The spotlight on Elgon sub-region momentarily moved from the aftermath of political electioneering in the Mbale Municipality parliamentary seat and the DP national conference to a painful tragedy.

A number of villages at the foot of one of the hills of mountainous Bududa were a scene of devastation. Hundreds of villagers and their school going children were buried alive by a massive mudslide following the ongoing heavy rains.

Rescuers had to slog through heavy mud to reach the scene. They had only their bare hands and rudimentary implements to dig into the thick mud and slime for dead bodies lying as much as six feet deep.

When the UPDF was ordered into the recovery efforts, it could only marshal shovels and spades. No heavy equipment could be deployed in the mud-drenched pile that had flattened the villagers' homes. The roads were broken and slippery.

President Museveni managed to fly by helicopter to the scene of the calamity. He is reported to have blamed the disaster on the deforestation by the villagers and their attachment to living in the difficult terrain.

He ordered for the immediate evacuation of the survivors. No one failed to notice that the usually unreachable President was this time round on hand for grandfatherly condolences.

In the tears of the Bududa villagers, the politicians promptly discerned mighty prospects. Many flocked to the hitherto unknown Bududa villages for the media glare. The torrent of world attention turned the backwater village into a Mecca of sorts.

For a long time, people on the foothills of Mt. Masaba have been dangling dangerously on the sharp edged cliffs for their livelihood. In the past, the colonial administration sought to mitigate the problem by forced terracing of the hills and tree conservation.

The approach, however, was brutally authoritarian. With attainment of independence, the colonial measures were quietly abandoned and gave way to the present unchecked and indiscriminate practices of agriculture in the self-destruction that is now going on without much bother by the authorities.

The incident in Bududa is not an isolated one. It epitomises our general perfunctory regard for environmental questions.

We have had the fires of Owino Market; the floods in Bwaise, Kawempe and Nakivubo Mews channels; open drains, manholes and trenches overflowing with plastics in the very middle of Uganda's capital city.

This is why there is astonishing desertification taking place under our very noses in Tororo District. Floods overwhelmed Teso, and then rain failure, causing food shortages and starvation in our food basket areas.

Our lakes are getting polluted, endangering vital water ecosystems. There is over fishing. The streams are silted and drying. Already, global warming from gas emissions, pollution of the earth and the depletion of its ecological balance by the economic waste of the rich world is making its impact felt in a cataclysm of weird climatic patterns.

It is our duty to reverse these negative consequences to make this shrunk world remain habitable for our people. Environmental issues should, therefore, be crucial in our political debates.

NEMA was formed under our NRM administration to enforce an environmental regime. Yet, NEMA's regulatory role is too thin and ineffective to deal with the magnitude of widespread environmental infractions countrywide.

Environmental concerns are too crucial to be abandoned as the exclusive preserve of the sideboard of bureaucrats and technocrats.

From our days of struggle, the NRM believed in organising and cultivating grassroots mass action in the struggle for liberty. We had to seek recourse in organising ourselves because this was the only way to guarantee our lives.

Now that environmental questions are really inescapable, it would have been expected that our politicians should bring these concerns to the centre of our political organisation.

Grassroots action entails the political elite observing democracy, readiness to empower the population and the upholding of their involvement in practical expression of their own interests.

The politicians, whose only drive is for office in 2011 elections, yearn for their status superficially, not from the agenda of the country's problems, environmental concerns, economic prospects for the unemployed, the consuming poverty in the country or democratic structures and institutions.

The only atonement by the politicians for the deaths in Bududa is their proof of willingness to be part of grassroots democracy to resolve the environmental question and other outstanding problems affecting the country. Vote buyers cannot be part of this programme.

The author is a member of NEC (NRM) representing historicals