{UAH} To Be Mengo's Friend, Listen To Ordinary Baganda, Not The Elite

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To be Mengo's friend, listen to ordinary Baganda, not the elite

By Beti Olive Kamya
Posted  Monday, August 19   2013 at  01:00

 "Every cloud has a silver lining" goes an English saying, so while the Kabaka's 20th coronation anniversary celebrations was not a happy event for President Museveni, the good news for him is that though the Baganda love their Kabaka unconditionally, they are free thinkers who make independent decisions, contrary to what many people believe.

Baganda are traditionally polite, hospitable people who do not normally say what they think of someone, if it's uncharitable… but on that fateful day, even when Katikkiro Mayiga emphasised that Museveni had been specially invited by the Kabaka and therefore deserved maximum respect, moreover, when there was a Memorandum of Understanding to celebrate, Baganda would have none of that.

Clearly, ebyaffe was not the most important issue on their mind that day. The predominantly Ganda crowd used the opportunity to show displeasure at police brutality and tear gas, unemployment and poverty, sectarianism and nepotism, corruption and extravagance, the goings-on in Parliament and hounding of the Lord Mayor, if the thunderous applause Lukwago received is anything to go by.

This is not the first time Baganda have openly defied the compromise position between the central government and the Kabaka's government. In 2005, when then Katikkiro Ssemwogerere and his team compromised on federo for Regional Tier, Baganda, who had escorted him in their thousands to submit the federo demand to the Ssempebwa Constitutional Review Commission, outrightly rejected the "Tier" compromise, and today, it remains condemned and buried in the pages of the Constitution, unimplemented, not because of Buganda's elite, but because of ordinary Baganda.

Mind you, the Buganda Parliament (Lukiiko) and Baganda MPs in the National Parliament, including renown federalist, Ken Lukyamuzi, had succumbed to presidential pressure and accepted "Regional Tier", but not your rank and file Muganda who knows what s(he) wants.

It was also ordinary Baganda, not the elite, who, in 1993, expressly expressed skepticism at the powerless, penniless kingdom that had been restored, calling it byoya byanswa (mere feathers without the bird). Notice, too, how Buganda has largely voted Museveni even when Mengo openly hob knobbed with the opposition.

Baganda's independent mindedness predates Kabaka Mutebi's reign. During the 1950s, when Baganda thought that Mutebi's father, Kabaka Mutesa 11, was getting very cozy with the colonial governor, comfortable with the British calling the shots, it was the rank and file Baganda, not the elite, who made it clear to Mutesa, in no uncertain terms, that he had to choose between being Kabaka of Buganda or friend of the governor, because the two were logically mutually exclusive. He chose to be Kabaka of Buganda and regained their love and respect to this day.

Centuries earlier, Baganda revolted against Kabaka Bemba Musota, whom they deposed and beheaded, for his cruel rule. It was after the assassination of Kabaka Bemba Musota that Baganda decided they needed an ordinary mortal to mediate between the king and ordinary Baganda, for fear that the kings' cruelty is sometimes driven by divine spiritualism, for which the king might not be personally liable, hence the beginning of the Katikkiro(ship). The first Katikkiro was not gifted to Buganda by the Kabaka but imposed on the Kabaka by Baganda

The moral of this narrative is that Baganda are free thinkers who will love or hate depending on their assessment of one's performance, not on deals cut with their leaders, so if Museveni or anybody wants Baganda's support, s(he) should just do what they want - respect for the Kabaka and their culture, and govern them with respect, which will result in democratic order, peace and development.