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Tororo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | HRH Kwar Adhola Moses Stephen Owor has challenged the Jopadhola to end land fragmentation, which he says has made it difficult for large scale commercial agriculture to be undertaken in Padhola.
The cultural leader of the Jopadhola said the region will not benefit from the modern agricultural economy unless a culture in which land is divided continuously for children of the deceased stops. He blamed the high rate of population growth and land fragmentation for declining crop yields, and low house-hold income.
“The culture of dividing land into small plots to the children of the deceased has led to serious fragmentation of Land, which now on average stands at less than an acre per household. This makes it difficult for large scale commercial agriculture to be undertaken in Padhola,” Kwar Adhola,93, said on Wednesday.
Kwar Adhola Owor said this as tens of thousands of his subjects and friends from across the world gathered in Achilet, Tororo to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his coronation.
“With high rate of population growth, there is high pressure on land utilization which has led to soil exhaustion, poor crop-yields, and low house-hold income, ” he said, adding that, ” The overall result of all these is poverty increase among the people of Padhola.”
He said that while the Tieng Adhola Cultural Institution (TACI) has united the Jopadhola in Uganda and the diaspora, several challenges have persisted since his coronation in 1999. He listed other challenges as being poor standards of education especially outside the towns, unemployment and poor funding of the Tieng Adhola Cultural Institution activities.
Celebrating 20 years
The theme of the celebration was “Twenty years, a milestone of unity, peace, development and nation building” and attracted Jopadhola delegations from across the country and Kenya, cultural leaders and a team from the Luo elders council plus a group of governors and their deputies from Siaya and Kisumu in Kenya.
Ali Kirunda Kivejinja, the Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, represented President Yoweri Museveni at the colourful ceremony attended also by cultural leaders from Buganda, Busoga, Lango, Acholi, Bugwere, Masaba and Bunyoro.
Several Jopadhola delegations from Lango, Acholi, Buganda, Entebbe, National Organization Of Trade Unions, NRM and former and current area MPs led by Jacob Oboth Oboth, all paid homage.
Kwar Adhola said that before the inception of Tieng Adhola, the people of Padhola were breeding and feeding on division-ism, mutual mistrust, suspicion and lack of confidence and patriotism for Padhola and their country, Uganda.
“By coming to celebrate this function, you have appreciated that the people of Padhola possess a culture which they cherish and are prepared to use it to cooperate with other people, from near and far, in order to foster development and transformation,” the leader of the Jopadhola remarked.
The Jopadhola can trace their origin through the migration of the Luo from Southern Sudan, following the Nile, to approximately 700 years. Their grandparents Owiny and Adhola settled on the land now known as Padhola (Budama/Bukedi) between 1500 and 1550. It is from Tororo that Owiny the brother of Adhola, led another Luo group to Kenya
The crowning
Twenty years ago on the 7th August 1999, Owor was installed as the cultural leader of the Jopadhola. The historic event took place in King George V stadium in Tororo Town after a cultural ritual performed by a one Opeti Obieto (RIP) and His Grace Yona Okoth (RIP), the then Archbishop of the Church of Uganda.
The leader of the Jopadhola was elected by consensus by an electoral college of the 52 registered clans in 1998. Hitherto each clan separately had its own clan leader called Kwar Nono (clan grandfather). And whereas the clan leaders had close association on account of common origin, none of them superintended over the others.
The new cultural leader was given the title Kwar Adhola (grandfather of the Jopadhola), and the new Union of the original and affiliated clans was christened Tieng Adhola Cultural Institution.
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