Four factors led to the 1966 Buganda crisis
TO understand what has come to be known as the 1966 crisis in Uganda one has to consider the four areas of conflict which led to it.
PETER MULIRA
A LEARNED FRIEND WITH A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
TO understand what has come to be known as the 1966 crisis in Uganda one has to consider the four areas of conflict which led to it.
In a sense the most fundamental conflict related to the insidious clash between the old and the new which festered for long but was finally played out in the battle of Mengo on May 22, 1966 between the national troops and the Kabaka’s guards.
On that fateful day, the prime minister, Dr Apollo Milton Obote, ordered units of the Uganda army to attack the Kabaka’s palace at Mengo ostensibly to search for a cache of arms which had been rumoured to be hidden in the palace.
What started out on February 22, 1966 as a settlement of scores within the ruling party UPC, ended up in the desecration of the citadel of the 700- year-old Buganda kingdom.
At first brush it is difficult to understand why Obote banished the other kingdoms since admittedly only Buganda had given him a headache before. The truth is that Obote had never been comfortable with what he saw as elements of feudal societies and to him kings were a hindrance to the egalitarian nationalism of his heart, a point he made so often in speeches he made after he had prevailed.
Since all the kingdoms were found in the south, the dichotomy translated itself into a south-north divide and by logical inference this led to a bantu group versus the nilotic group polarisation which played a major role in the 1966 crisis. UPC came to power in April 1962 in an alliance with the Kabaka Yekka but soon the relationship of the two partners went sour. In his book The forging of an African nation, Ibingira writes: “When Obote later dissolved the alliance and began to plot the political death of Buganda, we chose, rather than betray our allies and friends, to stand by them in what became a costly undertaking for us.
Accordingly the clash was played out both within UPC and between Obote leadership and Buganda and this clash in all its permutations contributed to the crisis. The second area of conflict was closely related to the first. In 1964, parliament elected the Kabaka to be the nation’s first president. Although the office was ceremonial, conflicts between the Buganda and the central governments were bound to make the president’s situation untenable especially after the ‘lost counties’ referendum debacle.
The first conflict between the president and the prime minister arose from the Buganda government’s ultimatum in 1963 that unless the central government removed all its police stations from Buganda and allowed the Lukiiko to determine funds to be transferred by the central government to Buganda, the kingdom government would withdraw all cooperation from the central government. This followed a war of attrition in which the central government starved the kingdom of funds to the extent of Mengo not being able to pay salaries.
When the kabaka failed to act as an intermediary of the central government after the cabinet requested him to do so he was seen as being uncooperative himself. Later when Obote refused the Uganda army band to perform at the Kabaka’s birthday reception arguing that that was not a national event things really got out of hand so much so that it was the vice president and not the president who opened the session of parliament in 1965, hardly three months from the suspension of the constitution.
From the time of independence in October 1962, Obote lived on a bed of nails in regard to a clique of neo-conservative chiefs at Mengo which controled political developments in the kingdom. It is this clique which was behind the frustration of UPC’s spread in Buganda and had sponsored numerous constitutional cases over the relationship between Buganda and the central government. Indeed Obote as prime minister of Uganda could not address a political rally in Buganda and this was conflict area number three. But above all, Obote blamed this clique for developments in the country after the suspension of the constitution. In particular it was this clique and not the Buganda government led by Joash Mayanja Nkangi which was blamed in parliament by Obote for having sponsored the resolution requiring Obote’s government to remove itself from Buganda soil. The clique also played a big role in mobilising ex-servicemen to “fight†the central government in May 1966. In a way, since this was a fringe group whose leaders Obote detained for their action it is unfair to blame the kingdom for what happened. From the very nature of its inception UPC was not at first a grass-roots party. The 10 or so district representatives in the legco who through their Uganda Peoples†Party joined with Obote’s faction of UNC to form UPC saw themselves as all equals and regarded Obote whom they elected as their leader as just the first among equals. This meant the authority of the party and especially its president was exercised vicariously through district king-makers and was always a recipe for individual ambitions.
After independence these individual ambitions coalesced around John Kakonge, the secretary general, and Grace Ibingira, the party legal advisor and Obote himself. Both Kakonge and Ibingira had limitless ambitions to lead the party and after Kakonge was eased out as secretary general in 1964 and was replaced by Ibingira the stage was set for a face-off between Ibingira and Obote for the party supremacy.
Ibingira first tried to capture numbers in the party delegations conference to oust Obote. When this failed his group used Ibingira’s brother, Major Katabarwa, to mount a coup.
Two attempts failed and the plotters then decided to move a motion of no confidence over the gold allegations . On February 4, 1966 the motion was moved but instead parliament recommended the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the activities of the prime minister and the army commander.
