he discovered that Karamoja had no such facility when he fell sick while on a hunting expedition in the area in the early 1960s.

The health centre was later taken over by the central government and upgraded into a hospital. But Akure said the facility has no medical equipment and medicine.
“The only role it (government) has played is to exploit our minerals and destroy our roads [while] transporting mineral resources,” Akore charged.

He said Karamoja had not benefited from the minerals, partly the reason he and others are advocating federalism for Uganda. It will enable Karamoja to harness its resources for the region’s own development, Akure argued.

The leader of the Uganda Federal Alliance, Beti Olive Kamya, said during the same function that her organisation seeks to market federalism as a national issue and not solely a Buganda affair.

“With your support, I am promising to bring you federalism. Buganda is in coma and we are remaining with only a few months to either bury it or bring it back to life. If we don’t vote for Members of Parliament who have a keen interest in federalism, our Buganda will be dead,” Kamya told the Katikkiro.

Kamya, also MP for Rubaga North, blamed Buganda’s problems on the 230 NRM MPs whom she said have frustrated the kingdom’s demands, including federalism.
“We have to fight such that only those who believe in federalism [go] to Parliament and change the bad laws,” Kamya said.

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