Genesis of the long rivalry between Kenya and Uganda revealed

Piece by: shakila mohammed

04 October 2022

• Kenya has been at logger heads with Uganda over who owns Migingo Island.

Kenyans and Ugandans are currently at war after General Muhoozi threatened to overtake Kenya.

The move angered Kenyans prompting a war of words and memes online.

This is not the first time Kenya and Uganda are feuding.

The biggest war between the two neighboring countries is on who owns Migingo

Migingo Island covers half of a football pitch and it sits on Lake Victoria, which is the largest tropical lake on Earth and prime real estate for catching profitable Nile perch.

It was barely inhabited until the 2000s but now hosts as many as 500 fishermen from Kenya and Uganda vying for space.

While the fight over Migingo Island might appear trivial, both Kenyans and Ugandans are well aware that resources mean everything

The dispute over Migingo Island in Lake Victoria sparked in 2006 when Ugandan customs officers began to collect levies from Kenyan fishermen fishing in waters around the disputed island.

The Migingo dispute tells us that in the years to come, it is set to be the main source of East African rivalry and conflict.

This is because water and fish resources become ever more scarce in the region.

Kenyan politicians from the Lake Victoria region have argued that both former president Mwai Kibaki and President Uhuru Kenyatta have not fought harder to assert a claim over the rock.

The presumed reason is that they are mountain people from the central part of the country.

How is this believed to be so?

The risk with that is that a muscular response from the government in Nairobi over the ownership of Migingo then becomes inevitable with each passing day.

However, a local politician could do something that forces him to choose between siding with a Kenyan or the Ugandan government.

Alternatively, Migingo seems to have turned into a bone that Museveni just won’t let go of.

It’s gotten worse to an extent where doing so unequivocally would be seen as a face-losing climb down and illustrate weakness at a period when the government in Kampala needs to be strong.

The risks are therefore high that the political luvvy-duvvy between Kampala and Nairobi could be raptured by a small rockRead also;