UGANDA: STATE AGENTS CITED AS PRIZED TREES AFZELIA AFRICANA AND SHEA NUT TREES FACE EXTINCTION IN ACHOLI SUB-REGION 

GULU CITY-THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2024.

 Okumu Livingstone Langol

Members of Acholi Parliamentary Group (APG), are up in arms to fight environmental invaders in Northern Uganda. The MPs are accusing top Uganda government officials, Uganda Army (UPDF) to be fully behind denuding Aswa Ranch in Pader District, Northern Uganda and other shea nut tree belt of prized indigenous trees for the lucrative charcoal business and crop farming.

The APG noted that the state agents are diverting what was a World Bank $ 5.10m grant to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries meant for climate change mitigation to instead cut the prized trees including shea butter trees and Afzelia Africana in the name of bush clearing for other agricultural activities.

“The Government of Uganda has turned a blind eye on the destruction of the lucrative shea nut trees and other indigenous tress that inhabit Aswa Ranch spanning through Pader, Lamwo and Kitgum districts, Northern Uganda as the land is cleared for planting maize and Soybeans on large commercial scale. Part of the land has been dished out to Uganda Government Prisons.”

Hon. Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, the MP for Gulu City Layibi-Bardege Division. Saturday, August 31, 2024 addressed Members of Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC), stating that the World Bank funding was diverted to open Uganda Government Prison Farms in Aswa Ranch.

“In 2020 President Museveni ordered that Uganda Prison be allocated 30,000 hectares of land in Aswa Ranch. When Uganda Prison farmers went to Aswa Ranch in 2022, they used bulldozers to clear the land off shea nut trees and indigenous trees like Afzelia Africana without considering that the shea nut trees are endangered tree species,” Hon. Martin Ojara Mapenduzi commented.

“For years since the guns fell silent from Northern Uganda, UPDF commanders have also embarked on timber logging and trees cutting for charcoal business in Aswa Ranch. “Part of the charcoal allegedly feed the East African steel industries. “Kenyan Steel Industry is importing Charcoal from Northern Uganda to fuel her steel industry productions. “The same charcoal trade also gets their route to the United Arab Emirate, UAE and Saudi Arabia, involving high profiles government bureaucracy including UPDF generals and a daughter of former Inspector General of Police,” Hon. Martin Ojara mooted.

Lazarus Obbo, the former Chairman Local Councilor 3 of Angagura Sub-County, Pader District, an eyes witness, has a story to tell. Obbo says in the past, Aswa Ranch was a food basket for shea nut butter, the surrounding communities that border the ranch used to collect shea nuts from the ranch.

“Although the (Aswa) ranch was still under Uganda Livestock Industry, shea nut trees were left and not a single tree was destroyed. “However, in 2022/2023, Uganda Prison went and opened a large farm in Obwol-Odeya village in Aswa Ranch in Angagura Sub-County. Part of the Prison farm cover Laguti Sub-County and Abera Sub-County where all the shea nut trees were cleared up by bull-dodgers to open up maize and soya beans farms,” said Obbo.

Part of Aswa Ranch was given to National Agriculture Research Institute (NAGRI), and to Aswa River Power Energy (ARPE). Generally, what has happened is that all the projects enter Aswa Ranch without community consultation or involvement.

“If the community is not aware of or against the project, the project becomes negative. “It is useless if proper sensitisation was not done, otherwise the community would have told them that we have indigenous trees and shea nut trees that should not be cut down. The investors and the government institutions that entered Aswa Ranch even cut traditional cultural trees such as Afzelia Africana,” Obbo lamented.

Oryema, the proprietor and Director of Acholi Broadcasting Services (ABS) who hails from Angagura Sub-County worries that shea nut trees in Aswa Ranch are getting destroyed day by day by the power that be.

He says he is worried that the younger generation from Angagura will never get to know and enjoy shea nuts that he describes as manna dropped by God to feed his people.

“Surely, the aliens come and systematically mow down our shea nut trees one by one as our leaders gleefully watch. “I know there are those government officials and some individual sons and daughters from the soil who have turned against the Acholi community to work with those so-called investors and UPDF generals to systematically destroy the shea nut trees in Aswa Ranch. “Time will tell, God’s plan for mortal beings will not stop,” Oryema lamented.

Meanwhile the Acholi traditional cultural leaders have taken up the matter to investigate about the perpetrators of shea nut tree destroyers. On Saturday August, 18, 2024. The Acholi traditional cultural leadership of Payira Council of chiefs met the Pader District Chairman, the District Environment Officer and Pader District Councilors in a closed-door meeting as part of the investigation.

In his lamentation, Oryema said shea butter oil is not only used to spice up food but mothers also use the oil for smearing their babies. “The mother just pours the oil in a warm washing calabash and uses the concoction for massaging the baby and before she finishes bathing the baby, it would have fallen into a deep peaceful sleep,” Oryema informed.

When Dr. Kenneth Omona, the state minister for Northern Uganda got the new assignment in May, 2024, he vowed to put an end to tree cutting. He labelled the trees as our history, medicine, culture and emphasized the urgent need to protect them. The minister reminded people that because of its lush vegetation growth, a Briton, Sir Churchill labelled Uganda the “Pearl of Africa.”

He told the people that he is also heavily involved in tree planting, and having planted 100 seedlings of Afzelia Africana in Nwoya District. “When you don’t know the species of trees in your language then the culture is dead,” the minister said.

Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny Dollo Chigamoi recently said the revival of the Acholi society in the Roco Paco initiative that they are leading with Amb. Dr. Olara Otunnu has a big agenda on conservation and preservation of indigenous trees. He said when they met Gen. Salim Saleh, the younger brother of President Museveni who heads Operation Wealth Creation, they questioned why they talk about wealth creation amidst environmental degradation.

Owiny Dollo narrated that in the company of a chief they traversed Adilang where they discovered kilometres over kilometres of the area ripped off their forest cover.

“In the past in Patongo Sub-County when we were growing, there was a stream around our homestead which had frogs that would announce the coming of the rain, they would croak in choruses but for us as young kids we thought that the frogs were making noise, yet they were forewarning us about imminent rainfall. “That stream has since vanished because of the environmental destruction,” Owiny Dollo decried.

Chief Justice Owiny Dollo also named a category of people called Balaalo as the new occupants of Aswa Ranch who cut trees and ferry them away in the dead of the night to unknown destinations. The Balaalo are cattle keepers who have since migrated to the Acholi region where they are accused of meting out other havoc against the locals such as grazing their cattle on the locals’ crops. They are apparently backed by some powers and some of them are accused of menacingly brandishing their guns to intimidate the locals.