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Whenever I read reports of Yoweri Museveni’s government officials
harassing poor fishermen on Lake Victoria's Migingo Island, I cannot
help but remember Nyamgondho wuod Ombare, a popular folktale among
the Luo of East Africa. My grandmother first narrated the story
to me as a child growing up in western Kenya.
Nyamgondho wuod Ombare was very poor man who eked a living by fishing
on Lake Victoria. By all accounts, Nyamgondho’s life as a
young man was very miserable. He hardly had anything to eat or clothes
to wear, and, every evening, his deprived circumstances forced him
to walk long distances looking for a place among kind neighbors
to rest his head during the night. One morning, the story goes,
Nyamgondho woke up so hungry that he thought he was going to die
of hunger.
Summoning his last reserves of energy, he stumbled from the home
of the neighbour where he had sheltered the previous night, and
staggered to Lake Victoria, wondering what he would do with himself
if the net he had set overnight did not catch anything.
He reached the lake and started inspecting the fishing net. His
hopes rose momentarily when he felt a heavy weight on the net. Yet,
as he reeled it in, Nyamgondho’s hopes collapsed when, instead
of a big fish, he saw that the net had caught an ugly, old woman.
Nyamgondho turned away in disgust. He was about to throw the net
away together with the old woman when her voice stopped him in his
tracks, urging him to take her home and make her his wife, instead
of throwing her back into the lake. The old woman told him that
if he married her, she would make him the wealthiest man in the
land. She promised him a lot of cows, goats, and sheep. She also
promised him many wives, children, and a big homestead.
Realizing that he had nothing to lose, Nyamgondho decided to hearken
to the old woman’s entreaties. He took her and made her his
wife. That act alone changed Nyamgondho’s fortune. Within
a short time, Nyamgondho’s fishing net started catching massive
amounts of fish in Lake Victoria. It was as though his net had became
a magnet for fish overnight. Every morning, Nyamgondho would arrive
at the lake, and find his nets bulging with large numbers of delicious
fish. He sold much of his catch, trading them for grain, cattle,
and farming implements.
With his fortune, Nyamgondho no longer
found it difficult to find willing spouses. His homestead grew in
size. He married many wives, sired many children, raised many herds
of cows, and grew huge quantities of crops. Nyamgondho had everything.
He became the richest man in the land.
As his wealth grew, Nyamgondho developed traits that he never had
when he was poor and miserable. His riches went to his head. He
became haughty and proud. It was not unusual for him to come home
drunk, singing his own praises, shouting loud insults at his neighbours
and calling them paupers. He often set upon his wives and children,
flogging them with a kiboko.
Nyamgondho even started beating up his first wife, his mikayi
– the old woman from the lake. One day Nyamgondho beat up
the old woman really badly and she warned him that if he did it
again, she would leave him, and his wealth would vanish.
Nyamgondho did not listen. Consumed
by his wealth and self-importance, Nyamgondho beat up the old woman
again, and this time, she decided to leave him. Nyamgondho was shocked
when, as the old woman prepared to leave, all the wealth in the
homestead also started preparing as well, and got ready to leave.
He watched tongue-tied as the cows, goats, sheep, and chickens rose,
and as grains of sorghum and millet gathered themselves up in baskets
and pots, and trailled behind the old woman as she trudged back
to the lake.
As his other wives and children followed the old woman back to the
lake, Nyamgondho heard a horrible sound issuing from what he thought
were his own bowels, crying to the old woman not to leave the homestead,
begging her to forgive him, promising never to misbehave again.
His pleas fell on deaf ears; the old woman returned to the lake
with all the property in Nyamgondho’s compound. He was back
where he was when he first met the old woman in the lake –
miserable, poor, and desperate.
*
The story of Nyamgondho wuod Ombare
reminds me of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the benevolent dictator
of Uganda now terrorizing the poor fishermen of Migingo Island,
Lake Victoria. When you look at Museveni’s life, wasn’t
he a refugee in Tanzania whose fortunes turned for the better through
the generosity of his neighbors in East Africa just the other day?
Didn’t he achieve his university education at the University
of Dar es Salaam through the generosity of President Julius Nyerere,
and the kindness of the people of Tanzania?
