Excerpts from Grace S. Ibingira�s 1980 book, African Upheavals Since Independence (emphasis added, unless otherwise stated)
Ch. 6 Uganda: Fundamental Causes of the 1966 Revolution (pp 65 - 134)
a. The UPC�s Resolute Determination to Obtain and Exercise Absolute Power
b. Efforts to Impose a One-Party System
c. Parliamentary Battles for Reform of Electoral Law
d. Monopoly and Misuse of the Security Forces
e. THE MISUSE OF POLICE POWERS TO PROMOTE UPC
e. Efforts to Monopolize Government Power
(i) Controlling the Central Government Public Service
(ii) Controlling Local Governments
f. THE REVIVAL OF PRIMORDIAL FEARS � subsections:
This excerpt comes from Ch 6 and is the section entitled �Efforts to Monopolize Government Power�, which is on page 99-111. (Here I excerpt only portion dealing with Obote�s effort to politicize the civil service, relying mainly on �technical know-who�, pp 99-106). It further documents Obote�s abuse of power and office, and his misrule; as illustrated by his politicization of the Public Service Commission (i.e. civil service). Again, note Obote�s well-worn tactic of handling tough issues, which is to high-tail it out of Dodge (go hide out somewhere while someone else takes the heat).
�Controlling the Central Government Public Service
�One of the great problems that the independence government faced was to ensure a stable, contented, efficient public service, for upon this depended the translation into reality of all government programs. Above all, the public service had to be loyal in the implementation of government policies. But as the public service became fully Ugandanized, it followed that its personnel could not be in reality be expected to be indifferent to the political and other major issues facing the country.
�It was obvious that the service was divided among parties (the UPC, the DP, and the KY) just as the rest of the population they served. But how does one ensure loyalty? What is the test? Was a good DP or KY public servant incapable of serving a UPC government efficiently? Was it preferable to employ in government services only UPC supporters, however professionally substandard they were? The Ugandan government was confronted with these questions in an acute form because of the shortage of skilled manpower on independence.
�The initial position was to continue the British practice in the United Kingdom of maintaining a public (and military) service that did not participate in politics publicly or actively. This seemed by far the best course and in the initial stages of Obote�s government, on the whole, it worked well.
There is a reciprocal element in the confidence and loyalty. When the leadership placed confidence in the public service to perform its duty, the public service generally responded effectively and loyally. But Obote began to feel that the better alternative was to convert the entire public service into UPC party members and supporters and to eliminate those who would not accept conversion. This process, interacting with the general political issues, helped exacerbate opposition fears that their days were numbered.
�All matters of appointments, promotions, dismissals, and related issues concerning the public service were vested in the Public Service Commission. Although its membership was appointed by the Prime Minister, it was independent in its deliberations and decisions.
�The first constitutional amendment of September 1963 changed this position and made the Public Service Commission merely advisory to the prime minister. In effect, therefore, the tenure of office in the public service was no longer dependent on an independent body, but on the will of a political leader.
�The opposition bitterly attacked this move inside and outside Parliament as a potential cause of insecurity among public servants and a prelude to UPC party members taking over public service. At this stage it was an unjustified charge because it was necessary for a young and unsure government to have sufficient authority to ensure an efficient government in this transition time. The crucial issue was how were the powers to be used and, unfortunately on this ground, there was beginning to be cause for concern.
�In several ministries, able and experienced public servants were labeled DP and were dealt with unfairly. Those who were not dismissed (in top echelons there were relatively few) were superceded in promotions by UPC supporters or lived in permanent apprehension for their future. The danger became more manifest as the UPC began to make political appointments of people the public service could not do without. Alexander Latim of the DP gave some examples of such appointment and why the opposition opposed direct ministerial control of public service appointments. For example:
�A gentleman called Miriaduar, who failed in so many offices � he became a sort of a typist in the Provincial Commissioner�s office in Gulu, he failed; he then joined the police force, he failed; he was made a jago (local government official), he failed; � I campaigned against this man in Moyo in April. He was brutal. � He is now Assistant District Commissioner in Moyo, and he is ill-treating all those men against whom he was campaigning in Moyo elections. � There was another man called Lou� he made a mess of every school he went to. This man is now District Commissioner or Assistant District Commissioner, and I have many other instances. � Why should the UPC now resort to appointing these men who have been failures in life, simply because they have supported them in politics?31
�This was to be the challenge to fair play. This pattern claimed by Latim touched every district and kingdom, except Buganda for different reasons. It is obviously true that in all politics there is patronage to reward part supporters after victory. What, however, is negative and ultimately self-defeating is to carry this to such an extent as to begin eliminating able, efficient officers and replacing them with incapable party supporters or goons.
�The issue was made acute by the fact that the government was the biggest employer. And yet Obote had a logical though unjust reason for it. He had never been enthusiastic about a well-organized, well-staffed UPC. It was therefore much neater for him to employ UPC supporters in the public service and make them work to build the party with government resources that the UPC could not do by itself. This assured him complete control as he alone had the power ultimately to appoint and fire them, which he did not have under the party constitution with party official officials who were responsible to the central Executive Committee of the UPC.
