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. In the only portion dealing with Obote�s effort to politicize the civil service, we saw his paranoia with regard to the opposion and how he resorted to �technical know-who�, to achieve his goals. It was also a useful ploy for him to get rid of local political stars (e.g. Abdala-Anyuru).
Below is an excerpt of this gorilla�s efforts to dominate local governments, whishow how Obote systematically underminied federo and, ultimately his own party, by coercing local governments to join UPC.
�Controlling Local Government
�We mentioned the conflict, both intraparty (UPC) and interparty, that was beginning to build up in the local governments (or regional administrations, as they were called). With the advent of representative government in the early sixties, direct elections to the councils of these governments were fought with as much vigor and seriousness as elections to the Parliament. All poilitical parties, as they advocated and agitated for independence, heightened the significance of representative government among the masses, in local as well as central government among the masses, in local as well as central government.
�The winning party therefore looked forward to exercising whatevr authority the constitution granted the councils without undue interference from the center. The UPC government early in its life, nevertheless, began to take steps to ensure and tighten its control over local governments and their politics. Le us take taxation for example.
�The issue of assessment and payment of taxes to local governments was very important. Originally, each locality had a tax assessment committee that consisted mostly of chiefs. It should be mentioned that chiefs here were civil servants and were required to be non-partisan regarding political parties. They were therofore on the whole regarded as more impartial in assessing taxes than were politicians.
�But the new government law transferred these powers form the chiefs to the tax assessment committees �to be consituted in accordance with written directions issued by the Minister.�33
�This by itself need not have been alarming as it gave the central government authority to ensure uniform and fair practices of such committees through the country. But as it turned out, only UPC party memebers were put on these assessment committees. As a result, widespread unrest and protests mushroomed over the claim that DP supporters were being unjustly required to pay higher taxes than UPC members of comparable means.
� The opposition leaders resisted the new committees and urged their supportes in some areas where blatant injustices had been done not to pay taxes. The government had to pass legislation in February 1963 making it a punishable offence to incite people not to pay taxes. Had the opposition DP been represented on tax assessment committees, even as minority memebers, it is highly probable that these tensions would have been avoided.
�But the monopoly of power and positions throught the whole local government administrations in the state was such that, although objectively the DP was substantially supported, they were never given the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the formulation or execution of policy. They were rendered second-class citizens in their own country.
�This policy tended to spark off conflict in addition in areas where the UPC was governing a multiethnic district -- as in Kigezi, Bukedi, Toro, and West Nile � where one particularethnic group (or in alliance with another) sought to impose its hegemony on the rest, with adverse divisive results. Because the central government itself shared with the UPC the policy of monopolizing power, rather than acting as a restraining influence on local governments it actually promoted and exacerbated the practice, inasmuch as the top heirarchy in the government and the party scrambled for support throughout the lowerechelons of the party and government in the state.
�The Independence Constitutionhad empowered Parliament to enact legislation setting down more fully the powers and functions of the three western kingdoms and busoga. We have already discussed the main powers thus granted. But the debates that surrounded this legislation and the opposition it aroused among those affested indicated the local fears.
� The kingdoms affected demanded the general power to legislate over a farther-reaching list of items than was contemplated by the framres of the constitution. The demands were made all the harder to reject because threeof the four governments (Bunyoro, Busoga, and Toro) were led strongly by the UPC and only Ankole was controlled by the DP at the time. Quite properly, Obote and Obwangor (minister responsible for lregional administrations at the time) stood firmly against these excessive demands.
�It is therefore ridiculos to suppose that every act by government in trying to exert and centralize was detrimental. Some, like this refusal to grant more power than necessary, was sound. The failure came, partly, when powers thus retained were used with partiality and divisiveness by leaders of leaders of the central government. As I urgued in Obote�s support:
While we tried to compromise with history, while we tried to move smoothly from the past into the future by accepting the reality that the kingdoms are to have a certain measure of federal status, nevertheless, in anticipating the future, we had to stateand be firmthat only those powersas are commensurate with the requirements of a modern state and with the peculiar circumstances of the kingdom should be given.34
�In June 1963, two principal posts of political leaders of district councils were created. The political leaders of district councils were created. The political head of local government was to be a secretary-general and would serve as head of the majority group in the council. There was also to be a financial secretary who would be in charge of the treasury. This was a democratic development and one welcomed by UPC supporters who controlled all district councils. And yet, within six months, another law passed making thg the appointment of these two principal officers conditional upon the minister�s approval.
