Cohen’s ‘Uganda Project’ faces stiff resistance

Former governor of Uganda Andrew Cohen. With his arrival as governor, the process of developing Uganda as one state as proposed by his predecessor Sir John Hall changed.

What you need to know:

  • Concept of unitary state. With the arrival of Andrew Cohen as governor, the whole process of developing Uganda as one state as proposed by Sir John Hall changed. When he arrived in Uganda, Cohen did not only cause a radical change in the pace, but also the direction of political development.

By the end of World War II, Uganda was a country largely composed of Africans compared to her neighbour Kenyan where White settlers and Indians were in sizeable numbers.
According to the 1948 population census, Uganda had 1,488 Goans; 1,475 Arabs; 643 coloureds, with 33,767 Asians and 3,448 Europeans.
Despite their small number, Asians controlled much of the retail and wholesale trade at the time, while Europeans where in government service, or doing missionary work and a small number of them were planters.
When Sir John Hall became governor of Uganda in 1944, his policy was to have Uganda developed by Africans for Africans, which was not the case in Kenya.
The indigenous Ugandan population by 1947 was slightly more than five million people, which was very much divide on religious grounds following the religious wars of the late 1890’s. These divisions had spread beyond Buganda.
Writing in the third volume of History of East Africa Cherry, Gertzel says: “Buganda rich in history and past achievements …. It was also the most economically advanced region in the protectorate.”
He goes on to say in the same publication that, “Buganda farmers led Uganda into the production of first cotton and then coffee.”
The two played a key role in shaping the country’s economy as early as the late 1940’s. This was as a result of high prices on the world market soon after World War II.
In the education sector, since missionaries were the backbone of education in Uganda, they first established the system in Buganda, giving it a lion’s share.
According to a report titled African Education by the Busen Committee of 1953, which had been set up to study and make recommendation for future African education, by 1951 there was an imbalance in the education of the Africans in the protectorate.
Of the 173,000 primary school-going children at the time, 58,046 were from Buganda alone, while in secondary education there were 1,036 students in Buganda compared to 876 in the rest of the country.
Politically, Buganda did not feel as being part of the rest of the protectorate because of the 1900 Agreement. Gertzel says: “Her traditional institutions safeguarded by that agreement, emphasised her separate political identity.”
Buganda’s contribution to the politics of Uganda started with the economic and political discontent by the masse spearheaded by the Bataka party.
Though these early grievances claimed Katikkiro Martin Nsibirwa’s life, the protectorate government managed to contain them. However, the colonial administrators did not contain the political agitation the grievances came with.
The political tension in Buganda was heightened further by the protectorate government amending its proposals for the East Africa High Commission which had first been proposed in 1945. The proposal was revised in 1947.

Need for representation
The popular economic and political discontent with the threat of the union played in a part in the increased demands for a reformed Lukiiko (parliament) in Buganda where the masses wanted to have a say in who represented them.
The Bataka Party of Joseph Miti and the Uganda African Farmers Union of Ignatius Musaazi were looked at as the possible avenues to lead the Baganda agitation for better leadership.
According to a report by the commission of inquiry into the civil disturbance in Uganda in April 1949, chaired by Sir D. Kingdon, “they [political parties] exploited the growing network of communication spreading out from the new African urban area of Katwe gowning up on the edge of Kampala to establish links throughout the countryside.”
Shortly after, in September 1949, there was another wave of violence in Buganda. The two Baganda, Miti and Musazi, opposed to the way issues at Mengo were being run were blamed.
According to Low and Pratt in the book Buganda and the British Overrule, “the 1949 riots demonstrated both the intensity of the agitation…. not against the protectorate government but against the Lukiiko.”
The two authors are supported by David Apter in his book The Political Kingdom in Uganda. He says, “Ganda politics at the grassroots level were consequently in 1949 tribal and inward looking than nationalist in orientation.”
As the agitation for a political change within Buganda was taking shape, the protectorate government under Sir John Hall adopted a totally different approach towards changes in the central administration.
The central government concentrated on economics, rather than politics. The governor urged that “if change was to happen, it should start with the local government rather than the central government.”

