UGANDA: Museveni never tackled Hima poverty till he became president

MUSEVENI NEVER TACKLED HIMA POVERTY BEFORE HE BECAME PRESIDENT

CHANGE OF GUARDS - Uganda's military dictator has repeatedly claimed that he has been involved in mobilizing his Hima community to fight poverty since his student days in the 1960s.  His latest claim was during his New Year (2019) address thus;
        "As a youth, I led my family and my area in modernization and wealth creation, away from the ancient traditional ways."

The truth is that it was not until Museveni came to power in 1986 that majority of his Hima realized some advantageous social, political and economic emancipation.  This he did through the placement of Hima into positions of economic authority.  Immediately he took over power he made it a priority to economically elevate them through allocation of free land, state bursaries, access to credit and huge loans from deliberately run down state owned commercial banks.
They have always dominated the top positions in the Security Forces, State House, some juicy state agencies and enterprises. Ministry of Defense, URA, UNRA, CAA/ENHAS, etc.

That way, almost in every Hima homestead you find family members serving in different juicy state agencies and departments thus excessive family income.  It is this economic boom that has boosted their preferential diary industry.  It is also responsible for their exodus in search of more land in neighboring regions of Buganda, Tooro, Bunyoro and the greater northern region from where they were recently resisted and ejected.

What Museveni terms as mobilisation for economic development was instead a sectarian agitation against Baganda landlords in Ankole and the so called Cattle Corridor.  It was also a struggle to promote his communist ideals.  In an interview with the late veteran politician Mzei Boniface Byanyima (By The Observer May 22, 2017) the matter is clearly put;

"He (Museveni) was trying to stand in North East Ankole against Babiiha because he was opposing Babiiha for establishing ranches in Ankole. Museveni said he did not want ranches because ranches were capitalist institutions. He was trying to show me that he was fighting for the common man.
He was obsessed with mobilizing Bahima scattered in places like Buganda and other places all over the countey to return to Ankole and counter the growing influence of the  Bairu."

Museveni felt that the unfairness to his people who were landless and scattered all over the country could best be addressed if they were concentrated in a particular geographic location.  Museveni despised excessive accumulation of wealth and often spoke strongly against families in Ankole that held huge chunks of land at the expense of others. His views at the time were strongly communist, advocating the redistribution of land from the rich to the poor.  This accounts for the ongoing institutionalized land grabbing.

On December 4, 2018 while addressing the Anti-corruption stakeholders workshop in Kampala, Museveni confirmed that his family lived in abject poverty whereby his father thrived on stealing offering irregular veterinary services using stollen government drugs.
       "My father was a cattle keeper. He was a villager. But the man had syringe for injecting cows.  He was not a veterinary doctor but people brought him cows to inject them. You cannot believe this, but Mr. Kaguta had all kinds of veterinary drugs which he got from Government departments. He even had vet drugs from Rwanda.”

Therefore, Museveni never tackled poverty in his community not until he came to power in 1986.  By that time the common lifestyle for his community was characterized by homesteads with grass thatched huts with no pit latrines, taking of raw milk and the accruing diseases and less emphasis on formal education.
(See attached picture of his first visit to his father's home after making power; note:  Eng. Winnie Byanyima in his company).

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM