Will Ssuubi deliver the hopes of Buganda?

Will Ssuubi deliver the hopes of Buganda?
In late July 2010, apologetics of the Mengo establishment launched a political mobilization platform code-named Ssuubi 2011 with an aim of mobilizing masses in Buganda region to support the country’s opposition in next years general elections. Ssuubi 2011 which plans to use the leverage of former Mengo Katikkiro’s Dan Muliika and Joseph Mulwannyammuli Ssimwogerere has also enlisted the support of a cross-section of Buganda opposition politicians including renegade Democratic Party Members opposed to the manin stream DP leadership led by Norbert Mao. The renegade members led by the Party’s former spokesperson and Mukono North MP Betty Nambooze and former Party Legal Advisor Erias Lukwago have voiced their support for the Inter-Party Cooperation. This realignment of forces in Buganda has added a new twist to the already fragile relationship between the Kingdom of Buganda and the National Resistance Movement government.

Another Kabaka Yekka?
The project has met with significant criticism from a wide section of Ugandans across the political spectrum with many calling it a rebirth of the Kabaka Yekka, a political group credited for having abeted violence and rigged the 1961 elections to the disadvantage of the Ben Kiwanuka led Democratic Party. According to observers the realignment of forces galvanizing support around a cultural entity purportedly under state threat will only be able to elevate certain individuals to political office but also widen the rift between the central government and Mengo. Accordingly the promoters of this group now seek to resuscitate the Federo idea as a rallying point for massive kingdom-wide support.

This coupled with long held grievances of the Kingdom politburo which include the return of the 900 sq miles, re-opening of the Kingdom radio CBS, Return of the kingdom properties and misunderstandings over the proposed regional tier system of government throws the Central government into a precarious situation. While they may not manage to uproot the incumbent from power, this group is more likely to influence majority voting at parliamentary level. Buganda MP’s especially those from the NRM have been blamed for having betrayed the Kingdom by appearing hostile to the interests of Mengo on various occasions in Parliament most vividly, on the occasion of the passing of the Land Bill 2007.

In 1961 when Kiwanuka was attacked for trying to become an alternative to the Kabaka, the custodian of the interests, culture and identity of Buganda. KY supporters pitted Kiwanuka against the Kabaka to discredit him but that was more than 40 years ago and the conditions on ground were favourable. KY anticipated support from the UPC and held access to the instruments of coercion which are now held by the NRM. While launching the group in Masaka, promoters of Ssuubi 2011 promised to show them the presidential candidate who the Kabaka would have chosen.

While this can be brushed aside as another opportunistic statement calculated to sway votes, promoters of Ssuubi seem to have gained the explicit recognition from the cultural authority. While granting leave to his two former advisors and Ssuubi main promoters, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi acknowledged their contribution to the Kingdom and expressed his acceptance for their timely decision to actively take part in national politics.
In Buganda the King pleases (Kabaka asiimye) and this is a vague term that could also mean that the King supports, wishes, abets or recognizes a certain decision or action. The Kabaka perhaps aware of the trend of events has encouraged his subjects to massively register for next years elections to influence decisions to shape their destiny as a people (and under threat) The tone and timing of the events of the past few weeks points to a premeditated arrangement to foresee the realignment of forces to combat what Mengo call the Central government’s continued harassment of the cultural institution. The stage was set with the failure of the Kabaka-Museveni talks and the Kasubi tombs fire all having roots with the closure of CBS radio and the September 2009 riots in Buganda.

Will Ssuubi deliver the hopes of a Kingdom
Critics point to circumstances surrounding the formation of the group as lacking ground to sustain a successful opposition to Mr. Museveni. Ssuubi bears the DNA of the Inter-Party Cooperation a loose coalition of Ugandan opposition groups and its this reason that impedes its entrenchment in Ganda society. The Democratic Party which is opposed to the IPC enjoys wide support in Buganda and the unsteady relationship between the two will affect voting patterns. Its founding memers including renegade DP members will have to cut a balance between accepting to be viewed as destablising agents of DP riding on the back of opportunism or as members of the Inter-party Cooperation which is largely viewed as a construction of the Forum for Democratic Change.

Following a failure to resolve feuds within the DP, a section of DP members utilized the disagreements between the DP and the IPC to gain leverage by using the IPC as an alternative force to front their interests. The need to tailor their interests to suit the demands of their electorate in Buganda elicited the formation of Ssuubi to isolate Norbert Mao as guarantor of the interests of Buganda.
Bearing in mind the unquestionable authority of the Kabaka in rural Buganda and utilizing the recognition and wide popularity of Daniel Muliika a radical former premier , the vocal Betty Nambooze and Medard Ssegonna, the IPC’s formation of Ssuubi 2011 was meant in all manners and purposes to resuscitate the Kabaka Yekka conditions under which the Kbaka wish or pleasing holds supremacy over the interests of modern political party activity. In this instance Ssuubi 2011, is a mutation of the Kabaka Yekka which was formed from the Kakamega Club, an exclusive inner circle of the Kabaka’s close confidantes and friends.
But the hopes of the 800-year old Kingdom appear enormous to rest on the shoulders of a loose coalition of political forces even when these forces have the confidence of a monarch. Not so possible especially when the forces have only allied for a year against an antagonistic force that has ruled for the last quarter of a century. This is however not to appear pessimistic, true that the Ssuubi members will be able to gain parliamentary seats but even when all the 80 Buganda seats in Parliament are held by the IPC it will be no match for the over 200 NRM MPs.

