{UAH} IN THE QUEST FOR UGANDA'S ORIGINAL SIN.

Picture: All presidents of Uganda since independence 1962 (Photo credit: The Observer)

52 years ago this month (on February 22 1966 to be exact), Uganda's independence Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote arrested five of his cabinet ministers (Ibingira, Magezi, Lumu, Kirya and Ngobi) during a cabinet meeting, and ordered that they be held without trial. Mr. Obote also suspended the constitution and assumed all executive powers. This was effectively the beginning of the infamous 1966 coup, the first coup ever in Uganda, carried out by then Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote against President Sir Edward Muteesa who ruled for only three years (1963 to 1966).

While most of the arguments on both sides are mostly emotional and rarely founded in law, one thing they seem to concur with is that the 1966 events are seen by many as the "original sin" that brought all the turmoil Uganda has seen since then.

It was later that yth that Prime Minister Milton Obote would order the army to attack President Edward Muteesa's palace and remove what he claimed was a secret cache of unauthorized weaponry allegedly acquired by the President for his private/tribal army. President Muteesa was also the King of the Baganda tribe.

The assault on the palace led to the President fleeing the country, Obote declaring himself president, and quickly wrote a new constitution that banned all Kingdoms//cultural leaders in Uganda, a country with over 40 different tribes.

The infamous "Pigeon hole" constitution was "approved" by parliament without being read nor debated adequately as required by normal parliamentary procedure.

Members of Parliament were forcefully told to find the document in their pigeon holes (where each one recieves their official mail) and immediately pass the new constitution. That is why it came to be known as "the Pigeon hole constitution".

The military and the police had been called in to surround the legislature premises and breath down the MP's necks as they voted the new Obote constitution of 1966 into law.

A situation similar to late last year 2017 when parliament was also surrounded by the military and the police, the floor of the house was also invaded by security agents , and the MP's ultimately forced to pass the infamous article 102 which removed the 75 year presidential age limit from the constitution.

In 1966, Obote claimed that he deposed Muteesa because the President had refused to ratify the 1964 referendum on the so-called Lost Counties. The people of those two counties had been asked to choose if their counties should remain part of the Buganda Kingdom (a tribe of which the President of Uganda was the King), or if the counties were to be part of the Bunyoro Kingdom in western Uganda. The vote went against the President's Buganda Kingdom, thereby angering King/President Muteesa who then refused to abide by the legal requirement that the President of the Republic ratifies the referendum.

Milton Obote reportedly called it "a dereliction of duty" and claimed it as the reason why he as executive Prime Minister, removed the President.

This marked Uganda's first ever coup. There have been seven more to this day.

In the effort to find the original sin that caused decades of turmoil, death and destruction to this country, Kabaka's actions in refusing to assent to the will of the people could be seen as the first shot. However we must also remember that during the campaigns for that same referendum, as President Muteesa visited the counties to rally his voters, he was booed by a crowd of Banyoro on June 18th 1964 at Ndaiga market, and lost his temper.

President Edward Muteesa responded by picking a rifle from inside his vehicle and shooting into the heckling crowd in broad daylight, and at almost point blank. By the time the crowd had fled for their lives and the dust had settled, several innocent civilians were injured and at least 8 of them lay dead.

Authorities, including the police and Internal Affairs Minister Felix Onama were made aware of the incident, but no charges were ever filed and the victims relatives never got justice.

The Inspector General of Police Felix Obama was aware but refused to do anything about the incident. Though it was clearly outright murder, no charges were ever filed, the incident was quietly buried in police legal records, and Edward Muteesa was never brought before the courts to answer for his heinous actions.

This was probably the real, first instance of bad leadership in the history of post-independence Uganda.

And the perpetrator ultumately walked scot-free. Surely it was the original sin in terms of the first example of blatant misrule, an extra-judicial massacre, a heartless bloodbath, an abuse of power, a disgraceful unreported killing, obstruction of justice for the poor victims family's, and total disregard for human life by a President of this country, all combined.

A person representing the state, accountable to all Ugandans, and entrusted with the duty of protecting the lives and property of the country's people, that person had deliberately and systematically turned his gun against his own citizens.

However, we should also agree that when Prime Minister Milton Obote deposed President Edward Muteesa militarily two years after this incident, it was also a blatant unconstitutional act.

Where in the independence constitution or the laws of the Republic of Uganda is there a provision for deposing a president who refused to ratify a document?

In fact it is permissible in many countries today where there have been instances when a law is sent back to parliament after refusal by the president to append his consent.

Remember that after the coup, Milton Obote then declared himself president, imprisoned all his political opponents, and also changed the constitution by force of arms.

While Milton Obote claimed dereliction of duty by President Edward Muteesa regarding the 1964 refusal to raitify the referendum, he Obote should have chosen patience, wisdom, dialogue and consesus on the problem until there was a peaceful resolution. But Obote instead chose confrontation with his president by actually signing/ratifying the referendum himself, thereby ensuring conflict between him as Prime Minister, and Sir Edward Muteesa his president. This led to Muteesa's being deposed and fleeing to exile where he passed away three years later (London, 1969).

Sir Edward Muteesa's death was itself shrouded in controversy with accusations of assassination by poisoning conducted by an Obote agent, a female who attended a birthday party that was organized for the Edward Muteesa by the Buganda community in London.

He was subsequently given a state funeral in 1971 by new President General Idi Amin in a bid to reconcile and unite the country after the Obote turmoil.

In handling the 1966 crisis, Milton should have limited himself to the strict word of the law in whatever actions could be taken against the President in a case of "dereliction of duty" as he claimed.

Lastly, Obote should have then left the law to take its own course.

But because he did none of the above and instead hurried to take power for himself, Apollo Milton Obote might have been clueless to the true magnitude of his own actions which amounted to opening a major pandora's box of coup's and internal conflict that to this day the country is still grappling with in one way or another.

Uganda is yet to get to the true definition of constitutionalism, Uganda is yet to abide by the true spirit and meaning of the rule of law, and Uganda is yet to achieve a genuinely sober, patriotic, professional, civil administration of the country for and by it's people.

Hussein Juruga Lumumba Amin

Son of late Former President Idi Amin Dada.

26/02/2018

Kampala, Uganda

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