�This practice was more pronounce at the district level, which was also the most sensitive level as it was closer to the people. A kind of witch-hunt of DP (and later of KY) supporters in government departments ensued. In order to appreciate the aggravation, it is important to remember that the vast majority of those victimized were in fact never disloyal to the government.
�I will give just a few examples. As minister of justice, I was responsible for, among other things, the administration of lower courts (at the time called African courts), largely administering customary laws and assuming responsibility for policy regarding the higher courts (magistrates and High Court). The African courts handled about four-fifth of all litigation in the country; consequently, they touched the people more closely and more often.
�In Obote�s own district of Lango, the chief judge of the African Court, a man called Omonya, had served government for nearly twenty-five years. Obote asked me to dismiss on grounds that he was a DP supporter. What was the evidence? The political head of Lango district administration, Ben Otim (married to Obote�s aunt), had made the allegation and it was final. It seemed unlikely that a man of such a long and distinguished would be so rash as to play politics, especially in the home area of the head of the country�s government; but it was not improbable. I decided to send my principal officer to Lango to make enquiries. His report, which was through, rather than disclosing any evidence of political involvement, complemented the judge as an outstanding and respected officer. I took this information to Obote who still insisted I must fire Omonya nevertheless.
�I then drove to Lango myself to make an on-the-spot enquiry. I interviewed all types of people including the originators of the accusations. Omonya knew of no evidence to brand himself as a DP supporter. He decided cases of all political persuasions but not one UPC member ever alleged a case had been lost to a DP follower because of the chief judge�s partiality. No evidence whatsoever existed that Omonya attended public or private DP meetings. On the contrary, he was highly regarded in Lango and I drove back to Kampala determined to take a stand against this escalating danger of witch-hunting. When I gave my findings to Obote, he threatened to fire me instead. In the end we compromised. The judge was retired within a year and with full benefits. The principal reason was that he was a Roman Catholic and a DP supporter by attribution.
�A chief minister of one of the �federal� state wrote to me asking that I dismiss four of his top judges in the African Courts because they were DP supporters. Again on inquiry, they turned out to be sound officials, but were supposed to be DP supporters because they were Roman Catholics. This time, I rejected the request. But the pressure to conduct witch-hunts of DP of KY supporters in government were widespread without a firm stand to stop them. They were therefore two competing approaches to the public service.
�The first, promoted by Obote, was to put as many supporters as possible in government posts and eliminate DP and KY supporters, real or imagined. The second was to take all people equally so long as they rendered efficient and honest service. In a country divided by ethnic and religious cleavages, further handicapped by the scarcity of trained manpower, it was disastrous t begin promoting sectional party interests in the public service. It would however be unfair to place the entire blame on Obote. There were lower UPC officers who were sometimes carried away by their eagerness to promote the party and exceeded the proper limits of dealing with opposition members.
�It was both absurd and dangerous to say that every Catholic was prima facie a DP supporter, even though DP was a predominantly Catholic party. This attitude had a counterproductive tendency of driving some UPC Catholic supporters into the arms of the DP. Besides, the UPC had among its prominent leaders, ministers and founders, some leading Catholics. In any event, even if in his privacy an officer supported an opposition party, so long as he performed his duties well, that was his inalienable right. But the winner-take-all philosophy tended to demand total and exclusive control of everything, as far as humanly possible.
�It was the appointment of a leading UPC politician as Chairman of the Ugandan Public Service Commission (PSC) that elevated the problem to new and more serious levels. Although the PSC had become advisory to the prime minister, it could still be regarded as fairly impartial as its membership was drawn from professional people of integrity even if some had UPC leanings.
�Overall experience was showing that the vast majority of career public servants, even though they hold other political views, were prepared to serve loyally under the government of any party.
�But on the 26 August 1964 Abadala-Anyuru, a UPC member of parliament from Lango West (in Obote�s district), resigned his seat as Obote had chosen him to become chairman of the Public Service Commission. Abdala-Anyuru was a capable, intelligent UPC member and would have made as good a cabinet minister as most.
�But to appoint him to head a body that controlled the fate of all public servants was most imprudent. It struck terror among many public employees who feared victimization on political grounds. One can obviously argue that a UPC man can be as fair as any in such a post. Yet, it was not only necessary for people at the top to be fair, but it was also important to appear to be to very one, especially in a divided country.
�The choice of a UPC member by a UPC government to head the PSC was rightly not expected to be viewed as fair in the country. The opposition launched a vigorous attack on the appointment. Their leader asserted: �What the UPC government is doing is trying to see to it that only members of the party in power get employed.�32
�This was perhaps an exaggeration, but it accurately reflected how the action was viewed publicly. I had by this time become minister of state in charge of the public service. If there were any attacks on government policy, it was my responsibility to defend it. However, I knew absolutely nothing of Abdala-Anyuru�s appointment until one morning a chance remark brought it to my attention. Obote had left the country for a Commonwealth Conference. Both of us shared a common permanent secretary who was also head of the Civil Service. He stepped into my office to inform me he was taking some papers to the president to sign. When I asked him which papers he told me they were those confirming the appointment of Abdala-Anyuru as chairman of the Public Service Commission. At this time, although the prime minister actually made the appointment, it had to be signe
d by the president to take effect. The president, Sir Fredrick Muteesa (also Kabaka of Buganda) was purely a ceremonial head who had to sign what the prime minister asked him to.
