Why President Museveni wants to expel Turkanas from Uganda.

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has threatened to expel all the Kenyan Turkanas due to the terrible incidents of livestock theft in the northeast of the country.

In an executive order issued on Wednesday May 24, President Museveni said his government is committed to ending the incessant cattle rustling once and for all, and the armed Kenyan Turkanas are “another debilitating factor”.

According to Museveni, his government allowed the Kenyan Turkanas to graze their cattle in Uganda because of “our African ideology”, but they repeatedly violated this goodwill by exporting their weapons to Uganda and wreaking havoc in the country. the community.

“I have ordered these Turkanas to never bring weapons to Uganda, just come to graze their cattle without weapons, but they do not listen, instead they attack our unarmed Karamojong, kill people, violence etc.

“They allegedly attacked Jie’s 2245 cows. They killed our 3 geologists, an officer and a soldier, who were guarding them. I now order that this Turkana nonsense stop,” Museveni says in his third executive order of 2023.

Museveni’s instructions

Looking ahead, Museveni issued guidelines that must be implemented and followed for Kenyan Turkanas to herd livestock in Uganda.

1: Turkana should never come to Uganda with guns. Anyone who does so must be arrested and charged with terrorism by a military court.
2: The murderers of the geologists must be handed over to us to be prosecuted for murder. The weapons were handed over to the Ugandan government, but not to the killers.
3: Thanks to the coordination of the Kenyan and Ugandan governments, the Turkanas must return to the affected communities the number of cattle equal to the cattle they stole from them. Here, we must be careful because our own people can exaggerate the statistics. In order to facilitate the work of cattle identification, the governments of Kenya and Uganda should coordinate the marking of cattle to show the district and sub-county of the respective cattle population.

Museveni has since given the Turkana people six months to implement his orders, and if the said grievances are not resolved, “I will have no other option but to expel all Kenyan Turkanas and their cattle and they will not be allowed to return to Uganda. and their livestock.”