Ronald Mutebi says he is a king without power. Tina Turyagyenda asks just how far he is willing to go to get it...
FORGET the ecstatic ululations at Naggalabi, Budo in 1993 when Ronald Mutebi was crowned Kabaka. The event, 24 years after Mutebi had succeeded his late father, was the final step in the restoration of cultural institutions.
Or so it seemed. The cries now, are not cries of joy. People had before that day, and more have since complained, that the cultural monarchy given to them, was less than they had hoped for, so that in itself is not news. Now, almost 11 years after the historic day, the Kabaka himself is openly questioning the power — or lack of it — that came with the crown.
“Kabakaship without powers is not leadership and it is not what the people want,” he said. “A Kabaka who only stops at talking is only a Kabaka in name — that is not Kabakaship!” he said.
It’s a far cry from what the Kabaka used to be. Describing his great grandfather Mutesa I, Edward Mutesa II wrote in his book, Desecration of My Kingdom, “All authority flowed from the Kabaka. Just as he was the personification of the Baganda, so he and his actions were beyond judgement or question.”
Not anymore. How far Mutebi may act, is limited by a provision in Article 246 (3) (f) of the Constitution which states that a traditional leader or cultural leader shall not have or exercise any administrative, legislative or executive powers of government or local government.
Speaking to the Abaganda Tulimukulya nga Katonga Ajjula Association at his Banda palace last Saturday, the disgruntled king demanded for a federal system of government that will give him powers to serve his people. Mutebi says that the limitations of his powers leave him unable to help his people.
“People tell you their problems, but you cannot do anything to help them,” he said. So limited is his power, he says, that he cannot make decisions on protection of the environment or children’s nutrition that would prevent disease and allow them to go to school.
His forefathers must be tossing where they are, that things have come to this. Yet, it was with them that these shifts in power started. Mutesa I welcomed Europeans warmly, and as Mutesa II says, “Certainly, they would have come in any case, but their treatment on arrival had an important effect on the relationship thus formed.”
Possibly the first time the Baganda realised the power of their Kabaka was no longer absolute, was when Mwanga was exiled to the Seychelles Islands. His grandson, Mutesa II’s reign was filled with obvious changes in “where the power lies”.
According to former Katikkiro Paulo Kavuma in Crisis in Buganda in 1953, there were “worrying rumours” that at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II which the Kabaka and Nabagereka attended, the British government slighted him when they did not give him a carriage of his own, yet Queen Salote of Tonga had one.
Later, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Oliver Lyttelton, spoke of the possible federation of the East African territories.
The remark was an immediate cause of mistrust which culminated in the deportation of Mutesa II at the end of 1953. The Governor Sir Andrew Cohen “demanded” that Mutesa use all his power to help him implement a policy and threatened, “If you don’t agree, you’ll have to go”. A brave, powerful Mutesa replied, “If anyone has to go, it will be you.”
A few days later, Mutesa was handed deportation orders. The news, he later wrote, “struck the Baganda like a physical shock”.
The Kabaka’s power has always been a big thing with the Baganda. In the court case that followed the deportation, the verdict was not in Mutesa’s favour, though he won some legal points. But, according to a journalist at the time, the Baganda did not hear beyond the part in the complicated verdict that said, “... Governor teyaina buyinza... (The Governor had no authority)”!
In 1961, DP won the elections to form Uganda’s first African government.
The Buganda government had boycotted the polls though, and consequently, independence was delayed to enable another election to take place. DP leader Ben Kiwanuka had, according to Mutesa II, puffed up with pride. Another story goes that Kiwanuka, when asked what his relationship with the Kabaka would be, said he would help the King with his problems. A commoner help the Kabaka?
His fate was sealed as the Buganda die-hards in Kabaka Yekka allied with Milton Obote’s UPC to win the new election and form the first post-Independence government, with Mutesa as president and an astute Obote, who treated Mutesa as all-powerful, as premier.
