President Museveni's Speech At The Memorial Lecture Of Late Gen Aronda Nyakayirima

The President of the Republic of Uganda also the Commander in Chief of all armed forces Gen Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has praised the late Gen Aronda Nyakayirima for his contribution towards bringing peace in Uganda and Africa at large.

The President graced the 1st kampala defence and Security Expo 2024 Memorial Event in honour of the Late Hon Gen.Aronda Nyakayirima at the speke resort in Munyonyo.

"You cannot talk of the Late General Aronda Nyakairima’s role or that of other NRA/UPDF personnel, without understanding the Africa of 1900 at the dawn of colonialism and what happened subsequently. While much of Africa had been ravaged by the slave trade for 400 years, our part of Africa had not been so much affected by the slave trade, although there were some isolated incidents of slave snatching. The late Aron Muhiinda who, I remember very well died in 1955, when I was in Primary three, had been liberated from slavery at the Coast of Mombasa. He is the grandfather of our Permanent Secretary for Tourism, Silva Katusiime. They were being captured in tribal wars fomented by the bankrupt kings and, then, sold in slavery. However, the whole of Africa and, indeed, our part of Africa, was still in the pre-capitalist mode of production and society. The societies were feudal or pre-feudal primitive communalism societies".Said the President. 

The production of wealth was organized in emyooga (specialized skills) such as okuhiinga (growing crops), kuriisa (cattle herding and general livestock keeping), okuheesha (black- smithing), okubaija (carpentry), okunogoora (pottery), okukomaga (bark cloth making), Okutanaga (making bows and arrows), okurema (shoe making), okuhara (leather making), okujuba (fishing), okushakyiira (general medical works), okuragura (divination), okugyeenga (surgery), sailing (Abariimbi) etc., etc. These emyooga, were being done by communities, clans or families on a hereditary basis. They would, then, okuchurika (barter trade) with the other families to get what they needed but did not make themselves. The long distance trade to the Coast was being done by the Balungaanwa (the Waungwana), mainly the Ba nyamwezi from Tabora in Tanzania. They would bring textiles (emyenda), glass– beads (enkwaanzi), guns (embuundu), obugaanga (guns-powder), etc. There was some limited use of cowrie shells (ensiimbi) as money.

That is why one of the words for money is ensiimbi. The other word for money is empiiha (Rupiah). However, the pre-colonial dominant mode of trade, was by barter trade with, mainly abebuunzi (the itinerant, hawking traders). Okubuunzya, is to hawk. The luganda word for hawkers is abatembeyi. When the colonialists, following the imperialists Berlin Conference, divided up Africa as a cake in 1884-85, Uganda was allocated to the British who, in 1903, introduced cotton as a cash-crop. They also introduced the shilling as a currency for their East African Empire, issued by the East African Currency Board, based in Aden I think. The colonial invasion, destroyed many of the emyooga, especially, the handcrafts – pangas, hoes, plates, spoons, pots, shoes, bark cloth, chairs, etc., were now replaced by imported items by the imperialists. Hence, the surviving emyooga people retreated into making merely ornamental items like drums, emirebe (cow-bells), etc. By 1962 when the British were forced to retreat, they had created a small enclave (island) of money economy characterized as the economy of the 3Cs and 3Ts. The 3Cs, were: cotton, coffee and copper; and the 3Ts were: Tobacco, Tourism and Tea. According to the census of 1969, these absorbed a percentage of the home steads . Otherwise, the rest of the economy was a non-money economy comprised of okukolera ekidda kyonkya (working only for the stomach – subsistence economy). This meant mass poverty in the midst of plentiful natural resources – land, water, livestock, forests minerals, etc. Resources rich but undeveloped, with a poor population all over the country – poor housing, poor health, dirty water, no education, poor hygiene, poor nutrition, only manual labour (obubweijana), no transport, etc. Even by 2013, a whole 68% of the homesteads, of Uganda, were still in the non-money economy (abakolera ekidda kyoonka). That is why I had to involve the UPDF in the form of OWC.Said President Museveni in the 20 pages speech.