By staff writer
Henry Okello Oryem is facing backlash after he labelled people dying from hunger in Uganda as “idiots”.
In an interview with Ugandan television channel NTV this week, the foreign affairs minister controversially responded to a question on the county’s hunger situation.
“Only an idiot, a real idiot, can die of hunger in Uganda,” he said.
According to Uganda’s national agricultural research organisation, eight million people are suffering from “chronic hunger” in the country, with the northern region being the worst off.
Despite thousands of deaths reported since 2022, the minister believes that the favourable climate and fertile land should be enough for people to grow their own food.
“Those are idiots because there is enough food in Uganda. If you work hard, there is land in Uganda, the climate is right despite climate change,” the minister added.
“If you make an effort to go out in the morning to till your land, plant your seed and maintain your plantation, surely, how then can you fail to get food?”
Moses Aleper, a legislator for Chekwii county — one of the affected regions — told the BBC that the minister’s views were “unfortunate” and “not right”.
“I’m from one of the most productive parts of Karamoja where there is adequate rain and we produce food. But in situations where weather fails us, the weather vagaries set in, we definitely fail to get food. And normally people definitely get famine and eventually hunger strikes,” he said.
Minister Oryem is the son of late general Tito Lutwa Okello, who served as Uganda’s president from between 1985 and 1986.
Pictured above: Henry Okello Oryem.
Image source: @africanhub_
