Kampala on fire; the crux of the matter

First apologies to my earnest readers who may have missed my scribbling in the last few months!

Every cloud has a silver lining (sounds crazy, even out rightly outrageous); the reason I am able to sit down to write this piece, is because Kampala where I live has been on fire; therefore I couldn’t get out there to do my usual 7.a.m to 10.pm! More chaos, more articles? I say NO. Well, I can only promise to write more again, hopefully minus the chaos.

Thursday this past week, started like any other fine day in Kampala. We all knew that it is the same pull and push that we have now come to expect from the central government (government of Uganda) and the government of the Kingdom of Buganda. Again for those new to this situation, Uganda is a country with over 50 ethnicities, called tribes.

Most of these tribes-especially the Bantu ones- before colonization by the British, had their own forms of traditional governance headed by monarchs, known by different names.

In central Uganda, where Kampala lies, is home to nearly 8million people of the Baganda tribe, and their country originally called Buganda. (did I hear this is where the name Uganda is borrowed?).There are other kingdoms such as Busoga, Bunyonyo, Toro, Ankole as well as the recent “innovation” Kingdom like Acholi, Teso, Jophadhola, to name only some. For now let’s concentrate on Buganda.

The Baganda are Uganda’s single largest tribe. For over 700 years, the Baganda have had a monarchical system of governance led by the Kabaka. The Baganda adore, love, cherish (and in the past feared) the Kabaka all in equal big measure. To illustrate this point the Kabaka has designations such as Ssabasaja-literally meaning the man among men.

If you live in a male chauvinistic society this could translate to mean he who is husband to men, not in the carnal sense, but brute traditional leadership. If ordinary men are so powerful figures in traditional African societies, imagine how powerful, the man among men is! The Kabaka (he is a He all the time, never a she) is also praised as “magulu nyondo” roughly meaning, he of iron feet-I guess who can walk anywhere and crash any power. There are several of these designations given to the Kabaka.

For over 700 years, Buganda has always had a Kabaka, passed on from Kabaka to his son, in well established protocols. This was the case until 1966, when then government of Dr. Apollo Milton Obote abolished the Kingdom in Uganda (another long story). The then Kabaka Edward Mutesa 11, Obote’s own former friend, and father to the current King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi was exile in Britain, where he died under controversial circumstances in 1969.

It is said that the current Kabaka, then Crown Prince Ronnie Mutebi, supported President Museveni’s war outfit that brought him to power in 1986, the National Resistance Army. Those who say they are in the know say that the reason for the support was a trade off; the then crown prince to support Museveni, with support from his Baganda people and resources (Museveni fought the war mainly in Buganda), among other things, in exchange for restoration of Kabakaship (the institution, its power and assets) when Museveni took power.

But like every President seems to find out sooner rather later, is that a very powerful Kabaka is not a good ingredient to any Uganda presidency. As such, pundits say Museveni, may be in desperate need for support, promised what he actually realized upon assuming power that if he granted all, his presidency would be generously watered down-and maybe even threatened.

And so they say, Museveni developed cold feet; rather than generously return all Kabakaship, its associated power and assets to the Baganda, he has been dolling it back in politically calculated small measures. Something that doesn’t amuse the Baganda.

One of the main points of contention has been the form of governance. Buganda has been agitating for Uganda to adopt a federal system of governance, where each region (in Uganda regions are mainly tribal) has its own authority, governing institutions, powers and bylaws. The idea is that within the Republic, Buganda wants to have space to be a little country under monarchy.

The central government seems to see this as an affront to the Repubic and therefore putting in place competition power points with the presidency. In response to this, the government put in place a harsh-harsh form of regionalization where districts can agree and form a region. And sought to sell it to Buganda as the best arrangement, better than their federal system-“federo”. This region still however, remains accountable to the central governance systems. The Baganda smelt a rat and rejected this arrangement as being an analgesic to divert them from their federal system. And so the central government and the government of the Kabaka have been engaged in incessant and un-concluding talks on how to give- and take- Federo; half-empty or half-full.

Many analysts now argue that because the central government doesn’t want to see a united and strong Buganda, it has started shearing off parts of the once powerful kingdom by encouraging (and some say, actually sponsoring) some chiefs to break away from the mother kingdom. Already there is the Buruli, once part of Buganda is now parading its own head it wants installed as their cultural leader, arguing they have never been Baganda by choice in the past.

Last year, the Kabaka attempted to visit Buruli and he was stopped by armed security operatives and he had to cancel the visit, just before entering Buruli. And so this time the Kabaka was again planning to visit another area planning to break away; Bugerere (Buganda calls it), Kayunga district (the central government calls it). The Kabaka and his team knew this wasn’t going to be easy, given their experience in Buruli. And so they pumped up action; spreading the word in the media the Kabaka was going to Bugerere. And so the expectation, support, hype was high. May be the idea was to intimidate the central government into leaving it pass, anticipating the backlash if they interfered with the intended visit of the Kabaka.

The central government on its part chest-thumped, declaring the Kabaka was not going to Bugerere, unless it sat down and officially communicated his planned visit to the small, un-recognized so far self-acclaimed leader of Bugerere. This in the eyes of the Kabaka and his handlers was not only demeaning to the Kabaka but also tantamount to recognizing the small chief’s attempts to break away.

So for many days, it was these kind of mind games that government played with the Kabaka’s government; if you want go to Bugerere talk to the little chief-kind of to get permission. The Buganda Kingdom on the other hand confident of its popular support (and also cognizant of the vulnerability of the government ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, where they need numbers), played cat game; “ the Kabaka will go to Bugerere” arguing, “ if government doesn’t give us security to go, let them not bring insecurity to the Kabaka’s visit”

Inevitably both sides pumped so much action that it naturally had to end up in the bedlam it became. It turned out as real mayhem; up to 20 people dead, several cars and houses burnt, 48 hours of work time lost, blood and fire on the street, property destroyed, millions of shillings used to deploy armed personnel carriers on the streets, etc. All, really scary episodes.

In my next article, I will attempt to show who the losers and winners of this ugly spat are.