Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
Today, October 13, in 2007, the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) chose Mbale District to host the second memorial of its founding president, Apollo Milton Obote.
Mr Andrew Nyote, then UPC Bugisu sub-region chairperson, was tasked with ensuring a memorial service and public rally organised in commemoration of the second anniversary of Obote's death.
Nyote said the memorial was originally intended to take place in the Teso sub-region but had to be changed because of the floods there, at the time.
Obote, a two-time president of Uganda, passed away on October 10, 2005, at the age of 80. In a less polarised country, Obote would be feted and toasted as a founding father across the country. Not just by one party or by a single district.
Mbale Town is, after all, hallowed ground to the National Resistance Movement (NRM). That is where House 49 in Maluku Housing Estate is found. And it is there that, on January 22, 1973, rebel Yoweri Museveni survived death by a hairsbreadth.Again, several other districts have been connected to the NRM’s supposedly salvationist narrative.
So we must have a national memorial for Obote. Even in Buganda, a region which felt hard done by Obote’s two presidencies, his contributions must be highlighted. It should be appreciated that the conflict between Mengo and Obote was more about pre-existing socio-historical realities than Obote’s hatred of Buganda. If it were squarely about the latter, the region would not be in the government’s crosshairs, long after his death.
So it would be a good time to question the conventional wisdom that Obote was a Buganda baiter and hater.During this memorial, the true story of the 1966 Crisis and the Luweero Bush War could be told. Not by one side, but by a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC).This commission would reveal the extent of British responsibility in Uganda’s post-colonial woes, with a view to teasing out whether the British incubated the 1966 Crisis by their pre-independence handling of the Lost Counties question.If found to be negligent, which they most likely were, reparations should be made to Uganda by the British.
The pecuniary details of which could be worked out in the context of a country setback by the events of 1966. And there must be truth surrounding the rise and rule of Idi Amin; it is counterintuitive to still paint him with a broad brush.
Of course, Obote made mistakes. But he was used as a bogeyman by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) for so long that his mistakes metastasised to sheer villainy. Yet history is written by the victors.
So the vanquished are often deprived of the spoils which come with a fair narrative. Besides that, Obote’s regimes are where most of the better policies of the NRM came from. Obote I, for instance, already had Universal Primary Education in plan.
Internationally, Obote’s pan-Africanist credentials were reflected in his willingness to ruffle the feathers of Western powers. This did not end well for him. However, let us not forget that such a path, when genuinely taken, rarely ends well for any African leader. Obote’s pursuit of a governing majority is the blueprint for Museveni’s regime today.
Right down to the encirclement of Buganda. We did say that Obote made mistakes. These were of a political, rather than genocidal nature. But then again, many would demur. Such disagreement is essential to a functioning democracy, further justifying a TRRC.
Finally, an Obote (national) memorial can be used to unite the country around a figure who fought for our independence. Despite a battalion of reasons to the contrary, independence is still something worth celebrating.
