But for all its flaws, the administrative system which was imposed upon Uganda gave indigenous Ugandans far greater autonomy than was found elsewhere in British-ruled Africa.
From the African point of view, the good news was that the protectorate government discouraged white farmers from settling in Uganda as they had in Zimbabwe and Kenya. However restricted the role of Ugandans in the economy, many regions nevertheless attained a high degree of economic self-sufficiency, the Local Government Ordinance of 1949 which divided Ugandan into 18 districts gave considerable powers to local African administrators.
The churches remained mostly responsible for education, with the result that children tended to grow up within a Protestant or a Catholic environment, a division which was later to be reflected in the formation of Ugandan political parties. The Muslims were very much a third, and underprivileged, class.
The area which suffered most from British policy was the north, which was neglected in terms of education and never provided with the transport links which would have enabled farmers to export their products to other parts of the country. So the people of the north were forced to send their children south in search of work, and they became a source of recuits for the army and the police force.The build-up to independenceThe demand for independence after World War II was slow to build up in Uganda compared to other African colonies. This was probably due to a number of factors, including the lack of widespread European settlement to act as a trigger for resentment, and also to the fact that the status quo rather suited Buganda?s Protestant elite. Uganda?s first anti-colonial party, the Uganda National Congress (UNC) was not founded until 1952.
The first serious call for independence came from an unlikely source – the unpopular Kabaka Mutesa II who in 1953 defied the British by vigorously opposing the proposed federation of Uganda with Kenya and Tanzania. Behind this was Bugandan concern that federation would mean the loss of their special status and dominance by Kenya. When the Governor of Uganda refused to give Mutesa any special guarantees regarding a special status for Buganda in such a federation, Mutesa demanded independence for Buganda alone. The Governor then exiled Mutasa to Britain. This made the Kabaka a very popular figure, for standing up to the British, and in 1955 he was allowed to return and to sign a new Buganda Agreement giving him and his government even greater federal powers. Sadly, Mutesa did not use his popularity to help unify Uganda, but continued to focus only on questions such as Buganda?s status which only reinforced the fault lines in Ugandan politics.
The country?s first important political party, the Democratic Party (DP), was founded in 1956 by a Catholic Bugandan called Matayo Mugwanya. Mutesa had rejected him as a candidate for the Prime Ministership of Buganda because he was a Catholic, and the DP became a platform for the grievances of Catholics who felt themselves to be second-class citizens.The formation of the Uganda People?s Union (UPU) came in 1958 when for the first time a quota of Africans was elected to national level government. It was an alliance of non-Baganda leaders, and it merged in 1959 with the non-Baganda element of the older UNC led by Milton Obote, who came from the north of Uganda, top form the predominantly Protestant Uganda People?s Congree (UPC). The Baganda element of the UNC combined with members of the federal government of Buganda to form the pro-Protestant and pro-Buganda Kabaka Yekka (meaning ?Kabaka forever?, KY).
IndependenceThe stage was set for the tragedy which was to follow Ugandan independence. The DP won the pre-Independence 1961 elections (largely because of a boycott by the Baganda) and their leader Benedicto Kiwanuka became Prime Minister when Uganda was granted self-government in March 1962. But an alliance between the UPC and the KY, based on their anti-Catholicism, gave them victory in the elections which came shortly afterwards, and it was Milton Obote who lead Uganda to independence in October 1962 as Prime Minister, with the Kabaka as head of state..
Uganda at independence was therefore fragmented along religious and ethnic lines, with Buganda having full federal status while the other kingdoms only had semi-federal status, and the rest of the country – including the north – was linked directly to central government. Moreoever, Obote?s majority in Parliament was based on an alliance with the Baganda which was based solely on religious grounds. All in all, the situation was decidedly frail.
The issue which tested the new state was the old one of the ?lost counties? of Bunyoro. In 1964, Obote decided to settled the question by holding a referendum in the counties, to ask the people whether they wanted to be part of Bunyoro or Buganda. Inevitably, almost 80%voted in favour of Bunyoro, causing a serious dispute between Obote and the Kabaka and the end of the fragile alliance between the UPC and the KY.
Obote remained Prime Minister because enough DP and KY politicans had defected to his party for him to retain a Parliamentary majority. But continuing tensions between Obote and the Kabaka caused a Constitutional crisis in 1966 when Obote overthrew the Constitution, and stripped the Kabaka of his role as head of state. When the Kabaka appealed to the United Nations to intervene, Obote sent his army – led by an officer called Idi Amin – to attack the royal palace. The Kabaka fled, but several of his supporters were massacred.
Obote then pushed through a new Constitution, making himself Life President and abolishing the Kingdoms, and giving the army unlimited powers to detain people without trial. Faced with continuing Bugandan resentment, Obote had to rely more and more on force to stay in power. He appointed Amin his Army Commander. In 1969 Obote banned the DP and other political parties. He was deposed by Amin in 1971, while in Singapore for a Commonwealth Conference. The main reason seems to have been that Obote was accusing Amin of stealing $4million from the military budget.