By Abubakar Bin Siraji
MBALE CITY
Bugisu local leaders together with Mutoto clan residents have asked government to swiftly intervene in the situation of lack of pit latrines at the Mutoto Cultural Site in Mbale Industrial City Division.
Mutoto cultural site located along Mbale-Tororo road at Mbale industrial city division and is the Bamasaba cultural site facing this challenge yet imbalu is a public circumcision ceremony practiced by the Bamasaba people of Uganda. It takes place at the Mutoto cultural site (also called Mutoto cultural ground) near Mbale in eastern Uganda.
It is mostly active in the 8th month of every even year. The ground is believed to be the place where the first Mugisu (Mumasaba) was circumcised. This community affair is characterized by dance and food.
The ceremony has been heavily promoted as a tourist attraction, and tens of thousands of people attend with not even single latrine since 1984 when the farewell blessing for candidates which used to take place every year at Maluku was transferred to Mutoto cultural clan.
The head of Bamutoto clan elders and custom, Mr Sulaiman Khaukha told this reporter that instead of the organisers putting up latrines, they have gone ahead selling plots to the Bamasaba operating the businesses at UGX 300,000 -500,000 and spend most of their time demanding money from the Bamasaba operating at the cultural site but they have no latrines in order to overcome the bad smell of human excretion scattered everywhere at the dark corners.
This has brought fears amongst the Bamasaba revealers and business operators because they might end up failing to celebrate this year’s Imbalu after contracting diseases.
According to the reports at the cultural site, this has also caused panic among some of the revealers who now fear to contract diseases related to poor hygiene yet the cultural site has no health worker at the moment.
They called upon the government to help construct the toilets at the mutoto cultural site.
While speaking about this issue, Martin Wamimbi, a resident at the cultural site expressed his dissatisfaction saying the pit latrines they used in imbalu 2022 were built by a concerned Gishu, Yaaya Masolo Gidudu and it was dismantled due to bad smell.
Some of the Bamasaba on this cultural site were disappointed about the state of hygiene.
Zaid Wandulu, the area councilor told this reporter that the latrines are badly needed at the cultural sites and put the blame on the organisers for failure to construct new ones .
Similarly, the councilor promised to address the challenges since the Inzu ya masaba is in preparations for the imbalu event set for August, 3, 2024.
However, Mutoto cultural site contains a large crowd of Bamasaba and non Bamasaba from the districts of Bulambuli, Sironko, Mbale city, Manafwa, Namisindwa, Bududa, Mbale and the diaspora.