Cohen’s concept of a unitary state
With the arrival of Cohen as governor of Uganda, the whole process of developing Uganda as one state as proposed by Sir John Hall changed.
Before coming to Uganda, Cohen had been in the colonial office where he was pivotal in formulating colonial policies.
When he arrived in Uganda, the governor did not only cause a radical change in the pace, but also the direction of political development in the protectorate. Gertzel says Cohen was determined to push the country towards the road to self-government as soon as possible.
Cohen expedited the implementation of the C.A.G. Willis commission of inquiry into African local government in the Uganda protectorate.
The commission recommended that local services be transferred to districts councils.
“Uganda must develop as a unitary state in which no part of the country should dominate any other,” Cohen insisted.
Cohen’s stand was in tandem with the colonial office’s endorsement of the Wallis report, saying “The future of Uganda must lie in the form of central government and parliamentary lines covering the whole country with the component parts of the country developing within it according to their own special characteristics. The protectorate is too small to grow into a series of separate units of government even if these are federated together.”
In 1953, Cohen decided to increase the size of the Legislative Council (LEGCO) to 56 from 32 members, with 28 members being representatives of the different districts outside Buganda.
Having increased the number of local representation in the LEGCO, Cohen then turned his focus on Buganda where he recommended substantial reforms in its administration.
In a March 1953 joint memorandum signed by both Cohen and Kabaka Muteesa, it was agreed that responsibilities of certain departmental services would be transferred to the Buganda government and the necessary financial adjustment made.
The two leaders also agreed that 68 of the 80 members of the Lukiiko would be elected through indirect election at the miruka (sub-county) level. Despite these overtures from the Cohen administration, the Mengo government was thinking different.

Mengo’s reaction to a unitary state
The Mengo administration took Cohen’s administrative change with a pinch of salt because the changes he introduced instead weakened the position of the chiefs in the Lukiiko while promoting the elected Lukiiko members.
The Lukiiko did not embrace the changes as proposed by Cohen and instead opted to go against the memorandum signed in March 1953.
Gerztel says: “The Ganda still did not regard themselves as part of the protectorate and their reluctance to do so was demonstrated by the Lukiiko’s refusal to nominate Ganda representatives to the enlarged Legislative Council.”
These conflicts resulted in the Buganda crisis of 1953-1955, which was settled through the Namirembe conference culminating in the Buganda Agreement of 1955 which came into effect upon the return of Mutesa in 1955.
The agreement turned Buganda into a constitutional monarchy. It removed the kabaka from the day-to-day running of the government and made the katikkiro an elected official of the Lukiiko like the rest of the Lukiiko members.
The same agreement gave Buganda a form of internal self-government which was an important change to the politics of the country at large.
This moved Buganda to a federated state which was the opposite of developing Uganda as a unitary state as it matched towards independence.

Cohen’s pronouncements
According to Colonia government files in the National Archives, on November 14, 1954, governor Cohen, during his address to the Lukiiko, made two important pronouncements related to the administration of the central government.
The two included the increase in the number of Africans in the Legislative Council, making up half of the council, and the introduction of the post of ministers in the central government.
Under the new arrangement, an executive council was introduced which included seven unofficial ministers, five of them African.
This was the first time that the central government was mainly controlled by Africans, a step towards self-government as desired by governor Cohen.
Despite the move of having more Africans in the central government, the Mengo government was still holding out.
The Uganda Relationships Commission of Lord Muster, however, showed that despite the 1955 agreement, very little had changed in Mengo and there was nothing that could be done without the approval of the kabaka.
When the African representatives to the Legislative Council increasingly showed nationalistic attitude, the Lukiiko and Mengo government again found an excuse to drag their feet in as far as cooperating with the central government was concerned.
The Mengo government was concerned that the African representatives were questioning the special treatment being accorded to Buganda.
When in 1957 two representatives from Mengo to the LEGCO resigned, the Mengo government decided not to replace them as a way of reducing the influence for Africanisation.
The decision not to have a replacement was in protest of the appointment of a speaker of the LEGCO which was against the 1955 agreement.
The agreement had stipulated that not until 1961, there would be no major constitutional changes.

In part two next week, read about the political changes outside Buganda Kingdom.

Cohen’s pronouncements

According to Colonial government files in the National Archives, on November 14, 1954, Cohen, during his address to the Lukiiko, made two important pronouncements related to the administration of the central government.
The two included the increase in the number of Africans in the Legislative Council, making up half of the council, and the introduction of the post of ministers in the central government.