When an attempt to arrest Obote also failed he knew he had to take the initiative and turn the tables. On February 22, 1966 he suspended the constitution and arrested five of his ministers. The rest is sad history.
A LEARNED FRIEND WITH A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
TO understand what has come to be known as the 1966 crisis in Uganda one has to consider the four areas of conflict which led to it.
In a sense the most fundamental conflict related to the insidious clash between the old and the new which festered for long but was finally played out in the battle of Mengo on May 22, 1966 between the national troops and the Kabaka’s guards.
On that fateful day, the prime minister, Dr Apollo Milton Obote, ordered units of the Uganda army to attack the Kabaka’s palace at Mengo ostensibly to search for a cache of arms which had been rumoured to be hidden in the palace.
What started out on February 22, 1966 as a settlement of scores within the ruling party UPC, ended up in the desecration of the citadel of the 700- year-old Buganda kingdom.
At first brush it is difficult to understand why Obote banished the other kingdoms since admittedly only Buganda had given him a headache before. The truth is that Obote had never been comfortable with what he saw as elements of feudal societies and to him kings were a hindrance to the egalitarian nationalism of his heart, a point he made so often in speeches he made after he had prevailed.
Since all the kingdoms were found in the south, the dichotomy translated itself into a south-north divide and by logical inference this led to a bantu group versus the nilotic group polarisation which played a major role in the 1966 crisis. UPC came to power in April 1962 in an alliance with the Kabaka Yekka but soon the relationship of the two partners went sour. In his book The forging of an African nation, Ibingira writes: “When Obote later dissolved the alliance and began to plot the political death of Buganda, we chose, rather than betray our allies and friends, to stand by them in what became a costly undertaking for us.
Accordingly the clash was played out both within UPC and between Obote leadership and Buganda and this clash in all its permutations contributed to the crisis. The second area of conflict was closely related to the first. In 1964, parliament elected the Kabaka to be the nation’s first president. Although the office was ceremonial, conflicts between the Buganda and the central governments were bound to make the president’s situation untenable especially after the ‘lost counties’ referendum debacle.
The first conflict between the president and the prime minister arose from the Buganda government’s ultimatum in 1963 that unless the central government removed all its police stations from Buganda and allowed the Lukiiko to determine funds to be transferred by the central government to Buganda, the kingdom government would withdraw all cooperation from the central government. This followed a war of attrition in which the central government starved the kingdom of funds to the extent of Mengo not being able to pay salaries.
When the kabaka failed to act as an intermediary of the central government after the cabinet requested him to do so he was seen as being uncooperative himself. Later when Obote refused the Uganda army band to perform at the Kabaka’s birthday reception arguing that that was not a national event things really got out of hand so much so that it was the vice president and not the president who opened the session of parliament in 1965, hardly three months from the suspension of the constitution.
From the time of independence in October 1962, Obote lived on a bed of nails in regard to a clique of neo-conservative chiefs at Mengo which controled political developments in the kingdom. It is this clique which was behind the frustration of UPC’s spread in Buganda and had sponsored numerous constitutional cases over the relationship between Buganda and the central government. Indeed Obote as prime minister of Uganda could not address a political rally in Buganda and this was conflict area number three. But above all, Obote blamed this clique for developments in the country after the suspension of the constitution. In particular it was this clique and not the Buganda government led by Joash Mayanja Nkangi which was blamed in parliament by Obote for having sponsored the resolution requiring Obote’s government to remove itself from Buganda soil. The clique also played a big role in mobilising ex-servicemen to “fight†the central government in May 1966. In a way, since this was a fringe group whose leaders Obote detained for their action it is unfair to blame the kingdom for what happened. From the very nature of its inception UPC was not at first a grass-roots party. The 10 or so district representatives in the legco who through their Uganda Peoples†Party joined with Obote’s faction of UNC to form UPC saw themselves as all equals and regarded Obote whom they elected as their leader as just the first among equals. This meant the authority of the party and especially its president was exercised vicariously through district king-makers and was always a recipe for individual ambitions.
After independence these individual ambitions coalesced around John Kakonge, the secretary general, and Grace Ibingira, the party legal advisor and Obote himself. Both Kakonge and Ibingira had limitless ambitions to lead the party and after Kakonge was eased out as secretary general in 1964 and was replaced by Ibingira the stage was set for a face-off between Ibingira and Obote for the party supremacy.
Ibingira first tried to capture numbers in the party delegations conference to oust Obote. When this failed his group used Ibingira’s brother, Major Katabarwa, to mount a coup.
Two attempts failed and the plotters then decided to move a motion of no confidence over the gold allegations . On February 4, 1966 the motion was moved but instead parliament recommended the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the activities of the prime minister and the army commander.
When an attempt to arrest Obote also failed he knew he had to take the initiative and turn the tables. On February 22, 1966 he suspended the constitution and arrested five of his ministers. The rest is sad history.