When Central Government Plotted to Deport And Replace The Kabaka of Buganda But Failed
For many years, the Kingdom of Buganda has battled a strained relationship with the Central Government, often resulting in deposition and exile for its monarchs. The trend has largely been blamed on the 1900 Buganda agreement which accorded the Kingdom preferential treatment as opposed to the rest of the protectorate. This is believed to have made the Baganda people feel special and therefore deny that they too were a confused people. When such an illusion became threatened by the British and later the post independence governments, the result has always been turmoil.
In 1953 , Kabaka Edward Mutesa Walugembe II was deported by the Dir Andrew Cohen Protectorate Administration over his insistence on Buganda separatism. Through dialogue, the impasse was summarily resolved and the King was reinstated and ended up playing a cardinal role in the country’s independence from the British, becoming its first President in 1962.
Yola Odhola documents the events leading to the infamous 1953 Buganda crisis where the British, after the deportation of King Mutesa attempted to persuade him to relinquish his claim on the Kabakaship with no success. The King, while in Exile in Englanda was also advanced a demand prohibiting him from setting foot in Uganda without the Express permission of the British Government. He outright refused to give in. Bellow, Adhola writes;
The following year Buganda became engulfed in a major political crisis which was to have far-reaching effects on the politics of both Buganda and Uganda. By 1953, the decolonization process which had begun with India in 1947 was fast catching-up in Uganda. Yet much as the British desired Uganda to become independent as one country, as early as 1949 it had become clear that Buganda was set on a course of separating from the rest of Uganda.
And so, to proceed with the decolonization of Uganda, the British found it necessary to reverse the separatist tendencies of Buganda. To oversee this reversal, Sir Andrew Cohen was appointed Governor of Uganda. As head of the Africa Division in the Colonial Office, Sir Andrew had presided over the rapid political advance of the colonies in West Africa and was responsible for the relative democratization in other colonies. He arrived in Uganda as Governor in January 1952, and, after an intensive familiarization with the situation, took steps to weaken the forces leading Buganda to the path of separatism.
In March 1953, together with the Kabaka of Buganda, Mutesa II, Sir Andrew issued a joint memorandum on constitutional development and reform in Buganda. Among other reforms, two political changes were announced: 60 of the 89 Lukiiko (Buganda Parliament) members were to be elected, and the Kabaka agreed to consult a Lukiiko Committee before selecting his ministers.
These two reforms were bound to dramatically democratize politics in Buganda, and therefore greatly weaken the entrenched position of the neo-traditionalists who were holding the reigns of power. The doors to office and responsibility were also being opened to those elements in Buganda who were opposed to both British colonial rule and the neo-traditional chiefs and ministers, in one word the Uganda nationalists from Buganda. The other intended effect – and perhaps the most significant – was to begin the process of facilitating the atrophy of the Kabaka and other tribal institutions.
The bait launched by Sir Andrew seemed well swallowed by both the Kabaka and the Lukiiko until everything was thrown overboard by a speech made in Nairobi by Oliver Lyttleton (later Lord Chandos), the Colonial Secretary on 30th June, 1953. The speech alluded to the possibility “as time goes on of still larger measures of unification and federation of the whole of East African territories.”
Reacting to the speech, the Kabaka wrote to the Governor that “the statement of the Secretary of State for the colonies is bound not only to shake the foundations of trust amongst our people but will badly damage the good relations which hitherto exists between Buganda and the British.”
To this, the colonial authorities responded with assurances that the Kabaka dismissed as far weaker than previous ones. The Kabaka also made two demands: (a) that the affairs of Buganda be transferred from the colonial office to the foreign office; and (b) that a timetable for Buganda’s (not Uganda’s) independence be prepared. Clearly these two demands were intended to begin the process of detaching Buganda from the rest of Uganda. As the Kabaka was to argue, “the policy of developing a unified system of government along parliamentary lines must inevitably result in Buganda becoming less and less important in the future.”
There was no way the British were going to accept the dismemberment of the colony. After long and patient-wearing negotiations intended to persuade the Kabaka to drop the demands, the Governor presented the Kabaka three conditions upon which cooperation with the British was to be based. When the Kabaka rejected these conditions, the Governor withdrew British recognition from Mutesa as provided for in the 1900 Agreement and deported him to Britain. The Baganda got thunderstruck by the news of the deportation, and a profound sense of pain and shock overwhelmed the kingdom. The Kabaka’s sister collapsed and died on hearing the news, and her funeral was a peculiarly tense moment. All this was because, to the Baganda of those days, the Kabaka was the visible link between them and the cosmos. He played the role of a major psychological pillar of support. A move that undermined his authority was damning.
At the political level, the intrusion by the British – foreigners to boot – in a matter so intimate to the Ganda polity offended the Baganda as a whole, including those who had lost confidence in Mutesa during the 1949 riots.
In fact, almost instantly, the deportation transformed Mutesa’s image from that of the playboy of the 1940s into a hero. Beyond interference, the Baganda also felt a sense of pique. Before the deportation, the Baganda had believed that, unlike other nationalities in the rest of Uganda, they had never been conquered, that the British overrule over them was by invitation and for protection and education. They had therefore assumed the British could not deal with them summarily the way they did with other nationalities. The deportation dealt a serious blow to this illusion. It also bruised and challenged the pride and self-esteem of the Baganda as a collective. Even those who were nationalistic in outlook and those who had favored the democratization of the powers exercised by the Kabaka, got enraged by the deportation. As Professor Pratt was observed: “The rights and wrongs of the Governor’s attitude counted less in their judgment than the seemingly arbitrary, abrupt and humiliating fashion with which the British dealt with . . .”
Following the deportation, the British initially prosecuted a strategy to have Mutesa replaced as Kabaka. Some efforts were made to persuade Mutesa to renounce his rights to the throne, and to get him to agree not to return to Uganda without the consent of the British government. When Mutesa could not acquiesce, the colonial authorities found themselves in a legal bind. The constitutional basis upon which the Governor could act in a crisis such as the one then raging was either Article 6 or Article 20 of the 1990 agreement. Article 20 provided that “should the Kabaka chiefs or people of Uganda (meaning Buganda) pursue, at any time, a policy which is distinctly disloyal to the British Protectorate; Her Majesty’s Government will no longer consider themselves bound by the terms of this Agreement.”
In Article 6 the British Government pledged to recognize the Kabaka as the native ruler of Buganda as long as the Kabaka, chiefs and people of Buganda conformed to laws and rules instituted by the British Government. However, as the colonial authorities were eager to preserve the legal basis of the rest of the Buganda government, they stopped short of invoking these provisions.
Unable to replace Mutesa, the colonial authorities then resorted to negotiations. Addressing the Lukiiko on 3rd March 1954, Governor Cohen put forward the view that “a representative group of Baganda, with such independent help as could be secured, should think through their own problems in preparation for some subsequent discussions which he was prepared to hold with them.” By independent help Cohen meant expert assistance in the form of an academic. This role fell upon Professor Keith Hancock, then Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. Hancock left London for Uganda on 21st June 1954, taking with him an assistant and a secretary. In Uganda he pitched camp at Namirembe Hill, the Anglican Church headquarters, rather than government premises. The Buganda committee that was selected to do business with Hancock “was not typical of the membership of the Lukiiko; and the absence from it of Amos Sempa, the exceptionally adroit Secretary of the Lukiiko was an indication that it had been formed with a view to its being easily repudiated if necessary.”
