ATTACKER: Idi Amin commanded the1966 attack on Kabaka Mutesa's (right) palace at Mengo forcing him to flee
By Peter Mulira
IN Dr Apollo Milton Obote’s death, as in his life, Ugandans have continued to show their apartness as events at Wankulukuku and other parts of the country where his cortege passed demonstrated in different ways.
This has made President Museveni’s statement to Parliament that the fallen leader was accorded a state funeral because of the continued need for reconciliation and healing of the old physical and emotional wounds to the society a welcome wake up call.
In a sense reconciliation referred to by President Museveni should mean that Ugandans should forget the quarrels in our society which started in 1964 when the army attacked and killed innocent people in a peaceful demonstration at Nakulabye in the first show of military force inflicted by the government on its own people.
The Nakulabye incident came at a time when the issue of ‘lost counties’ was coming to a boil, which resulted in strained working relationship between the president and prime minister. Not enough has been written about the possible contribution of this dysfunctional relationship to the events and crisis that ensued, but Obote is on record as having said that when he saw Mutesa taking the oath of office as President he knew that he had finished him.
Against the strained relationship between the president and prime minister, UPC itself was going through serious problems of intrigue and power struggles which exploded at the party’s annual general meeting in Gulu in 1965 where Grace Ibingira replaced John Kakonge as the party’s Secretary General. This shuttered the party’s unity and made it difficult for the government to govern effectively.
After Gulu the government and UPC were split four ways between Obote, Ibingira, Kakonge and KY factions and it was clear that one of the factions or a combination of two was poised to take over government. Ibingira’s faction took the first shot in Parliament by moving a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister over the so-called Congo gold scandal in which he was adversely implicated with the deputy army commander, Col Idi Amin. This move forced Obote to take sanctuary in West Nile for fear of being arrested.
While the motion was still on the floor of the House, an army battalion was sent by army commander, Brig Shaban Opolot, who was sympathetic to Ibingira’s group, to arrest Obote. But on reaching Fort Portal, before the batalion carried out its mission, the president convened a meeting where he prevailed on the plotters to use only constitutional means in removing the Prime Minister. In effect, to abide by the outcome of the motion in Parliament.
When Obote heard about the demurrage in Ibingira’s camp he was emboldened enough to return to Kampala unannounced where upon he convened a Cabinet meeting at which five ministers were arrested as well as the army commander.
Obote also abrogated the Constitution and later declared himself President and ruled the country in a void until he introduced the pigeon–hole constitution which was passed by Parliament in a fashion that discredited that August body.
Mutesa reacted to these events by appealing to Britain to intervene and help restore constitutionalism and the rule of law. At another level, the Buganda Lukiiko purportedly passed a resolution ordering the government off Buganda land. These two events must be understood in their true context.
When Mutesa appealed to Britain for assistance there was no constitution and therefore he could not have been treasonous. He tried to fight an act of rebellion which resembled earlier events in Rhodesia where the prime minister, Ian Smith, also abrogated the country’s constitution in 1965, set up his rebellious government and installed his own head of state to replace the Queen. Nobody criticized Obote and other African leaders for calling on Britain to use force to restore constitutionalism in Rhodesia.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Lukiiko never passed, under its standing orders, any resolution ordering Obote’s (not Uganda’s) government off Buganda land.
The motion was first properly introduced on May 1, 1966, when the Speaker overruled it as being illegal. It was later smuggled into the proceedings on May 22, 1966 by a group of conspirators to whom Obote referred in his statement to Parliament on May 25, 1966.
The circumstances narrated by Obote made it clear that members were threatened to act against their consciences by hooligans who had been hired by a former member of his government who resigned on August 28, 1964.
The above sequence of events shows that Buganda was not the author of the crisis of 1966 but only moved to reinstate constitutionalism in the country and the attack on the Lubiri under the pretext that a cache of arms was hidden there will always be seen by the Baganda as a plan after the attack.
Mutesa and Buganda’s role in the crisis, created by the overthrow of the constitution, should be viewed in light of section 3(4) (a) of our current constitution which provides that all citizens shall have the right and duty to defend the contribution and to do all in their power to restore the constitution after it has been abrogated. In this light history may well judge Mutesa as the father of our constitutionalism.
