Muteesa’s body arrives to an empty Parliament

Former president Idi Amin (left) pays tribute to ex-Kabaka Edward Muteesa at Parliament in 1971. PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRY LUBEGA

As the days for the return of former Kabaka Edward Muteesa’s remains neared, government drew a plan so that the public would pay its respects to the first president of the country.

March 29, 1971, to April 4, 1971, when the body was laid to rest were days of mourning and were declared public holidays. The body was taken to different places, including Parliament where it laid in state.
Edward Ochwo, who was the clerk to Parliament at the time it was disbanded, was retained as the officer in-charge of the Parliament Building. He recalls the day Muteesa lay in state.

“A few days before the body was returned, [former president Idi] Amin sent one of his aides to instruct me to prepare the Parliament chambers.

The chambers needed some preparation because they were not in use since Parliament had been disbanded. I still had a small staff which I mobilised and we had the chambers ready in time.

The body arrived at Parliament at around midday on a military gun carrier, accompanied by two ministers, Henry Kyemba who was the Health minister and Foreign Affairs minister Wanume Kibedi.
Once the military delivered the body, they withdrew. I received the body at Parliament and ushered it in the empty main chambers. Though government made announcements calling on people to go to different places on that day, including Parliament, majority went to Kololo.

There was a vigil at Parliament with the body lying in state. People from all walks of life started trekking into the parliamentary grounds that evening for the vigil.

These included members of the royal family, members of the Grenadier brigade who had escorted him from the UK, government officials and the general public. It was open to everyone.

The mood during the vigil was sombre; the place was quiet. Though people were left to mourn in silence, there was occasional music from the church and the police and prisons’ brass bands.

At around 10 the next morning, the official function started. Politicians, religious leaders and diplomats were among those in attendance. When Amin arrived, he walked straight into the chambers with no guard of honour mounted for inspection.

Amin was among those who made a speech. At around midday, the body left the Parliament Building for Namirembe Cathedral. Almost, if not all, those who attended the vigil at Parliament wore black armbands, including the Grenadier brigade officers.

The day the body lay in state was a very sad day; it was similar to the day Muteesa was deported in 1953. The entire country was sad. There was sadness written all over the faces of those who attended.
The body left Parliament slightly after midday for Namirembe. At Parliament the coffin was not opened, so those who wanted to prove that the body was indeed Muteesa’s went to the cathedral where it was put in a glass.”

Kabaka Muteesa’s death

On November 22, 1969, unbelievable news begun to filter into Buganda, that something was amiss with the king exiled in London. It was BBC and Radio Uganda that first aired the news about the death of Kabaka Edward Mutesa II.

But the news was immediately dispelled. Buganda propagandists preached that it was president Milton Obote who had circulated the rumours – and that Muteesa was alive and well.

On the other side, however, those who believed that he was dead discreetly exploited the sad news to slander Obote, by claiming that it was him who had assassinated Muteesa by poison.

They claimed that the conduit of poison was a Muganda girl sent by Obote; who administered it to Muteesa as he wined on his 45th birthday on November 19, 1969 in London.

It was not until April 4, 1971, when Muteesa was laid to rest at the Kasubi Royal Tombs, that the souls that had become doubting Thomas’s believed the bitter truth that their Kabaka was dead. That notwithstanding, many others to this day do not believe the cause of his death, or of what the autopsy reported.

Continues next Sunday