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Uganda turns 58: What phase of nation-building are we at?
2019 Independence day celebrations in Sironko. PHOTO/JEFF MULONGO/PPU
What you need to know:
Karoli Ssemogerere's talking point: Amin perhaps ran the most nationalistic government in Uganda’s history.
On October 9, 1962, the British as in many of their former colonies, protectorates and dependencies and under pressure from the United States and the United Nations, handed over symbolic political power to Ugandans.
Apollo Milton Obote and the Uganda Peoples Congress took the reins of power after their victory in the April 1962 election. In 1966-1967 another vestige of colonial rule, the monarchies and chiefdoms disappeared from Uganda’s polity when Uganda became a republic. General Election, which was due in 1967, never took place and Obote was ousted by his army commander, with the assistance of the British, in 1971.
To this day, very little formatively is known about Milton Obote’s earlier years something which made him highly suitable in a parochial society like Uganda. But Obote represented not just the status quo, but also the departing political regime.
The British were always mad at Muteesa II for challenging their authority in Buganda and the Labour (Republican government) of Harold Wilson cut him no favours when he was forced into exile in 1966. The British remained very comfortable with Obote up and until his Move to the Left threatened imperialist interests.
Obote in 1969, took the first step towards attacking the last bastion of the colonial elite by appointing the first four indigenous Ugandan judges. Ugandan legal professionals until the opening of the Law Development Centre and Makerere, had little formal training in the laws of Uganda.
Many things which were done seem impossible today. The first judges, Wambuzi CJ, Lubogo, Kantinti and Mukasa represented a new shade of key decision making. Amin mostly inherited the same system and went further appointing the first Ugandan Chief Justice Ben Kiwanuka in 1971. Kiwanuka’s demise and the circumstances thereof are for another day.
When Amin expelled Asians from Uganda in 1972, a move that had been in the offing since 1967, the British who were on the receiving end of receiving their former nationals, who refused to renounce their citizenship, finally woke up that their baby had outgrown them.
Amin perhaps ran the most nationalistic government in Uganda’s history. Like Obote, he came from the fringes of society but carried the purpose of a military person checked by a limited formal education. But Uganda’s elite at the time served without hesitation in his government.
In 1980, Milton Obote returned to power with British cooperation in a sharply contested election. By this time, Ugandans psyche had changed. No less than a dozen rebel groups sprung up to oust him. Even the Baganda, who ignored him in 1966 and continued to go about their businesses in humiliation after the exiling of the Kabaka, picked arms to fight him.
But the 1980 Obote was a far-shadow of his earlier self, mostly a puppet of the political-military complex that was now in charge. His army commander David Oyite Ojok was the chairman of the Coffee Marketing Board to oversee repayment of war debts to Tanzania. Julius Kambarage Nyerere was happy to be relieved of sitting a government in exile at a time of dire economic straits in Tanzania that only ended with his premature exit in 1985.
Since this turbulent era, Uganda has been in a slower replay of these early formative years. Uganda remains a republic but the former kingdoms and chiefdoms are part of its identity but without their earlier powers. Our neighbours DRC and South Sudan remain a challenge. Obote tried to push for South Sudan’s integration into Uganda, an idea that only gained legs after his departure when the Americans saw a chance to build a Christian bulwark against the Islamist regimes in Khartoum.
As the years go by, the following questions challenge our national identity. Does Uganda have a State identity? Does Uganda have a State religion? What is and will remain Uganda’s dominant economic and social classes?
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]
