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Joyce Ssebugwawo: From Buganda loyalist to Museveni go-between
President Museveni (right) interacts with Buganda Kingdom clan leaders during a meeting at State House Entebbe in March. Clan leaders in Buganda Kingdom are to hold an urgent meeting in a bid to resolve a brewing crisis over the unsanctioned meeting. PHOTO/PPU
What you need to know:
- For most of her life, Joyce Nabbosa Ssebugwawo has adhered to the Ganda notion of the indomitability of the Kabaka. But as Derrick Kiyonga writes, her loyalty is being questioned following her appointment as minister in the NRM government.
- She has played a leading role in ensuring the Bataka (clan heads) meet up with her boss, President Museveni, a move that has annoyed the monarchy.
Even when it was clear that National Unity Platform’s (NUP) Zacchy Mberaze Mawula had an insurmountable lead in his efforts to end Joyce Nabbosa Ssebugwawo’s two-term reign as Rubaga Division’s mayor, Buganda Kingdom-owned Central Broadcasting Services (CBS) FM presented a rosy picture.
As results trickled in, its presenters kept saying it was still possible that Ssebugwawo could retain her seat that she first clinched in 2011. This didn’t materialise.
But it is clear to see why CBS presenters kept the faith in light to defeat since Ssebugwawo isn’t only a shareholder of the station, but also one of its directors.
It was in 1996 that Ssebugwawo teamed up with John Ssebaana Kizito, veteran lawyer John Katende, Godfrey Kaaya Kavuma, Jolly Lutaaya, and Buganda Kingdom – the majority shareholder – to form CBS which they labelled as the kingdom’s mouthpiece.
Even before CBS was formed, Ssebugwawo had been a key pillar in the restoration of the kingdom in 1993, and she served as a minister for women, community work, and mobilisation.
When the National Resistance Council (NRC), President Museveni’s post-war legislature, passed the Traditional Rulers Restitution of Assets and Properties Statute in 1993, Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi II reacted by putting in place a team that would negotiate the return of Buganda properties, commonly known as “ebyaffe”.
Ssebugwawo made the cut of the team led by Prof Apolo Nsibambi, Nadduli Kibale, Grace Semakula, Musoke Ndugwa, Musoke Kayita, Joash Mayanja Nkangi, Godfrey Lule, Damiano Lubega, Joyce Mpanga, Bwogi Kanyerezi, Joyce Kaddu, John Baptist Walusimbi, Prof William Senteza Kajubi, inter alia.
Ssebugwawo’s place in Mengo was further cemented in 1999 when Kabaka Mutebi married Nnabagereka Sylvia Nagginda, whom Ssebugwawo had known from the time she was a toddler.
Those who know Ssebugwawo very well say she played a critical role in ensuring the Kabaka married Nagginda. Ssebugwawo is married to Daniel Nkalubo Ssebugwawo, Nagginda’s paternal uncle.
Mr Ssebugwawo, the son of Nelson Edmund Nkalubo Ssebugwawo, who died at the age of 104, had dedicated his life to serving Buganda Kingdom and was once its finance minister in the 1950s.
Having played a big role in restoring the kingdom and setting up CBS, arguably Buganda’s most influential assert, Ssebugwawo took baby steps into the rough and tumble of Uganda’s politics when she joined Dr Kizza Besigye’s Reform Agenda in the early 2000s.
Ssebugwawo with former FDC leader Kizza Besigye in 2015. Photo/File
Reform Agenda, which later morphed into the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was founded by Besigye, a National Resistance Army (NRA) veteran who had fallen out with Museveni after he outed a dossier in 1999 basically accusing the former guerrilla leader of failing the ideals of the NRA revolution.
“All in all, when I reflect on the Movement’s philosophy and governance, I can conclude that the Movement has been manipulated by those seeking to gain or retain political power, in the same way that political parties in Uganda were manipulated. Evidently, the results of this manipulation are also the same, to wit: Factionalism, loss of faith in the system, corruption, insecurity and abuse of human rights, economic distortions, and eventually decline,” he wrote.
“So, whether it’s political parties or Movement, the real problem is dishonest, opportunistic, and undemocratic leadership operating in a weak institutional framework and a weak civil society that cannot control them,” he added.
When Ssebugwawo first had a shot at elective politics during the 2008 Rubaga Division mayoral by-election, she pitched her contribution to the kingdom as one of her strengths.
“You know Rubaga is a special division, unlike other divisions. It is unique and special because it has all Buganda cultural sites like Kasubi Tombs, Bulange, Kabaka’s lake and so many sites of Buganda that we cherish so much. Because of the land wrangles going on between Mengo and the central government, I decided to come out and offer myself and try to protect all these assets that are dear to us. I fought for them and I was among the [Mengo] team that negotiated with the government for ebyaffe. So, I think I am the right person to stand in Rubaga,” said Ssebugwawo, who would lose to NRM’s Peter Sematimba, but she would claim the seat in 2011.