Obote gave up the play-acting after Independence and the coalition unravelled. According to Mutesa II, he himself felt a twinge of foreboding as he watched Obote raise the flag of Independence on October 9, 1962. “It was... the sensing of an unfamiliar shift of emphasis, a gap between what was fitting and what was not.”
Soon after Independence, President Mutesa II requested for a band to play at his birthday. His subordinate, Obote refused it to play.
In 1965, in a not-too-publicised move, Obote sent trucks to the Entebbe State House and the Kabaka’s personal effects were thrown out and taken to the Twekobe. In May 1966, Obote attacked Mutesa II’s palace. The Kabaka was forced into exile and his office was abolished, until 1993 when his son Ronald Muwenda Mutebi was crowned.
Which is where we started — Mutebi says he has no power. The sounds of agreement are doing their rounds already from, believe it or not, UPC, through their Presidential Policy Commission chairman James Rwanyarare!
Then there are the expected sources like former Buganda Minister Robert Sebunya, who says it was because of his insistence that these powers be given, that he was dropped.
Katikkiro Joseph Ssemwogerere has asked all the Baganda to follow the Kabaka and join the fight to get the powers that he needs, saying that the Kabakaship as it is, does not help them.
“The Kabaka has waited long enough (before speaking out), but all the promises made to him were not kept,” Ssemwogerere said at the Lubiri on Tuesday.
“When it is election time, they talk about the Kabaka. When immunisation exercises are not going well, they ask him to step in and then things move well. But when he asks...”
Weren’t these views presented to the Constitutional Review Commission? Everybody had their chance, including the Buganda kingdom, which made a memorable presentation.
In a demonstration from Mengo to the International Conference Centre, with Ssemwogerere waving from an open-car top and carrying a briefcase, Minister-of-Finance-with-the-budget-style, the Baganda took their concerns to Prof. Frederick Ssempebwa and his team. What is interesting though, is that this most urgent concern is not among the recommendations that they submitted.
The bulk of the 160-page document, Proposals for Constitutional Changes by the Kingdom of Buganda, does centre on the federal system of government and decentralisation.
The preamble reminds us that the Odoki Constitutional Review report clearly stated that 97% of the people in Buganda desired to be ruled under a federal system of government, but that this was not included in the 1995 Constitution. “The people of Buganda... patiently continued to request for a peaceful reconsideration of this position.”
And once again, this position is proposed, explaining in detail the essential features of a federal system of government, its implementation, the role of traditional leaders under it and what powers the regional governments would have. The leaders’ role is only described as non-political and non-partisan. The federal region government’s powers would be such that the regions would establish executive and legislative units to legislate, implement and decide on regional matters affecting each particular region.
But here, is the catch. The Ssempebwa commission report recommends that federo be given to those who want it. The powers of the traditional leader, however, were never mentioned anywhere, specifically. There was no single proposal to change the article in the Constitution that limits the powers of traditional rulers. So, even if federo does come, will anything else change?
The only specific recommendations directly concerning the Kabaka were status, immunities and privileges. The people of Buganda recommended that traditional leaders should be exempt from direct personal taxation, immune from criminal prosecution and take precedence over all persons at state events held in their traditional areas, save the President and Vice-President. There is nothing as to the scrapping of the constitutional provision that is the real problem.
How much can change and what will? Mutebi has spoken out, 10 years later. People like the Abazzukulu ba Buganda don’t agree that he should be asking the government for power as the same government could very easily take that power away. Logical enough, when you think about it.
Can power be given, and if it is, can that still be called power? Yet all this rationalising is crossing the bridge too early. History has shown what could come out of showdowns with the central government. How far is Mutebi going to go past being a “talking Kabaka”? How far is he willing to test the waters and fight for power?
Published By The Sundayvision on: Sunday, 22nd February, 2004
Gook
“The strategy of the guerilla struggle was to cause maximum chaos and destruction in order to render the government of the day very unpopular”
Lt. Gen. Kaguta Museveni (Leader of the NRA guerilla army in Luwero)
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