When President Idi Amin Dada, the erstwhile Conqueror of the British
Empire, was terrorizing Ugandans during the 1970’s, where
was Museveni? Didn’t he flee to Tanzania? Didn’t he
and his family live as refugees in Tanzania and Kenya in the 1970s
and early 1980s? Were they not given a means of survival by Tanzania,
and Kenya? Were Tanzanians, and Kenyans not their neighbors, and
friends?
Have Ugandans forgotten just how much they were helped by East Africans
during their time of need as a military dictatorship, and while
a civil war raged in their country in the 1970s, and 1980s? Wasn’t
it Tanzania that helped Uganda to overthrow the dictator Idi Amin
Dada?
When Museveni was waging war to grab power in Uganda, wasn’t
he helped by the ordinary Rwandese, particularly the Tutsis, who
composed much of the rank and file of his guerrilla army? Yet these
days we receive numerous reports about Museveni harassing Rwandan
citizens.
Wasn’t it President Moi who helped to organize numerous meetings
between Museveni and the Government of Uganda in Nairobi to end
the civil war that Museveni was waging against the Government of
Uganda in the 1980s? So, why is Museveni harassing President Moi’s
fellow Kenyan citizens who are just trying to eke out a living on
Migingo Island?
Museveni’s government has been terrorizing Kenyans over a
pathetic, little rocky island known as Migingo, Lake Victoria. Migingo
Island is only 2 kms from Kenya proper, and a whopping 250 kms from
Uganda proper. Although evidence from various documents place Migingo,
an island rock that measures no more than 2 acres, within Kenyan
territory, that has not stopped Museveni from sending soldiers 250
kms away from Uganda proper to plant a Ugandan flag on the island,
claiming it as Uganda’s. Kweli, ahsante ya punda ni mateke.[3] No good deed goes unpunished!
Disregarding how they survived through the generosity of their neighbors
when Uganda was in turmoil during the 1970’s and 1980’s,
Museveni’s policemen routinely arrest Kenyans on Migingo Island,
and throw them in prison even though the island is in Kenya. His
soldiers patrol the island using helicopters and speedboats. His
customs officials impose hefty taxes on poor Kenyan fishermen on
the island.
Just the other day, Uganda was at it again harassing Kenyans when
it tried to raise fees for Kenyan students studying in Ugandan universities
by claiming that Kenyan students were foreigners who should pay
more fees than Ugandan students for education. Although this crazy
proposal was nipped in the bud when President Yoweri Museveni remembered
in the nick of time that he and many Ugandans received subsidized
education in Tanzania and Kenya during the 1960’s, 1970’s,
and 1980’s, when their county was in turmoil, it makes you
wonder how people forget so easily.
I seem to remember only too well that it was just the other day
that I was going to school in the Busia part of Kenya with children
of many Ugandan refugees. And I am sure that there are many other
Kenyans who have stories to tell of enduring friendships, long-term
relationships, and even loving marriages forged with Ugandans who
sought refuge in Kenya during the 1970’s and 1980’s.
During those days we regarded those Ugandans, not as Ugandans, but
as our brothers and sisters, as people, as human beings who had
the same needs and dreams like us. We did not even see them as refugees.
We simply saw them as people who had suffered the misfortune of
coming under the control of a mad man who was masquerading as president
of their country during the 1970’s. We provided them with
succor. We lived with them, went to school with them, laughed and
cried with them as fellow East Africans.
But just look at how their government now treats us? Look at how
their government harasses people all over East Africa – from
Migingo Island in Kenya, through Rwanda, Eastern Congo, the Central
African Republic, all the way to Southern Sudan. There are cries
everywhere that Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni is harassing people,
that he is stealing resources, that his ruthless soldiers are killing
people in neighboring countries. Even the far-way Somalia is not
far enough for Museveni to throw his weight around in. This former
refugee has forgotten where he and his country were just the other
day.
Like Nyamgondho wuod Ombare, it seems that President Yoweri Kaguta
Museveni has forgotten how he and his fellow citizens were helped
by East Africans during their time of need – a time they suffered
from poverty, instability, deprivations, and wars. While we cannot
tell whether Yoweri Museveni’s life will come full circle
like that of Nyamgondho wuod Ombare, it is getting pretty close
to mirroring it. Only time will tell.  |
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