{UAH} Ndugu Allan/John Kwitonda/Abudul Semakula: The rise of sub-imperialism and its rejection in Bunyoro

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The rise of sub-imperialism and its rejection in Bunyoro

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By Monitor Reporter

Posted  Friday, April 13   2012 at  08:42

It was Capt. Frederick Lugard, the swashbuckling soldier who had forced Mwanga to sign away his kingdom in 1890 that developed the system of indirect rule that the British applied to Uganda.
As previously argued, the British had been anxious about the cost of administering the Uganda Protectorate and the entire colonial scheme had almost come undone during the time of the Imperial British East Africa Company on the account of lack of money.

Indirect rule allowed the British to use local collaborators and allies to extend colonial boundaries and help administer them for financial and other benefits. Real power, such as the all-important treaties and the military might that enforced them, would remain in the hands of the British colonial masters.

Thus using men like Semei Kakungulu, the Muganda military general, who had helped capture his brother-in-law Kabaka Mwanga and Omukama Kabalega, the British were able to extend their influence and authority beyond Buganda to areas like Busoga and Bukedi.

While it was a cheap and rational move by the British, their decision to do the same in Buganda's old rival, Bunyoro, was, at best, short-sighted and at worst vindictive. Kabalega's war of resistance, which included a scorched earth policy on both sides, torture, forced migration, and which led to famine and disease outbreaks had turned Bunyoro into a desolate wasteland and a desperate society.

In that regard, therefore, the problem existed at the turn of the century when the British signed the 1900 Agreement with Buganda. What is revealing is the steps, if any, that the British took to correct a problem they had helped create.

Bunyoro was not the only region that was neglected; for instance northern Uganda and eastern Uganda did not receive the same level of attention or consideration as Buganda did. However, as Shane Doyle argues in a compelling account of the crisis, Bunyoro "was at the same time both neglected and oppressed, which was a particularly destructive form of discrimination".
British attitudes towards Bunyoro were informed by their long-held antipathy towards Kabalega and his kingdom, as well as the fact that they considered it conquered territory, which they could do with as they pleased.

While the British had spelled out matters of taxation with Buganda, in Bunyoro the hut and gun tax were arbitrarily imposed without consultation. Kabalega's personal possessions were confiscated and turned into the property of the colonial administration. Where the Kabaka of Buganda was declared to be the direct ruler of his people, no such declarations were made in the case of Kabalega's son and successor, the young Omukama Kitehimbwa, who, it was made very clear, was a puppet.

There was also a certain level of arrogance and dislike among the colonial officials towards the people of Bunyoro. Sir Henry 'Harry' Johnston, who had signed the agreement with Buganda, for instance, refused to visit Bunyoro – despite acknowledging its important position in the protectorate – on the grounds that the desolate wastelands posed a health risk to his horses. Accounts from the time collated by Doyle indicate that Johnston believed the Baganda to be the "most naturally civilised" Africans who deserved to "enjoy a unique and highly privileged position" in the protectorate.

This mind set, which was shared by many colonial officers, helped explain why, despite Johnston's objections, Baganda chiefs came to be deployed to govern the people and territories of Bunyoro.
George Wilson, who would take over the reins after Johnston left, destroyed Bunyoro's political system and replaced it with one modelled along the lines of that which existed in Buganda. He gave his Muganda interpreter, James Miti, "the responsibility of appointing Bunyoro's chiefs, giving them Ganda titles and dividing the country into gombolola sub-counties and miruka parishes," Doyle notes.

"Miti became a country chief, and allocated a number of leading chiefships to other Protestant Baganda." The Banyoro had been defeated in a long, bruising war in which their country had been destroyed, their king captured and exiled. Salt was now being rubbed into their wounds and sore hearts by the appointment of the detested Baganda collaborators to oversee the carving up and setting out of this political buffet of Bunyoro's remains.

The Christian missionaries and their Baganda allies, added logs to the simmering fire by insisting on teaching in Luganda and refusing to translate the Bible in Runyoro. "There is a very strong idea amongst the Baganda," one missionary, Andrew Lloyd wrote, "that once they get the Banyoro to talk Luganda…they are morally putting themselves under the rule of [B]Uganda".

Desperate kicks
When Omukama Kitehimbwa expressed reservations against the appointment of Baganda chiefs to his kingdom, he was deposed and replaced with Omukama Andrea Bisereko Duhaga II who would go on to be treated, in one account, "like a village dog and a common labourer" despite being supportive of the British and their Baganda allies.

Apart from offending the sensibilities of the locals and evoking age-old rivalries, the Baganda chiefs enriched themselves greatly, carrying away the fortunes they made back to Buganda.
Miti, who oversaw it all, did not miss out on the action, trading in ivory, cloth and coffee and became so wealthy that he reportedly even built a dhow to trade on Lake Mutanzigwe (Albert).

What pushed the Banyoro over the edge was an attempt by Miti and his fellow Baganda chiefs to literary grab vast estates of land in Bunyoro by seeking to replicate the idea of the freehold land tenure system that the British had recently introduced in Buganda, enriching the collaborators and disenfranchising the peasants.

The Banyoro had revolted and resisted once before and in 1907 they, once again, came together to resist against this new threat that the Baganda chiefs represented. They did not know it then but they were the last, desperate kicks of a once-great and now dying kingdom.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com

Moses Ocen Nekyon

Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb disputing the results.

Benjamin Franklin

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