Why Binaisa was not made a hero
Regarding the issue of presidential national heroes, a question that would easily come to mind is why was Prof. Yusuf Lule the first Uganda National Liberation Front leader, and not his successor, Godfrey Binaisa, made a national hero?
Regarding the issue of presidential national heroes, a question that would easily come to mind is why was Prof. Yusuf Lule the first Uganda National Liberation Front leader, and not his successor, Godfrey Binaisa, made a national hero?
The answer lies in their differing track records, in as much as both were Baganda and Budonians. Binaisa’s actions disqualified him from being a national hero because he, unfortunately, applied his legal intellect to stifle Uganda’s democratisation process in the early to mid-1960’s. This, by being a conscious central actor together with his ally Prime Minster Apollo Obote, in the abrogation of the controversial 1962 Lancaster House Constitution, in 1966. With apprent gusto, they also imposed on this country the 1966 ‘Pigeon Hole’ Constitution, and suspended the rule of law in Buganda through draconian colonial emergency regulations between 1966 and 1971. Furthermore, they attacked the Lubiri with about 1,000 innocent civilians being killed, and the exiling of Kabaka Muteesa. Vindictively, they imprisoned their political opponents without trial. Binaisa also played an ambivalent role in the political struggles that eventually shaped the new Uganda through the NRM revolution of 1981 to 1986.
Lule had no such checkered political background. Way back in the 1940s, he illustrated that he was a pragmatic gentleman. For the sake of his love, Anna, he converted from Islam into the Anglican faith.
The attractive Anna was from the Buganda conservative stock. In the 1950s, Lule joined Benedicto Kiwanuka’s DP, illustrating that he was above sectarian bigotry.
Although as President, for 68 days, Lule was accused of behaving in a rigid colonial schoolmasterly manner, legally he did not abuse the existing 1967 republican constitutional order.
This was the ruling by Chief Justice Wako Wambuzi of the High Court, in 1980. Equally important, Lule illustrated that he was a democratic nationalist by pivotally associating himself with the NRM-led liberation in 1981. This was not due to lack of options, as he could have remained put. He was a respectable international educational administrator who could have joined the Uganda Freedom Movement, but Lule preferred Museveni’s People’s Redemption Army.
This great leap of faith illustrated Lule’s pragmatism and strength of character. For his coalition partners, Museveni and Eriya Kategaya were much younger, Banyankore, and Dar-es-salaam-trained radical intellectuals.
Lule, a Muganda, was from the colonial Makerere conservative school of thought. It is this brave union that led to the success of the NRM revolution and the creation of the new democratic Uganda we now enjoy.
The above debate points to the serious challenges the Ugandan elite faced when constructing the post-colonial nationalist project. Unfortunately, most scholarships then uncritically called the project radical.
Concurrently, those who were conservative were viewed as reactionaries. The examples of Lule and Binaisa disprove this oversimplification. For while the UPC leadership in the 1960s postured as a radical nationalistic party, it unfortunately failed to offer Ugandans the required accommodative political infrastructure that ensured sustainable democratic governance.
It is the NRM, under President Museveni, that ingeniously innovated this required infrastructure.
First through moving beyond the narrow conservative, reactionary, radical and progressive false dichotomy and thus enabling them to create a true national movement at both the elite and mass levels.
Democracy was viewed beyond narrow urban-based politicking and broadened to include mass participation through the resistance councils. Secondly and equally fundamental, they created a disciplined pro-people’s army led by the democratic intellectuals. This being the National Resistance Army, now renamed the Uganda People’s Defence Forces.
Deputy principal private secretary to the President
The answer lies in their differing track records, in as much as both were Baganda and Budonians. Binaisa’s actions disqualified him from being a national hero because he, unfortunately, applied his legal intellect to stifle Uganda’s democratisation process in the early to mid-1960’s. This, by being a conscious central actor together with his ally Prime Minster Apollo Obote, in the abrogation of the controversial 1962 Lancaster House Constitution, in 1966. With apprent gusto, they also imposed on this country the 1966 ‘Pigeon Hole’ Constitution, and suspended the rule of law in Buganda through draconian colonial emergency regulations between 1966 and 1971. Furthermore, they attacked the Lubiri with about 1,000 innocent civilians being killed, and the exiling of Kabaka Muteesa. Vindictively, they imprisoned their political opponents without trial. Binaisa also played an ambivalent role in the political struggles that eventually shaped the new Uganda through the NRM revolution of 1981 to 1986.
Lule had no such checkered political background. Way back in the 1940s, he illustrated that he was a pragmatic gentleman. For the sake of his love, Anna, he converted from Islam into the Anglican faith.
The attractive Anna was from the Buganda conservative stock. In the 1950s, Lule joined Benedicto Kiwanuka’s DP, illustrating that he was above sectarian bigotry.
Although as President, for 68 days, Lule was accused of behaving in a rigid colonial schoolmasterly manner, legally he did not abuse the existing 1967 republican constitutional order.
This was the ruling by Chief Justice Wako Wambuzi of the High Court, in 1980. Equally important, Lule illustrated that he was a democratic nationalist by pivotally associating himself with the NRM-led liberation in 1981. This was not due to lack of options, as he could have remained put. He was a respectable international educational administrator who could have joined the Uganda Freedom Movement, but Lule preferred Museveni’s People’s Redemption Army.
This great leap of faith illustrated Lule’s pragmatism and strength of character. For his coalition partners, Museveni and Eriya Kategaya were much younger, Banyankore, and Dar-es-salaam-trained radical intellectuals.
Lule, a Muganda, was from the colonial Makerere conservative school of thought. It is this brave union that led to the success of the NRM revolution and the creation of the new democratic Uganda we now enjoy.
The above debate points to the serious challenges the Ugandan elite faced when constructing the post-colonial nationalist project. Unfortunately, most scholarships then uncritically called the project radical.
Concurrently, those who were conservative were viewed as reactionaries. The examples of Lule and Binaisa disprove this oversimplification. For while the UPC leadership in the 1960s postured as a radical nationalistic party, it unfortunately failed to offer Ugandans the required accommodative political infrastructure that ensured sustainable democratic governance.
It is the NRM, under President Museveni, that ingeniously innovated this required infrastructure.
First through moving beyond the narrow conservative, reactionary, radical and progressive false dichotomy and thus enabling them to create a true national movement at both the elite and mass levels.
Democracy was viewed beyond narrow urban-based politicking and broadened to include mass participation through the resistance councils. Secondly and equally fundamental, they created a disciplined pro-people’s army led by the democratic intellectuals. This being the National Resistance Army, now renamed the Uganda People’s Defence Forces.
Deputy principal private secretary to the President