Looking through the 20 years of Mutebi’s reign

Of all the entities that eventually formed the Uganda Protectorate and then the Republic of Uganda, Buganda was the one that found and still finds it the hardest to adjust to this awkward co-existence.

Buganda’s relationship with the central government, be it with the colonial administration or the immediate post-independence government, was always tense and always going to be so.

It was a more fully developed political and administrative entity by the 1850s than any other kingdom. The Protectorate, if anything, strengthened and enhanced the four other inter-lacustrine kingdoms of Ankole, Bunyoro, Busoga and Tooro.

Modern education, medicine, infrastructure and public administration helped them close the gap with their traditional rival Buganda, which partly explains why they historically did not (with the exception of Bunyoro) have quite the strained relations with the central government that Buganda did).
As independence approached, it became clear that a crisis was in the making.

To get Buganda to reluctantly agree to being part of an independent Uganda, exceptions had to be made at every turn. It was granted a federal status and often had special representatives at various consultative meetings and councils.

Post-independence cracks
To expand the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party’s national appeal and win the 1962 General Election, the UPC went into alliance with the monarchist Kabaka Yekka (KY) party, at a time many Roman Catholic Baganda felt left at the margins by the Anglican-dominated Buganda royal family and administrative seat at Mengo.

This Anglican-led UPC/KY alliance brought the UPC to power and Milton Obote became prime minister, leading Uganda into formal independence in October 1962.

That having been accomplished, however, the cracks inevitably began to re-appear. What would be the role of the Kabaka in this UPC/KY-led government? The answer: President of Uganda.
Next question: If the Kabaka was to be President of Uganda, to whom was he expected to pledge first allegiance, Uganda or Buganda? Answer: awkward silence.

A further even more awkward question: Assuming Benedicto Kiwanuka, president-General of the Catholic-leaning Democratic Party, had become prime minister in 1962 and not Milton Obote and Edward Mutesa was still nominated to be President of Uganda, how would the executive prime minister Kiwanuka to relate, in terms of protocol, with the Kabaka at State occasions?
As prime minister in the 1962 order, Kiwanuka would hold the real executive powers while Mutesa the ceremonial; but according to Buganda culture, Kiwanuka, a Muganda, was a subject of Mutesa the Kabaka.

That was the complicated political situation Uganda found itself in, in 1962 and the tensions, suspicion by the Obote government of military subversion on the part of Buganda led to the May 1966 military assault on the Kabaka’s Palace.
Had that assault not happened, what would have been the relationship between the central government and Mengo? At best, it would have grown increasingly tense and problematic to both sides.

The traditional kingdoms were abolished in September 1967, Uganda became a full republic and the kingdoms went into a 25-year lull until they were restored in April 1992.
President Idi Amin in March 1971, soon after coming to power, understood the pain Buganda still felt at the events of 1966 of which he, as deputy army commander, had been an active participant. But Baganda had also generously showered him with their support as soon as his coup succeeded, so he sought to return the favour by returning Edward Mutesa’s remains from London.

However, even he knew the logic of the structure of the Ugandan State as it stood: No central government could afford to grant Buganda its full historical wishes if it were to remain a central government.

And so after this brief honeymoon with Buganda, his military government remained in absolute control and the kingdoms abolished. Two Baganda presidents, Yusufu Lule and Godfrey Binaisa who followed Amin’s downfall, also kept silent about the restoration of the kingdom, as did Paulo Muwanga, also a Muganda, the strongman at the helm of power in the intervening months between Binaisa’s overthrow in May 1980 and the return to power of Obote in December 1980.

The return to Uganda in August 1986 of the Crown Prince (Ssabataka) Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II and the July 31, 1993 coronation came as catharsis to older Baganda. If it did nothing else, the sight of a coronation at Nnagalabi in 1993 felt like justice and a restoration of things.

Children barely old enough to remember the 1980 General Election, let alone the 1960s monarchies, danced and welcomed the Crown Prince of Tooro, Patrick Kaboyo, on his return from Cuba as ambassador to take up his vacant throne.
It was a time of deep gratitude and good feeling toward President Museveni for a certain generation of Ugandans.

Restoration of kingdoms
Museveni’s decision to restore the traditional kingdoms after he had first consolidated his hold on power gave him a new lease of life, won him much support and gratitude in Buganda, Tooro, Bunyoro and Busoga, four of the five historic kingdoms which together formed the nucleus of post-protectorate Uganda.

