We don't need a King - Banyakore Cultural Foundation

Sep 17, 2014

A group of Banyankore under the Banyakore Cultural Foundation (BCF) has signed a document rejecting a cultural institution

By John Agaba

A group of Banyankore under the Banyakore Cultural Foundation (BCF) has signed a document rejecting a cultural institution for Ankole region.

The two-page document, dated September 16, 2014 challenges the need for a cultural intuition, saying their people are not ready for the social subordinations that would come with having one.

Since President Yoweri Museveni okayed the restoration of cultural institutions in 1993, many cultural intuitions have been restored, new ones created, and others still a work in progress.

In Ankole, the Nkore Cultural Trust (NCT), led by William Katatumba, are agitating for the restoration of Obugabe bwa Ankole.

However, BCF maintains that the Banyankore who have never had a monarchy since their history do not need one now.

“The Banyankore are currently tension free. So what is a need for a monarchy that is going to create tension?” asked Mwambutsya Ndebesa, the secretary for research for the foundation.

“What just happened in the Rwenzori and the Busoga regions is testimony enough for the Banyankore to know what can happen in their region if they insist on having a monarchy,” Ndebesa, also a lecturer of History at Makerere University, said.

“Those who are agitating for the Obugabe want to create royals and subjects, not citizens — creating a system that will create social injustice. Culture is there to serve man. Not the other way round,” Dr. Godfrey Asiimwe, the foundation’s general secretary, said.

The debate regarding Kingship in the western region of Uganda is not necessarily new.

Kesi Nyakimwe, the foundation’s chairman said since the white man’s intervention in 1901, there have been sects agitating for creation of a monarchy among the Banyankore.

“But they have always been defeated. Because we don’t need a king. Culture does not necessarily mean having a monarchy,” Nyakimwe said.

“Whatever other people say, we, the Banyankore Cultural Foundation, reject the restoration of Obugabe bwa Ankole,” Nyakimwe said while reading the document at Centenary Park in Kampala yesterday.

“Just like the Rwenzori and Busoga regions, Ankole region is socially and ethnically heterogeneous and has even a more clearly and sharply defined contested history,” he said.

“The Ankole community is composed of a diversity of ethnic and sub-ethnic groups that include Banyankore, Bahororo, Banyaruguru, Batagwenda and Bakoki who are indigenous communities within the region.

“There is today a significant minority of Baganda, Bakiga, and Banyarwanda who migrated into the area; and another layer of social identity between the traditional cultivators and pastoralists – the so called Bairu and Bahima. Bringing a monarchy will only create chaos,” Nyakimwe said.

Following recent cultural tensions especially in the Busoga region and the Kasese, Bundibugyo and Ntoroko districts where over 90 people were killed in clashes, several minds, including political party UPC, have criticized President Yoweri Museveni’s move to restore kingdoms in Uganda in 1993 after they had been banned by fallen President Milton Obote on grounds of sabotaging social cohesion and development in the country.

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