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By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula
President Tibuhaburwa Museveni told Baganda today that he worked with Ben Kiwanuka and Sir Edward Mutesa II. Ben Kiwanuka died on September 22 1972. Sir Edward Mutesa II died on November 21 1969.
When Ben Kiwanuka was Chief Minister of Uganda before Independence of the country, and When Sir Edward Mutesa II was President of Uganda (1963-1966), President Museveni must have been a very young man.
According to the President’s own word in his book “The Mustard Seed”, was born in 1944 somewhere 8n the Savannah of Ankole. If this is true, then he was 15 years old in 1961 when Kiwanuka became Chief Minister of Uganda, and he was 19 in 1963 when Sir Edward Mutesa II became President of Uganda.
Questions:
1. Is it possible and reasonable that a 15 year boy worked with the Chief Minister of Uganda in 1961?
2. Is it possible and reasonable that a 19 year old boy worked with the President of &Ganda between 1963 and 1966?
One thing is true. President Tibuhaburwa Museveni joined the University of East Africa at Dar-es-Salaam University College, in 1968 together with people like Wapakhabulo and Ssemwogerere, the former Katikiiro of Buganda. He left University of Dar-es-Salaam (previously University College, Dar-es-Salaam) in 1970.
Some historical accounts state that the young Museveni briefly worked in the President’s Office soon after leaving University of Dar-es-Salaam. It is today, while watching UBC Television that I learnt that President Tibuhaburwa Museveni worked with fallen Ben Kiwanuka and Sir Edward Mutesa II as a young boy.
What is true, however, is that between 1982 and 1986, some Baganda joined the rebel Yoweri Museveni to remove the regimes of Apollo Milton Obote and Tito Okello from power through the barrel of the gun.
When he captured power in 1986, he first said he did not go to the bush to return kingdoms, but later strategically returned the glory of former kingdoms but without political power. He instead called them cultural institutions in the 1995 Uganda Constitution whose making he presided over.
The Kingdoms, including Buganda, seem to have accepted their new status of being just cultural institutions without political power. All their power was surrendered to the President of Uganda, not willingly but by constitutional design.
It is interesting to watch what new relationship will develop between President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and Buganda. The President said today, when Buganda was remembered the raid on Mengo by Obote’s troupes commanded, ironically by Idi Amin, whose rise to power was supported by Buganda.
Politics is a funny field of human endeavor. Friends can easily become enemies, and enemies can easily become friends, often for convenience. Always, one partner in the new friendship benefits more than the other.
For God and My Country.
The Writer is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist
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