His decision not to restore the Ankole Kingdom, equally, played into popular sentiment.
The cattle-keeping East Ankole people called the Bahima, who form the smaller group from among which Ankole kings traditionally came, naturally resented and still resent this refusal to restore their kingdom.

The West Ankole people called the Bairu, who historically resented the Bahima monarchy, jubilated at Museveni’s ambiguous stand on the restoration of the Ankole monarchy.
Museveni handled the Bahima’s bitterness by granting them access to the perks of State power and key positions within the intelligence and military services and business opportunities in the central government.

The Bahima became a military and economic royalty but lived their fantasies over blood royalty through their adoration of the glamorous and photogenic Tooro royal family.
Museveni played on the Baganda resentment at Milton Obote over the abolition of their kingdom in 1967 to garner what support he did at the start of his 1981 guerrilla war.
There is every possibility that another renegade called Gen David Tinyefuza, a Muhima, could create deep and dangerous splits within Museveni’s core Bahima support by suggesting that if he were to come to power, among his priorities, would be to restore the Ankole monarchy.

Restoration of the Buganda
The 1990s Uganda in which the Buganda monarchy was revived was different from what it has been at its peak in the 1950s.
Uganda was broken by two decades of armed conflict, much of it having taken part on Buganda soil.

Many more militant Baganda who felt frustrated that Mutebi has not taken a more aggressive stance toward the Museveni government did not fully understand this history.

Mindful of this fractious relationship with the central government dating back to the exiling of Kabaka Mwanga to the Seychelles in the late 19th Century, Mutesa to London in 1953 and 1966 and his own youthful years in London, Kabaka Mutebi appears to have decided on a cautious relationship with the NRM government. The Mutebi monarchy, realistic about its limited room for maneouvre, worked its way around this problem by restoring glory and viability by other means.

Rather than demand and expect its pound of flesh at one single offering, Mengo guided by Viceroys (KatikKiro) like Jehoash Mayanja-Nkangi and especially Joseph Mulwanyamuli Ssemogerere, decided to patiently work on gaining incremental concessions from the government, using both carrot (subtle political support) and stick (subtle withholding of political support) and playing on Museveni’s indebtedness over Buganda support for the NRA guerrillas.

An FM radio station, Central Broadcasting Services (CBS FM, or Radio Buganda) was launched in June 1996 and became an immediate success.

Behind-the-scenes, negotiations saw the return of the Twekobe and Bulange to the kingdom in 1997. Mutebi’s wedding to the well-educated and much-respected Sylvia Nnaginda in August, 1999, was a national event and also received substantial international news reporting.
A Buganda royal university, the Mutesa I Royal University, was founded, with the Buganda clan football league having been earlier revived.

However, Buganda remained Buganda, meaning its ambitions were never going to remain about token institutions and events. It started to ask afresh the problematic questions that every central government wished would simply go away.
From this point on, the tensions of the 1950s and 1960s began to simmer once again.

Around the time of the 1994 Constituent Assembly debates on the creation of a new constitution, hardline Baganda like the Rev Dan Kajumba, Dauncan Kafeero and others, started asking questions about a restoration of the federal status Buganda had enjoyed under the 1962 Constitution.

They were quietly sidelined by the Mengo establishment nervous about repeating the directly confrontational stance of the 1960s, but many Baganda agreed with the hardliners.
Army officers like Major Herbert Itongwa launched brief military uprisings in 1995 as an expression of this underlying sentiment in Buganda that would not settle for a titular monarchy.

When a land reform Bill was proposed in parliament in 1998, the matter of land the government still owed Buganda and the accumulating rent on its properties returned to the surface.
It soon became clear that the NRM government was caught up in the same damned-either-way-you-act position as the British colonial government had been in the 1950s and the UPC government in the 1960s.

Essentially, this impossible position is that in order for any central government at the helm of power in Uganda to government, be strong or even exist at all, Buganda must, of necessity, be kept on a leash and in a weakened position.
There cannot be a powerful, self-sufficient central government and a powerful, self-sufficient Buganda occupying the same space at the same time. Not, at least, under the present republican, non-federal order.

Federal question
The answer to this historical dilemma, many Baganda intellectuals, monarchists and a few non-Baganda analysts argued over the years, was the formation of a comprehensive federal Uganda, for every part of Uganda.
A political party, the Uganda Federal Alliance, formed ahead of the 2011 General Election, fronted this formula of federalism: not as a partial political concession of privilege to a restless Buganda, but as a permanent solution to the problem of too much power and too many resources in the hands of the central government.

