Many Baganda resent Obote and his legacy– Gen. Museveni exploits this
{Global Commentary: Uganda]
Baganda Need Pragmatism To Address Real Challenge
In their understandable desire to get rid of the late president Milton Obote and his largely Protestant-based Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party and restore their traditional institutions and assets, especially land lost with the introduction of the 1967 constitution, Baganda supported Yoweri Museveni and his mercenaries initially recruited from ethnic Tutsi refugee camps in Ankole, against wise advice.
These were refugees from Rwanda’s upheavals.
The destructive guerrilla war against Obote’s army in the Luwero Triangle targeted Baganda Protestants for elimination and confiscation of their properties. Baganda Protestants since the colonization of Uganda had worked closely with British administration and were the most experienced in administration and the richest in Uganda.
With due respect, Baganda Catholics and Muslims who replaced Protestant Baganda had neither experience in governing nor the wealth to challenge Tutsi dominance in Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Thus, Museveni and his men and women took advantage of this weakness to advance their interests in Uganda and beyond using Buganda region as a base.
For public display purposes, Baganda were and are still given senior positions in the executive and legislative branches of government, NRM, and occasionally in the army without authority to even protect their own interests. This is no longer a debatable issue.
Thankfully, it is not too late to arrest and reverse the trend.
What Baganda need to understand is that the ethnic Tutsi leadership they have embraced that emerged after independence does not believe in traditional institutions like kingdoms; witness the demise of kingdoms in Burundi, Ankole and Rwanda.
It does not also believe in development and empowerment of the general population. It believes in the opposite to be able to govern indefinitely.
Ipso facto, the regime’s leadership dispossesses ordinary people of their assets, impoverishes and marginalizes them; witness ethnic Hutu losing their land in Burundi and Rwanda and Ugandans increasingly losing their land in Buganda and other parts of Uganda; witness the abysmal quality of education; witness the level of unemployment especially of our youth who are the future of Uganda; witness the level of hunger when Uganda is a main exporter of food; witness the sprawling urban slums and the ills associated with them because the NRM supports rapid urbanization to free land for ethnic Tutsi ownership using in part their so-called social organizations. These sad developments are no longer debatable.
Gen. Museveni restored the kingdoms in Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro because he realized he was losing political support especially in Buganda. He restored the kingdoms on his terms namely making kings cultural leaders without economic means and political power.
Now he has once again realized he is losing political support, especially in Buganda, for the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.
That is why he has entered into a secret deal with Buganda to release some assets once again on his terms; namely Buganda will have to accept new landlords who are Museveni and his people including those that participated in the destructive war in Luwero and sent Baganda into a forest camp — this was allegedly for their protection; the majority perished there to free land for new landlords.
Once firmly settled, the new landlords will call for reforms in the way Buganda is being governed and this could lead to the abolition of the kingdom and its institutions as has happened in Burundi, Rwanda and Ankole.
What makes Baganda think they will be treated differently? The trajectory is clear for all to see: that is those who want to see.
One of the ways Buganda can save itself and its institutions is to drop its dislike of Obote’s legacy and UPC and Ugandans associated or believed to be associated with Obote and UPC.
By eliminating candidates or potential leaders believed to be associated with Obote and UPC, as was clearly stated recently on one of the programs on Radio Munansi, Baganda perhaps without realizing it, have promoted ethnic Tutsi politicians who are overwhelmingly soldiers and enabled them to monopolize the political stage at home and increasingly abroad.
As things stand the next president of Uganda will be another ethnic Tutsi and will continue implementing the proclaimed 50-year master plan of creating a Pan ethnic-Tutsi empire in the Great Lakes region using Uganda as a base.
Baganda should take this patriotic message seriously to save Buganda and Uganda.
