1966 crisis: Misfortune or blessing for Uganda?

By Magemeso Namungalu

The 1966 Crisis: what was it? What did it mean to this country? Would Uganda be what it is today or would it have been different?

Those are the questions that haunt forward-looking Ugandans as regards the 1966 Uganda Crisis.

The main antagonists in this crisis were ceremonial President Edward Mutesa and executive Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote, who are not with us, which fosters a truth-telling atmosphere.

As Uganda celebrates 50 years of independence, it is important to reflect on Buganda’s Kabaka Edward Mutesa’s walking out of Uganda’s presidency to Buganda’s Kabakaship to fight for its hegemony.

There seems to be no evidence that Mutesa was forced out of Uganda’s presidency, although there is overwhelming evidence that his group shot the first bullet that invited the Uganda Army to his palace. 

There are people who argue that Mutesa’s abandoning Uganda’s presidency to fight for Buganda’s Kabakaship brought a lot of misfortune to Uganda. They say that Mutesa and his deputy, Busoga Kyabazinga, William Wilburforce Nadiope, would have exercised tolerance to ensure harmony for the budding Ugandan Nation.

Both Mutesa and Nadiope had military training, which Obote lacked, which is why two illiterate men, Idi Amin Dada and Tito Okello Lutwa respectively, twice carried out military coups against Obote.

Obote fulfilled the pledges he made when he went to Mengo and prostrated before Mutesa. 

When the Parliament showed reluctance to make Mutesa the president in favour of Nadiope, Obote prevailed on the Parliament to ensure he became the president and that was done.

Besides, Obote was not accepted by Mengo out of the blue. There had been long relationship between Obote’s family and Mengo. 

Kabaka Mwanga was arrested by the British Colonialists from Akaki’s home, Obote’s grandfather.

With that mutual respect and with tolerance, Uganda would be different from what it is today and would not have experienced the destruction, strife, plunder, horror, murder and terror it has undergone.

The thinking is that the monarchists like the Kabaka of Buganda, the Kyabazinga of Busoga, the Omugabe of Ankole and the Omukama of Bunyoro and men of that caliber, would have been in Uganda’s presidency while the commoners would have been in premiership line. And perhaps that was the dream of the departing British Colonialists.

Maybe eventually, a House of the Lords would have been born. Just like is the case in Britain, where there is the House of the Commons and the House of the Lords. 

Electioneering would be commons – the population – and would be overseen and regulated by the House of the Lords. The successful candidates would then be endorsed by the lords, which would eliminate the Kiboko squards and other electioneering ills.

Misfortune, however, did not allow Uganda to proceed to such heavenly pleasures. 

A quarrel erupted between ceremonial President Edward Mutesa and Executive Prime Minister Obote. The result was a shoot-out between Obote’s central government forces and Mutesa’s rag-tag army made of Kabaka Mutesa’s royalists.

Kabaka Mutesa’s army was defeated. He ran to Britain, where he died in exile. After Mutesa’s departure, Obote asked the Baganda to find another King, which Buganda declined. 

After a year, a Muganda, Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa, was asked to make a new constitution that abolished Buganda Kingdom and other kingdoms in Uganda. Uganda became a republic.

Shallow history says that the shoot-out in Mengo was caused by the Lost Counties, which were contested for by Buganda and Bunyoro, where in a referendum Buganda lost two of its three counties to Bunyoro. Some people blame Obote for the political breakdown, but Obote was not the referendum.

However, there are people who argue that the break-down between Obote and Mutesa originated from the electoral process of 1962, where the Democratic Party (DP) and its aiding Catholic Religion lost out in the 1962 elections after Memgo openly sided with Uganda People’s Congress (UPC). 

One of such people is the presidential spokesman, Tamale Mirundi, who in his short treatise on the recent electioneering in Bukoto argues that unless Mengo rethinks its involvement in political matters, the quarrel between its kingdom and the central government will continue.

In this breath therefore, one can argue that the break-down between Mutesa and Obote was caused by the 1962 electioneering in Buganda. The DP – Ben Kiwanuka, Catholic Archbishop Joseph Kiwanuka and the DP fraternity – must have realised the old saying, “If you can’t win them, you join them.”

After all, the DP also realised it was politically marooned, because it did not even have favour from Britain, the former colonial master. 

A British Church man at Lancaster, where an important meeting on Uganda’s independence took place, is known to have said that the British came to Uganda and sowed and therefore, they expect to harvest what they sowed.

It was at the same venue where the DP worked itself out of Mengo. When Kiwanuka was asked about the future of Buganda Kingdom in his government, he gave no hope for the Buganda Kingdom. 

The DP, therefore, infiltrated Mengo, apparently to fight their political enemy, Mengo, from within. The only way was to create trouble between Mutesa and Obote, so that Mengo could turn to their party. The trick by the DP worked and the result was the ship-wreck, which came to be known as the 1966 Crisis.

 There are some people, who argue that both Mutesa and Obote were not to blame. The two found themselves on the quagmire and had to fight for survival. At the end of it, both men lost heavily. 

Mutesa lost his kingdom and eventually died in exile. Obote lost the political good will in Buganda and the other kingdoms of Busoga, Ankole and Bunyoro. Obote actually became a political fugitive and never recovered from it.

When Kabaka Ronald Mutebi was invited back to take his kingdom, it was thought he would be a symbol of harmony and unity, but what was the difference between the Bugerere shoot-out in 2010 and the shoot-out in Mengo in 1966? 

More than ever before, especially as Uganda celebrates 50 years of independence, it is important to ask whether all the wars Mengo is made to fight are beneficial to the kingdom; and reflect on aspects like Kabaka’s exile in the 50s after rejecting the East African Federation or the walking out of Uganda’s presidency, instead of using the presidency to assert his grandfather’s, Mutesa I’s, wisdom for inviting the British to Uganda.

Former chief news editor Radio and Uganda Television