LAND IS A FALL BACK RESOURCE: DO NOT SELL CARELESSLY!

A precise note by Lucoromoi

The greatest and most grateful people we can talked about are the great grandfathers of Acholi people. The Acholi ancestors did tremendous jobs in reference to the rich culture; the dances they came up with, the proverbs, riddles, folktales, the varieties of traditional food and others.

One peculiar and outstanding effort that Acholi should keep praising their ancestors for, is taking hold of a fertile plateau land. Acholi land is very precious. It's just unfortunate that enemies of nature are now destroying the environment, but it used to have two planting seasons(rainy) and dry season. Well balanced.

Acholi people used to look at land as something used for raising children (gi pit). Selling land was a very rare practice. People could just give land to relatives and friends without demanding money.

People used land to raise money through planting cash crops like cotton, tobacco and others, and as well rearing livestock in order to get money for school fees and other needs, not the current madness where parents are now producing dozens of children and they sell the customary land to pay tuitions and buy other scholastic materials.

After completing education, people would till the available land to earn a living as he or she looks for jobs. Business men and women would resort back to villages in case anything happens and the business collapse, They start life all over again by cultivating the land, then after some times, they bounce back to business. I have also heard politicians talking about farms a number of times. Political leaders use land as a fall back position in that, after losing election, many of them always retreat to their villages for agriculture, which is indeed very good for their healing financially and psychologically.

In developed world, farmers, particularly people with land are very rich, because they understand the value of land and know how they can use it to make millions and billions of shillings without changing its ownership. 

Many people say, Acholi may get extinct if they do not change their current ways of life. After the long insurgency in Northern Uganda, people moved back to their broken homestates, but this time they were not the original Acholi people, but rather new Acholi with camp mentality, depicting dependency and easy life syndrome. Because many acquired sicknesses from camps that made them weak and hopeless in life, they resorted to a quest for easy life. They started by selling trees for charcoal burnings which really affected the rainfall pattern. Because of this, farmers started experiencing long draught, making agriculture a business of chance.

Since agriculture is not now working easily, giving away forested land for charcoal business became a bond wagon in Acholi. Free money became so sweet and the next option was selling land, with claims that they need money for school fees, organizing last funeral rites, buying hoofers, bajaj, TVs, solar, marrying second, third, fourth wife and other less genuine reasons.

It is a very painful fact that Acholi are no where when it comes to education, business, commercial farming, sports, factories, and because of this, Acholi should have safe guarded their land trembly and jealously since it's the only thing they have for now, but it's unfortunate that ignorance has consumed our people.

The local communities together with their cultural and political leaders are equally involved in land deals. Acholi land is in a state of quagmire that needs a serious revival, and the enlightened young people should rise up and determine the fate of Acholi people. Let's teach our people that land is much more valuable than the paper or coins called money. Before you sell off your one hundred acres of land, first ask yourself, why they need your land if money is everything, money should solve all their needs and problems then. Let us not be foolish. Young people wake up!

lucoromoi2026