When crude petroleum reserves started to be explored around the Albertine area of Bunyoro in June 2006, a number of Mengo officials and later the Uganda Federal Alliance’s president Beti Kamya, anxious to deflect attention from the perception of Buganda as inward-looking, argued that Bunyoro was entitled to special benefits from its oil reserves, as were Karamoja to its gold deposits and Acholi from reports that it too might have oil.

In the meantime, Buganda was saddened (and after a while also aroused to suspicion) by a fire that destroyed part of Budo Junior Primary School in April 2008, Owino Market at various intervals and most traumatic of all, a fire that gutted the historic royal tombs at Kasubi just outside Kampala in March 2010.
The cause of the fires have never been officially established, and suspicion lingers on.

In September 2009, three days of unexpected riots broke in Buganda when the then Katikkiro, John Baptist Walusimbi, was prevented by the government from visiting Kayunga district to prepare for a Buganda youth event to be presided over by the Kabaka.

The closure of Buganda’s rallying voice, CBS FM, for more than a year following the riots for many Baganda was a body blow by the Museveni government.

By the time yet another fire erupted at the site of the Kabaka’s coronation at Nnagalabi in 2012, the reaction among many Baganda was one of “So what’s new?”
By the 20th coronation anniversary of Mutebi II, angered by the fires at historic Buganda institutions, the continued refusal by the NRM government to pay its outstanding property rent to Buganda, the perception that corrupt westerners in the NRM government were buying up large tracts of land in Buganda, the high unemployment rate among young Baganda, the lack of progress on the federo question --- all these led to great disillusionment among Baganda.

Such was the disillusionment felt in Buganda as the kingdom entered the second decade of the 21st Century that in a signal that he was starting to abandon the path of caution since, anyway, it was not doing much for Buganda, Mutebi II appointed Charles Peter Mayiga, an all-out combatant monarchist and lawyer, as the new Katikkiro in June 2013.
Mayiga’s maiden speech to the Buganda legislative council, the Lukiiko, was an unapologetic clarion call to Buganda to stand firm and tall, wait patiently, look beyond the NRM government in the belief that ultimately victory and a restoration of all things would one day come, no matter how long and frustrating the waiting might be.

By June 2013, with major splits now clear within the ruling NRM party and the army’s High Command, the Museveni government was in no position to launch the kind of rebuttal it ordinarily would have marshaled in the 1990s, and Mayiga’s confrontational speech went largely unanswered.
By July 2013 and Mutebi’s 20th coronation anniversary, Buganda was somewhere around the level of tensions of February 1966 in the tone of its relations with the central government.

The moral upper hand was on Mengo’s side, the NRM government too embroiled in its own fractured political situation to risk a public row with Buganda that Gen Sejusa might easily take advantage of for his now openly stated intention of overthrowing the Museveni regime and with western donor aid cuts eating into the state, in no real position to respond to some of Buganda’s financial demands even if it wanted to.

The kings of Buganda

Ssekabaka Kato Kintu Kakulukuku
was the King of Buganda in the early 14th Century and he is the first kabaka. Kato Kintu gave himself the name Kintu, a name that he knew the Baganda associated with the father of all people. He died in Nnono Busujju where he was buried.

Ssekabaka Chwa Nnabaka
was also born to Ssekabaka Kintu and Nambi Nantululu of the Nkima Clan (monkey). He was the Kabaka from 1187 to 1217.

Ssekabaka Kimera Walusimbi
He was Kabaka from 1374 to 1404 and only son of Prince Kalemeera, the son of Kabaka Chwa.

Ttembo Kiridde
He was Kabaka (King) of the Kingdom of Buganda. He ruled between 1404 and 1434 and was the 4th Kabaka of Buganda.

Ssekabaka Kiggala Mukaabya Kasungubu
He was the Kabaka from 1434 to 1464 and from 1484 to 1494. He was the 5th king.

Ssekabaka Kiyimba Ssenntimba is believed to be the 6th kabaka who reigned between 1464 to 1484

Kayima Sendikaddiwa was the Kabaka (King) of the Kingdom of Buganda, between 1494 and 1524. He was the 7th Kabaka of Buganda

Ssekabaka Nakibinge Kagali served between 1524 to 1554. He was the 8th Kabaka and was killed in a battle against the Banyoro, at Busajja, in 1554.
He was buried at Kongojje, Busiro.