Even after Ssebugwawo joined mainstream politics, preaching the gospel of change in the country, the respect she had in Mengo, the seat of the Buganda government, remained intact as she could grace the kingdom’s functions when available and she was clearly revered on CBS as she was called “Ow’ekitiibwa”, a title given to Kabaka’s ministers.
Losing seat
According to those who know her, who spoke on condition of anonymity such that they can speak freely, when Ssebugwawo lost her Rubaga mayoral seat to NUP’s Mberaze, she apportioned the blame partly to Mengo.
Sources say Ssebugwawo accused Mengo of not giving her enough support to stymie the so-called ‘NUP wave’ or ‘umbrella wave’ that swept across Buganda sub-region, leading many veteran politicians to lose their positions, including her.
Mengo’s response, according to sources, was that they did all they could but their efforts weren’t enough to shield her from the wave.
Ssebugwawo’s reaction to losing her seat was to accept Museveni’s ministerial offer, thus dumping FDC, the party she had not only aided in its formation but also funded its activities.
When she accepted Museveni’s offer as minister of State in-charge of Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance, Ssebugwawo claimed that she loved FDC but she had to serve the county following a divine calling.
“I thank the President for giving me this opportunity at this age to be able to continue serving my country... I am ready to work and I have come to serve my country with the guidance of God because this was a call from God,” Ssebugwawo, who is famous for spotting blue (FDC colours) gomesi or busuuti said after being vetted for the ministerial position.
“FDC members are still my people and I know they also love me because of the contribution I have made for the party. One or two people might say they have dismissed me but that is dismissing the body but the heart will remain there.”
But in crossing to the central government, Ssebugwawo has become a central figure in Museveni’s plans to have influence in the Mengo establishment.
The point of contention where Ssebugwawo has found herself in the spot of bother has been moved to hobnob with the Bataka, or clan heads, which in a way has reignited the Bataka question in Buganda.
Kabaka Mutebi at his coronation in 1993. Photo/File
The Bataka question
In the Buganda Kingdom structure, the Bataka head the 52 clans and they hold substantial roles as they assume the duty of representing and providing direction to their corresponding clans on matters straddling the cultural, social, and at times, political domains of the kingdom.
Although they are held in high esteem, the Bataka were undercut by the controversial 1900 Buganda Agreement as they were excluded from the governance structure of the kingdom.
In the agreement, each clan was allotted a piece of land as its burial ground known as Butaka, and these clan lands were scared as they weren’t to be controlled by the Kabaka, but by the Bataka who managed it on behalf of their clans.
On the other hand, chiefs and other notables, in the agreement, were given freehold land but the Bataka were left out in the cold as their rights were ignored.
In 1921, the Bataka protested, telling the colonial government that the land in the 1900 Agreement had created a cocoon of people with huge chunks of land while the rest had nothing.
“Even the Kabaka (Daudi Chwa) agreed that many Bataka had been dispossessed by the 1900 land allocation, yet both the Kabaka and the protectorate officials agreed that it would be impossible to undo the allocation and thus the Bataka nursed their grievances without any hope of redress,” the minister of State for Lands, Sam Mayanja, who has researched extensively about land tenure system in Buganda, says.
All along, the Bataka have claimed to be impoverished and ignored by Mengo and earlier this year, Ssebugwawo delivered them to Museveni, with State House later releasing a statement rationalising the meet as the need by the President to restore a connection with the Bataka, three decades after the kingdom’s restoration, ensuing to its dissolution by Milton Obote in 1967.
It has since emerged that with Ssebugwawo being the go-between, money was delivered to the Bataka that they used to procure 2.2 acres of land near the Kabaka’s palace in Mengo. The fact that they did this without alerting Katikkiro (Buganda prime minister) Charles Peter Mayiga, or the Kabaka, has opened a can of worms.
“We are unaware of any arrangements involving the mentioned clan heads with either the President as an individual or the central government,” Mayiga said, adding that even the speaker of the council of clan heads had not been informed about these developments.
Yet former Buganda Katikkiro Dan Muliika has heaped the blame on Ssebugwawo who he accuses of organising such clandestine meetings which are aimed at weakening the monarchy.
“I will mobilise people to shun Ssebugwawo and I will also sensitise the Bataka on their roles. We can’t allow the Kabaka to be undermined,” Muliika said.
On her part, Ssebugwawo, who has always been devoted to the Kabaka, has this time given a defiant tone, telling off her critics that it’s not written anywhere that the Bataka must give the Kabaka or Katikkiro a heads-up before meeting with Museveni.
“There is no need for clan leaders [Bataka] to inform the Katikkiro because all proceeds are good for clan leaders and the Buganda Kingdom,” Ssebugwawo told Daily Monitor.
Mengo clearly doesn’t share that view, with Mayiga saying the Bataka in meeting Museveni – who has promised them cash to set up offices on the land and other income-generating activities – didn’t follow the right procedures, something that he said was contrary to the kingdom’s norms and could lead to the creation of factions.