�The previous legislation had also stipulated that any of the two officers could be voted out of office by two-thirds of the council members. But by now, even if the council had such a majority, it could not remove its leaders without the minister�s approval. In other words, the right of the people in every district to choose their political leaders was substantially negated.
�The government�s reason for such central control was ostensibly to �ensure election by Councils of non-triblal, non-functional groups.�35 These were noble aims except that they presupposed what did not exist, that the minister and the central government would be immune from these divisions when in fact the promoted and expoited them.
�The powers thus assumed by the center therefore were double edged. They were not aimed at the DP, but which controlled no council, but at UPC supporters. By taking upon itself the power to select or reject principal political leaders in district councils, the central government was now directly embroiled in local intraparty disputes. In practice it took sides and therefore made friends as well as enemies within its own party.
�If the central authority had been exercised fairly from the top, it might perhaps have been beneficial both for the local administrations and the UPC.
But as it turned out, the powers thus assumed were merely an additional instrument in the hands of the party leaders to manipulate and exploit intraparty conflict now emerging in the top hierarchy of the UPC.
�With a party divided from top to bottom, therefore, justice and fair play came to be guided by systematic promotion of sectional interests within the party and not by interests of the UPC and Uganda as a whole, although this had to be paid lip service. More and more powers were acquired by the central government to control district councils, as we shall later show, to the point of making local government a sham.
�With the UPC being discredited by its own members and its unifying force on the decline, more fundamental pulls of ethnicity, religion, and outright personal ambition came to the fore to make government at both local and national levels increasingly problemetic.
�As was mentioned earlier, government at these two levels was the biggest employer in the country. Each local government had a fairly large body of employees manning all its services. The appointment of all these employess was vested in a regional Public Service Commission set up by an act of Parliament. It was mostdesirable that the governement both be and appear to be fair in these appointments, promotions, transfers and dismissals of the local government officers , such as chiefs who were in such close contact with the masses of people. But as with the Public Service Commission of central government, the Regional Service Commission was not only made merely advisory to the minister in performing of its functions, but its composition was entirely made up of UPC party membersand supporters as we
ll:
Chairman: Lalobo � UPC, Acholi
Members: Mungonya � UPC, Ankole
Komukoryo � UPC, Kigezi
Olema � UPC, West Nile
Ekurotoi � UPC, Teso
Wasukulu � UPC, Bukedi.
(js: notice how the UPC controlled kingdoms of Bunyoro, Toro and Busoga are conspicously absent at the feeding trough, while supposedly DP controlled Ankole is engorging herself silly � just follow the money trail to the truth.)
�Such composition inspired apprehension among a good many officials who feared they would be victimized or removed because they were DP, on however flimsy and wild the suspicion.
�Local government administration began to decline in effectiveness because of such divisive meddling, and the more they declined the more the central government took more powers to direct them, yet without amelioration. As early as 23 September 1963, only a year after independence, the minister of internal affairs (js: do you know who it was?) was already reporting to the nation a sad state of affairs:
�Throught the country there are indications of an increase in inter-tribal tension and inter-party friction � I would merely warn that in my view this inter-tribal friction and party quarrelling is doing grave disservice to the development of this country. A house that is split against itself cannot stand.� 36
�From the minister�s own district a leading oppopsition spokesman had charged:
�General lawlessness and hooliganism of the UPC society in West Nile have far-reaching consequencies in that they have heightened tension between UPC and DP and around the dormant spirits of a peace-loving people.�37
�But why could not the DP be included on such bodies as regional or public service commission? A couple of their members sitting on the commission and consitituting a minority, which in voting would have been to the advantage of the UPC administration and party. The idea of monopolizing power was increasingly so pervasive, however, that even to suggest such an approach would have been looked upon as a betrayal of the party�s best interests. The process was therefore to escalate, with a good section of the population (whose combined votes for the
DP and the KY in the last general election far exceeded those for the UPC) effectively denied a fair share in the rewards of independence for which they struggled as much as the UPC.�
Js:
Such was the great UPC in Obote I. Clearly Ibingira was a major architect of some of this fancy legal footwork. His detention helped him to spend time analyzing the effect of his handiwork. I get the sense that he was far better at statecraft that the bumbling gorilla, Obote, for whom he worked. Obote was consumed by short term gains and does not seem to have taken long-term effect of his policies � so long as they made him top banana for the moment.
Ibingira�s book and the will continue to be a very important source for historians of Obote I for many years to come. Its only competition, IMHO is the Hansard � unless some of Obote�s former colleagues have left us accounts that we have to learn about. More stuff to come later �
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