President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has directed the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka to draft a law criminalising livestock free-range grazing through a public notice listing fresh orders regarding to ongoing saga of evicting Balaalo herdsmen and their cattle from swatches of land in Northern Uganda, mainly the Acholi sub-region.
The order issued (Executive Order No. 2 of 2025), is in addition to the earlier Executive Order No.3 issued in the year 2023, regarding the unplanned and, sometimes, indisciplined movement of the Balaalo, cattle herders, into Northern, Eastern and North-Western parts of Uganda.
In a statement, the president said that it is now technically impossible to have a healthy, mutually beneficial and conflict-free movement of unregulated cattle into those areas of the country.
“The unfenced grazing areas, lack of permanent water sources in the farms, even when they are fenced, the intra-community lack of consensus on land tenure among the indigenous communities of the area, leading to conflict and even murders as a consequence, and unplanned fencing, blocking the traditional access to the permanent water and fisheries sources such as the River Nile,” he noted.
Museveni further explained that it is criminal and very unfair to the locals to introduce free-ranging cattle in these areas because they will inevitably trample and feed on people’s crops (Okwonesa). Even when you fence, but you do not have a permanent water source in the area, in the dry season, you will have to kuhangaanga (look for distant water sources) for water. In those efforts, the cattle will inevitably kwoona (eat crops in the gardens).
“Then there is the issue of the land tenure system, which is still communal with some individual land ownership. Hence, some of the land sales to the Balaalo may be contested by some of the family members. Hence, the intra-local land conflicts will now be fused with the outsiders coming in. This is a recipe for big trouble.”
He said that NRM believes in Patriotism, Pan-Africanism, Social-Economic transformation and Democracy because patriotism (love for Uganda) and Pan- Pan-Africanism (love for Africa), enables to guarantee prosperity for the people by providing a bigger market and raw-materials base source for the people than the individual tribal areas, adding, “We have,Therefore, for a long time, I believed in and worked for the economic integration of the whole of Africa (forming a common market of the whole area) and also in political integration (the political Federations) where the people are either similar or compatible.”
“In the pursuit of these destiny-determining goals (that can determine whether we survive or perish), we must be deliberate and careful. We should never frighten any of our communities with the fear of or occurrence of internal colonialism where some groups trample on the legitimate rights of others. There were such mistakes in the past. They will not be permitted to happen under the NRM,” Museveni noted.
How is Uganda or East Africa, through integration, helping the genuine wealth creators in their struggle for prosperity? In the following ways:a) free movement of goods;
b) free movement of services;
c) free movement of labour; and
d) free movement of capital in some cases.
The milk I produce at Rwakyitura can be sold in Nimule, Juba, Mombasa, etc, without paying taxes. The sim sim the Acholis are producing in Orom (Kitgum), can be sold in Mbarara, Nairobi, Kigali, etc. This mutually supports the wealth creation of all the East Africans. You have seen buses destined for Juba, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, Kigali, Bujumbura, etc. This is the free movement of services. Very good.
How about the free movement of labour? It is already happening. How did Jinja become mainly Ugandans’ town instead of just being a Basoga town? On account of this free movement of labour. How did the Kuku come to Kayunga? On account of the free movement of labour. Capital can also move without controversy. Burahimu Kibirige built a most welcome hotel in Moroto, and some Ugandans have built lodges in Bwindi.
The only danger of migration that we need to be careful about is rural peasant migration, where peasants are transporting primitive agricultural practices from one rural area to another, claiming okufuunda (being over-crowded). That Kufuunda is actually artificial; it is on account of the primitive misuse of the land they have.
Joseph Ljala, Nyakaana and others have shown everybody how even one acre can generate a lot of wealth for the family. Therefore, this primitive spreading of land misuse that, moreover, disturbs the indigenous communities by free-ranging livestockeating their crops (Okwonesa), is hereby banned completely.
“I direct that the Attorney-General draft a law that criminalises this practice. There are more enlightened and able farmers who may have fenced the land they bought and have put permanent water there.”
Those, however, may have two problems. Which are those? Problem number one could be the question:
i) “What type of land did you buy since most of that land is clan land? Did somebody sell you legitimatelyprivate land or was it family or clan land, fraudulently sold by crafty individuals?”
ii) The second problem for those people, is how they fenced. I hear that in some areas they have blocked routes to the permanent water sources such as the River Nile. To block the Madi Okoros from accessing the River Nile is a very serious mistake.
Therefore, the logical answer is to remove all those cattle brought into these areas by the Balaalo so that we achieve two long-term solutions. Solution numberone:
i) Ban completely any movement of free-ranging livestock from outside these areas and criminaliseThe practice.
ii) Secondly, the committee I have set up to audit the claims of those who say they bought legitimately, have fenced their farms securely, have permanent water sources on those farms and have not blocked access to the permanent water sources. This, however, will happen when the cattle are out of the area and without the tension that the presence is generating.
It should be remembered that these blind actors had, at one time, invaded Tanzania, going into the National Parks of that Country, etc. These indisciplined actors have been responsible for repeatedly importing Foot and Mouth disease from Tanzania, leading to the closure of the modern dairy and beef industry of Uganda for months. Yet, when I restructured the Government ranches in Ankole, Masaka, Ssingo,Buruuli and Masindi, we ensured that all the landless cattle owners were given free land.
The late Mzee Kirimaani oversaw that operation. Where are those new claimants coming from to claim that they are landless? Anybody who sold his land should not beentertained even when we may evolve for ex-gratia programme to compensate these evictees from the North, North-East and North-West. Let them sell the Cattle that have multiplied on account of the free pasture they have accessed in these unplanned actions and buy smaller pieces of land in the areas of the country where they traditionally live and practice the Nyakaana model of prosperity on even one acre or build shops in trading centres, etc. Everybody has to cooperate.
Whenever we are discussing the issue of the East African Federation, sentiments from some of the partner States keep coming up, expressing fear of the rural lands of some of these Countries being invaded by land-hungry migrants from the neighbours. It is, therefore, crucial to assure these partners that movement in search of agricultural lands can be regulated.
The federation can concentrate on the free movement of goods, services, labour and capital andregulate or even prohibit the free movement into the rural areas for agriculture. It is this rural-to-rural Horizontal movement is problematic if not regulated. It is better to start with the vertical-horizontal movement of rural to urban or urban tourban for labour and capital – i.e workers and investments. Goods and services can move freely without causing any friction. Therefore, this issue of internal rural migrations has strategic implications for even our Pan-Africanefforts.
Finally, it was on account of these sensitivities, that I proposed to the Constituent Assembly (CA) to amendthe constitution and remove the Uganda Land Commission from managing land in the whole ofUganda.
The new Constitution provided that the land should be managed by the District Land Boards. It was to avoid these distortions that I had seen in Uganda.
The Uganda Land Board Commission was only to manage the Government lands for schools, Administrative Centres, ranches, Research centres, etc. This was to deal with the diversion of having todeal with the nonsense of: “they want to take our land”. Our message was: “manage that land yourselves and stop excuses to divert us”.
“You can imagine the noise around this issue of Balaalo if the national Uganda Land Commission were involved. However, we had foreseen that trap and avoided it. Let us not make new mistakes. By not decisively acting, it encourages a new influx. These Colonial style unfairnesses, should not and cannot happen under the NRM,” President Museveni concluded.
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