Ssekabaka Mulondo Sekajja was king between 1555 and 1564. He was the 9th Kabaka and died at the Kiryokyembi Palace, in Mitw’ebiri and buried at Gombe, in Bulemeezi County.

Jemba Busungwe was the 10th Kabaka between 1564 and 1584. He died in 1584.

Suuna I Kisolo, also spelled as Ssuuna I Kisolo, reined from about 1584 until his death around 1614. He was the 11th Kabaka and son of Kabaka Nakibinge Kagali. His mother was Nassuuna, his father’s fifth wife. He ascended to the throne upon the death of his elder half-brother, Kabaka Jemba.

Sekamaanya Kisolo, also spelled as Ssekamaanya Kisolo, was Kabaka of Buganda Kingdom between 1614 and 1634 and the twelfth Kabaka of Buganda. He was the youngest son of Kabaka Mulondo Sekajja, Kabaka of Buganda and ascended to the throne upon the death of his uncle, Suuna I in 1614.

Kimbugwe Kamegere was the 13th Kabaka between 1634 and 1644. Born at Kongojje, Kimbugwe was the youngest son of Suuna I Kisolo and ascended to the throne after the death of his cousin, Kabaka Sekamaanya Kisolo.

Katerega Kamegere (1644 to 1674). He was the only son of Kabaka Sekamanya Kisolo. He became king after allegedly killing his father by witchcraft.

K Mutebi I was the 15th Kabaka between 1644 and 1674. His mother was Namutebi of the Mamba clan, the eighth (8th) wife of his father.

Juuko Mulwaana (1680 to 1690) was the 16th Kabaka of Buganda.

Kayemba Kisiki was became king in1690 until 1704. He was the 17th on the throne

Tebandeke Mujambula, sometimes spelled as Ttebandeke Mujambula, was Kabaka between 1704 and 1724. He was the second son of Kabaka Mutebi I

Ndawula Nsobya was Kabaka between 1724 and 1734. He ascended to the throne upon the death of his cousin.

Kagulu Ntambi Tebukywereke led Buganda from1734 to 1736. He was the eldest son of Kabaka Ndawula Nsobya.

Kikulwe Mawuba was Kabaka between 1736 and 1738. Kikulwe is popular for marrying 555 wives. He took the mantle from his elder brother, Kabaka Kagulu.

Mawanda Sebanakitta reigned between 1738 and 1740 and was the first Buganda king to fight to join Busoga and Buganda.

Mwanga I Sebanakitta was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda from 1740 to 1741.

Namuggala Kagali became Kabaka in1741 to 1750. He was the 24th king

Kyabaggu Kabinuli was Kabaka of Buganda from 1750 until 1780 and was killed by Kikoso, valet to Nakirindisa, at Namubiru, in 1780 and buried at Mereera.

Junju Sendegeya Served from 1780 until 1797. He is very popular because its during his reign that Buganda conquered Buddu from Bunyoro.

Semakookiro Wasajja Nabbunga (1797-1814). During his reign, he told all Baganda to plant Mituba trees.

Kamaanya Kadduwamala was Kabaka from 1814 until 1832. His mother was Naabakyaala Nansikombi Ndwadd’ewazibwa, the Kaddulubaale, of Nseenene clan.

Kabaka Muteesa I (1856 until 1884). He is very popular for having invited the missionaries to Uganda.

Suuna II Kalema Kasinjo Mukaabya Sekkyungwa was Kabaka from 1832 to 1856. He established his capital on Mulago Hill.

Daniel Basammula Mwanga II Mukasa Served from 1884 until 1888 and from 1889 to 1897. He is popular for killing the Uganda Martyrs.

Rashid Kalema Muguluma became Kabaka from October 21, 1888 until October 5, 1889. Kalema was declared Kabaka by the Muslim forces that deposed his elder brother Kabaka Kiweewa Mutebi Nnyonyintono on October 21, 1888.

Captain Sir Daudi Chwa II, KCMG, KBE, was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda from 1897 until 1939. He is popular for having been the youngest king of Buganda after being enthroned at one year-old. During his reign, he was fair, responsible and pragmatic.

Maj Gen Sir Edward Frederick Mutesa II KBE (19 November 1924 – 21 November 1969), was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda from November 22, 1939 until his death. He was the 35th Kabaka of Buganda and the first President of Uganda. He was widely known as King Freddie

Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, is reigning Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda, a kingdom in modern-day Uganda.

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