It rests therefore that for as long as Mr. Museveni wins the executive position, the Ssuubi project will remain a total failure. What will happen to the aspirations of a Kingdom in the event of putting all its eggs in a basket with a hole.
Will it signify the defeat of the Kabaka?

Mr. President Correction of past mistakes a mistake too

orrection of Past Mistakes a mistake

An informed insight into the Lost Counties issue.

The president of Uganda has been in a number of forums been quoted as having declared a war against injustices with roots in colonial maladministration. The ex-leninist guerilla leader and avowed anti-colonialist {though now chairman of the colonial project] has on many occasions castigated the British for the kid-glove treatment of Buganda in the 1900 Agreement and the entrenchment of Ganda superiority through the divide and rule policy. Mr. Museveni has blamed the current land crisis and ongoing tensions with Mengo as effects of the 1900 Agreement much to the chagrin of the Mengo Establishment. Just like Obote he has attacked the British for having granted Buyaga, Buruuli and Bugangaizi to Buganda. This attempt at re-writing history rejects the conditions under which the territories enjoyed by the various benefactors of British rule gained them and while it may receive applause in certain quarters, it sows seeds of acrimony between ethnicities in Uganda. Mr. Museveni believes that by returning Buruuli to Bunyoro, inciting the Banyala and the Kabaka’s subject of Buvuma into secession, the disintegration of Buganda will be accelerated while forgetting that with the weakening of Buganda the country will be thrown into political confusion and economic stagnation. The misconception that once Buruuli, Bulemeezi or Bugerere go to Bunyoro then Uganda would be peaceful is based on an inherent fear of a stable Buganda by politicians’ intent on staying a little bit longer in power.

The excavation of historical facts reveals that the clock cannot be turned backwards suggesting that any attempt to do so would undermine Uganda’s territorial discipline. The platitude that time is a great healer depends purely on the assumption that memories good or bad fade but certainly not all bad memories fade. While we can accuse the Kingdom of Buganda to have risen at the expense of the disintegration of Bunyoro, the fact that many cultural entities rose out of Bunyoro should not be underplayed.

The foundation of Tooro Kingdom was a standard of defiance to Bunyoro. Is it viable to the new editors of our history to return Tooro to Omukama Gafabusa? The counties of Ruhaama, Rukoni, Ngoma and Rwenkindo all in Ntungamo were gained from Rwanda and the people of this area are Banyarwanda. The failure of the C.A to grant Ugandan citizenship to these people would have led to a secession of these people to Rwanda. The seccesion movement was led by Gad Gasatura, Higiro Semajwege and Augustine Ruzindana who had even vowed to cross to Rwanda on being denied Ugandan citizenship. Vast areas of Bufumbira belonged to Rwanda. Hon. Nathan Byanyima’s Bukanga County and Isingiro initially belonged to Buganda but were ceded to Nkore. Iron-rich Buhweju was also annexed to Nkore from Bunyoro under the reign of Kahaya and his son Rwebishengye. His grandson Mutambuka carried on the expansion over Buhweju. Rwebishengye had also invaded and plundered Kabula from Bunyoro in the East of Nkore and while Kabula then was under the jurisdiction of Nkore, it was not until 1949 that Bahima made an exodus from Nyabushozi into Mawogola and Kabula on a large exodus. This expedition was made by Prince George Herbert Mbata in defiance of Ankore government bylaws particularly one which forced peasants to make a compulsory contribution of ghee which was greatly resented by the Bahima “who also thought that they could live a freer life under the less paternalistic government of the Kabaka” {H.F Morris, Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankore p.64}

Despite this Baganda have been regarded as ungrateful guests in Kabula since 1888 when fleeing Baganda Christians sought refuge in the land from Ntare V. Before then the land initially grabbed from Bunyoro had been sparsely populated with few Bahima.

Nwoya County was initially belonging to Bunyoro. Dokolo County also was taken from Bunyoro by the stroke of the 1900 Agreement. The Kumam of Kaberamaido used to belong to Bunyoro. Even Mr. Museveni birthplace in the county of Nyabushozi belonged to Bunyoro and so was Kashaari County. Can the president help Nyabushozi return to its rightful owners? The Batooro of Uganda still claim parts of Congo with distant relatives on the other side of the boundary. From the foregoing discussion it appears true that almost every corner of Uganda has historical roots in another corner of the country. Such roots have been strengthened by nationhood. Under the umbrella of foreign rule our forefathers started to forge bonds of nationhood despite ethnic differences. Now is not the time for making kings with queer tittles such as Saabanyala, Saabavuma, Saabaruuli or even Saabagabe. Mr. Museveni’s king-making qualities can be of great relief to the people of Ankore who now 23 years into his tenure have not had a cultural leader.

Lastly Kingdoms emerge through military economic and sometimes magical qualities and power; they are not accidents of history and never creatures of constitutions. Once they emerge, their sustenance is achieved through spontaneous and habitual obedience of the King’s subjects not by the provisions of the constitution or even the wishes of a seating government. Their existence cannot be corrected just as a clock can’t turn backwards.

Moses Kalanzi