�Astonished by the information, I asked the permanent secretary to hold on to the papers while I telephoned Obote in London to discuss the implications of a UPC member of parliament becoming the chairman of the PSC. Clearly it was the prime minister�s prerogative t make the appointment but it was most unusual that he should do so without discussing it with his minister who had to defend its political unpalatability, even just to inform him of his decision. The permanent secretary declined, as he had explicit instructions to take the appointment papers to the president for signature. It was Obote�s instruction that the appointment be made and announced before his return.
�I decided to delay it. I went to the president at once and explained the explosive political implications involved. I pleaded for a stay of his signature until Obote returned and he agreed. On Obote�s return no appointment had been made as expected and he was furious. He summoned me to his office and called his minister of works, Balaki Kirya, to attend. When the three of us met, Obote angrily demanded I withdraw my advice to the president about signing the papers for the Abdala-Anyuru appointment. He then gave me three days to do it or I would meet unspecified serious consequences. I reiterated that it was his prerogative to make the appointment and that even if I wanted to I could not stop him, but my action in delaying it was to discuss its implications with him. As the minister responsible to defend it, I had a right to be consulted and informed even though I could be overridden. I was
not going to retract a step I considered fair and essential. Of course, Abdala-Anyuru was later appointed but the rift between Obote as president of UPC and myself as the party�s secretary-general was regrettably increasing. This rift was principally arising from our conflicting views about how to direct the policy of unifying and integrating the diverse peoples of the state. The conflict was to escalate.
�Two other instances show the nature of the conflict that was taking shape. Akena Adoko, Obote�s cousin who later became most notorious as head of the �gestapo� � the general service unit � first came to me when I was minister of justice to ask for a job, as he was a trained lawyer. He was offered two posts successively, first as a magistrate and then as a state attorney, each of which he discarded although they were excellent prospects in a virtually unindigenized judiciary. He then demanded to appointed principal of a law school my ministry had established to train customary law magistrates. Not only was this was a much more senior post for which he did not qualify under normal procedure, but it was already filled by an able officer I was not prepared to replace. I resisted this pressure. The next thing I knew Akena was in the prime minister�s office, once again with me as I had be
come minister of state, except now he was chief of a super-spy operation, which gave him more power than any UPC official had ever wielded, with the exception of Obote.
�As minister of state responsible for the civil service, I endeavored to keep the PSC free of adverse political pressures even though Obote had already politicized it by exclusively appointing to it UPC members. Only once did I ever intervene to influence an appointment.
�The post of deputy commissioner of prisoners fell vacant and had to be filled. This was a responsible position as the prison system dealt with issues of punishment or reform but also ran extensive countrywide industries. There were two candidates for the post, neither of whom I knew personally. One, the more senior Kigonya, was both a Muganda and a Catholic and therefore had a double handicap. The other, Samuel Achieng, though more junior was a cousin of Obote. The minister in charge of prisons strongly supported Achieng. The principal reason given was that it would be easier for him to deal with a prison staff which was supposedly predominantly northern, although there was no proof to substantiate this.
�I obtained the files both officers for perusal saw that there was absolutely no question that Kigonya was not more senior but had consistently a better record. I decided to intervene. In a strongly worded letter to the PSC, I pointed out as a minister responsible for public service that I would not support Achieng over Kigonya; justice had both to be done and to appear to be done. Significantly, Obote decided to keep the post vacant for nearly three years, even after I was no longer in government.
�Ironically after the revolution of 1966, Achieng assumed special significance in the prison system as he took particular charge of all of Obote�s VIP detainees, including myself. This made conditions of detention more difficult. After the revolution, Obote at last made him deputy commissioner , as rules the winner-take-all philosophy were now in full bloom. Multiplied many times over in other ministries and local governments, with a tendency to make individuals unduly conscious of their ethnic, regional or religious background, which was not good for the health of the state.
�In addition, the practice of hounding opponents was spreading to the private sector. The case of Daudi Ocheng (sic) was not uncommon. Ocheng was one of Uganda�s few agricultural economist and by the time Obote took over power in May 1962, Ocheng was assistant and likely successor to the expatriate chairman of the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC), the most important nongovernmental body in the country. But because he was a friend of the Kabaka (whom Obote had secretly decided to dispose of as discussed elsewhere) and despite the fact that he was from a leading family in the North, he fell foul of the UPC government and was dismissed from the UDC on Obote�s orders.
�He took an important job with the Madhvani Group of Companies. I was present when Obote instructed a minister to threaten Madhvani with nationalization if he did not dismiss Ocheng forthwith. He was accordingly dismissed and had to fall back on his own resources. He did not deserve this persecution and had nothing to warrant it, although he was later to become a leading critic of the UPC government, playing a role that no honest government needed to fear. His motion to expose some of the unlawful activities of Obote�s government (which we consider later) will always rank as a highlight in the country�s parliamentary annals.
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