AN OPEN CULTURAL LETTER TO PRESIDENT YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI ON THE CONDUCT OF THE BUGISU PARLIAMENTARY CAUCUS AGAINST THE UMUKUUKA

By Steven Masiga

Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Uganda, Please receive our warmest chilembe to you and your entire leadership. We further salute you for your overwhelming support to the cultural leadership of His Highness the Umukuuka of Bugisu.

For the last three years that I have served as the Spokesperson of Bukuka, I have had the opportunity to explain to our community the immense contributions from Your Excellency to our people in Bugisu. You have supported our community in several ways, and with your permission, Sir, allow me to specifically relay what my own eyes have seen coming to Bukuka and to your community.

Community roads across the Bugisu region, including deep rural roads in Bududa and the Bukalasi-Bukharela areas where our people used to transport goods using donkeys, have now been opened up, and one can see trucks and other modern means of transport.

Your support of Shs150 million towards the burial of His Highness the Umukuuka Emeritus Wilson Wamimbi in April 2024 was well received. Your contribution of Shs300 million towards the Imbalu launch in 2024 was also well received and utilised according to our budget. You supported our people in Bunambutye Resettlement Camp with over 26 cows during Christmas. You have supported His Highness the Umukuuka with reasonable contributions to engage Bugisu clan chairpersons on several national interests, and support to the Umukuuka has been flowing through the Ministries of Finance and Gender on a quarterly basis. The mobility pledges to His Highness the Umukuuka were also received. We appreciate all this, Sir.

Several projects coming to our communities have been explained by the Office of Public Relations of the Bugisu Cultural Institution under His Highness the Umukuuka using airtime allocated to the institution. Our people appreciate this.

We take note that cultural leadership in Uganda was restored in 1995 as a political commitment by yourself and your government following its rough and unfortunate abolition in 1967, when the government of the day lost appetite for traditional and cultural leadership. Your Excellency, as a young man in your 30s during the 1980s, you made several political promises on this matter while fighting to remove poor leadership of the past, and you remained true to your promises. The Bamasaba community cannot gloss over this commitment, and we appreciate this immense and benevolent gesture.

Whereas Article 246 of the Constitution succinctly brought back traditional and cultural leadership and in some situations created room for new cultural institutions in areas that never had such leaders, Bugisu had to wait for a proper legal framework, which came in 2011 through the Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Act. This law provided detailed guidance on how cultural leaders come into office and their roles.

Genesis of Bugisu Cultural Concerns Since 2020

Following the election of the current Umukuuka, disputes emerged regarding who the rightful Umukuuka was. For three years, Bugisu effectively had no recognised cultural leader and there were many tensions in the region until the Ministry of Gender invoked Section 16(1) of the Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Act, 2011. A neutral mediator was identified and a group of Bugisu clan chairpersons sat down to mediate, resulting in the gazettement of the current cultural leader, His Highness Jude Mike Mudoma, in 2023.

His Highness Jude Mike Mudoma is the first Umukuuka of Bugisu to come through the law that established Bukuka in Bugisu and Uganda. Previous cultural leaders in Bugisu were elected using internal laws created by Bukuka and not government legislation, which had created some level of impasse. I am happy to report that courts of law have been petitioned on whether the Bagisu, on their own volition, have powers to enact their own laws to usher in cultural leadership or whether they must follow government legislation. In the interest of the sub judice rule, I shall not comment beyond this.

On 9th July 2026, just two weeks before the Imbalu launch, we witnessed what can only be described as an infamous meeting in the history of Bugisu, similar to the 1966 crisis when President Obote abolished cultural institutions in Uganda. Without authority, the Bugisu Parliamentary Caucus declared that His Highness the Umukuuka would never preside over Imbalu activities in the Bugisu region. There is videographic evidence to support this claim.

Your Excellency, we are aware that what is given by law can only be taken away by law and not by word of mouth. If executive powers are removed from the President, then what remains of that office? Likewise, if members of the Bugisu Parliamentary Caucus bypass government and declare that His Highness the Umukuuka cannot preside over cultural activities, then where do we stand as a community? If these Members of Parliament possess such powers, then they should organise reparations and close all cultural and traditional institutions across Uganda and we all go home.

No Member of Parliament, regardless of political affiliation, has the authority to decampaign cultural leadership in any community. Your Excellency, we feel deeply offended as a community and we shall not allow anyone to cross our lane.

Efforts by the State Minister for Gender, Hon. Mary Karooro Okurut, were ignored. As a lawyer, she ably guided the MPs not to act contrary to the laws of Uganda, but she was disregarded.

After the 2026 General Election, during your maiden speech, Your Excellency praised your political mobilisers and noted that certain cultural institutions had mobilised communities to support your government. The Mufti of Uganda, His Eminence Sheikh Shaban Mubajje, who attended that speech, briefed His Highness the Umukuuka of Bugisu that Your Excellency was pleased with his role in mobilising his community during the elections. Under Article 246 of the Constitution and the Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Act, it is an established position that a cultural or traditional leader is a chief mobiliser of his community in all government programmes.

I recall that in November 2025, I was among the delegation of His Highness the Umukuuka that met Your Excellency at Mbale State Lodge alongside the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Bugisu, Dr. Paul Mwambu, and our Minister for Gender, Hon. Dorcas Okalany, who is also the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. Our pledge to Your Excellency was unity of our people and support to Bukuka.

We have a few troublemakers who thrive on violence, and our MPs are creating a breeding ground to undermine His Highness the Umukuuka and his entire cabinet. Allow me to lift one line I read while at Makerere University about 20 years ago as an undergraduate student from a piece titled The Making of a Modern Mercenary: "A passerby greets a mercenary and says, 'May God give you peace.' The mercenary rejects the salutation saying, 'You know I live by war, and peace will bring me hunger.'"

There are groups that are afraid of the prevailing peace in Bugisu ushered in by your leadership and want to thrive on chaos.

Attacks on Security Infrastructure

Some paid groups have made verbal attacks on security in Bugisu, yet security has properly maintained its neutrality as government security by protecting the gazetted cultural leader of this community. Several MPs appear to be forcing security to pay allegiance to other cultural leaders created by powerful persons in Bugisu who fund rival groups with promises of fuel, cash and hotel accommodation for subversive meetings.

Whereas we acknowledge that the gazetted cultural leader is funded by government, I wish to politely bring to your attention that Bugisu has several cultural claimants who are siphoning cash and fuel from funders both within and outside Uganda.

Your Excellency, in synopsis, the decision by MPs to strip His Highness the Umukuuka of his cultural and customary powers should be condemned in the strongest terms because their actions have no legal basis and we are likely to seek damages over the same.

The clan chairpersons are meanwhile planning to demonstrate over such a decision because it also knocks them out culturally, yet none of them was consulted.

Recently, when President Museveni shared on his social media platforms that the Bagisu are hardworking people but lacking proper leadership, I think our MPs did not comprehend Your Excellency well. Fighting a cultural leader gazetted by government is not a sign of good leadership but rather a sign of poor leadership.

Our final prayer, Your Excellency, is that as Spokesperson of Bukuka, I am mindful of protocol and know that I should not be addressing our concerns through public forums. Having met you several times with His Highness the Umukuuka, I know how well-meaning you are and how much you value privacy regarding Bukuka affairs. I recall occasions when you even signalled security to step aside to listen to us.

However, these are unique circumstances where our Bugisu lawmakers seek to undo your efforts.

We therefore respectfully beseech your indulgence in our concerns as a community and ask you to view this matter through your revolutionary lens as always.

Steven Masiga 

Spokesperson, Bugisu Cultural Institution

Tel: 0782231577