Whoever this KAHIMA might be, his analysis of BUGANDA is a complete blind, biased collection, filled with hate for Buganda. Kahima, just like any of them, (you have seen one of them, you have seen them all) knows nothing about Buganda. Once a "kahima" always a "kahima". You people you will never change or even be realistic, no matter how long you live with Baganda.



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M7 Might ‘Kill’ BUGANDA, But BUGANDA Won’t Die - Not Yet



Two months ago, a phone discussion and email exchanges I had with the untiring Andrew Mwenda, chief of the newsmagazine The Independent, ended as an article in his magazine (and got the juices of the CID up, as they felt I had “insulted” the President with my choice of words).



In there, I argued that going on to 2011, Museveni had the option of courting anti-Buganda feeling in parts of the country, to find new sources of support for his president-for-life project. Anti-Buganda feelings, surprisingly, remained quite raw in several parts of the country, but Museveni’s regime cleverly stoked them up, by appearing to give the region preferential treatment in his first few years in power.



Anyhow, quite a few people wrote in, puzzled at how exactly Museveni, who based his rebellion in Luweero, the heartland of Buganda, and whose electoral “victories” in the past were delivered by the massive support he enjoyed in the region, could ever end up in an Obote-type relationship with Buganda.



With the arrest of three Buganda kingdom officials on the weekend, and the expectation that more will be picked up in the days to come, there are now fewer puzzled people. All this is truly remarkable because one of the people arrested, lawyer Charles Peter Mayiga, was once considered “too soft” in negotiations with Museveni by hardliners in Mengo, and some of whom even labeled him a traitor.



So is it Museveni who changed, or the likes of Mayiga? The radicals in Buganda were always seen to be too crude, even “ungrateful”, in the demands they made upon Museveni for “federo” (a watered down form of federalism), the return of Buganda’s vast tracts of “crown” land, and what they saw as Kabaka’s diminished status.



The moderates were thought to be better positioned to negotiate concessions from Museveni, and they promised that a gradual approach would eventually deliver Buganda the goods. But Museveni granted them nothing. Even the little they had, he took away. In disarray, moderates like PM Prof. Apolo Nsibambi joined Museveni, and were consigned to a life in political limbo.



Others like Mayiga became louder in their complaints about the central government stabbing Buganda in the back, and outspoken critics in the media. How did we come to this? Since Uganda’s independence, and especially Idi Amin’s time, the north (especially Acholiland) and Buganda have occupied a complex space in Uganda’s politics. It’s Buganda’s that has changed the most.



Conventional wisdom and stereotype used to have it that Buganda was relatively economically more developed than the rest of the country, so its elite would be reluctant to be engaged in violent politics because they would lose too much property. Also, that because it was the most modern region, its leaders were “corrupted” and so given to cutting deals, they would do a deal with the devil.



After the disputed December 1980 election, all that was proven wrong and thrown in the rubbish bin. It became apparent that it was, in fact, easier to mobilise an armed rebellion in Buganda precisely because it was once very prosperous.



People who were once rich, feel the pain of dispossession and poverty more than those who were always wretched. Buganda also poses a challenge that other regions don’t. For all the claims that Ugandan politics is tribal, in several respects, Buganda doesn’t fit the bill. Some of Buganda’s grievances are legitimate broad issues in democracies that have moved beyond tribal politics.



Its land rights claim are much like what we see in parts of Asia and Latin America. In Europe, especially in the former Soviet bloc, we are seeing the same cultural arguments about their past kings as we hear about the role of Mutebi. And Buganda’s “federo” is more or less the same form of self-determinationist demands one hears from Scotland, Northern Italy, and the Basque regions in France and Spain.



To compound matters, Buganda is aware that it has things every president in Uganda wants - votes, and rich lands. In the 2006 elections, for example, one in every five voters in Uganda came from just four districts; Kampala, Wakiso, Masaka and Mukono. The votes in these four districts, all of them in Buganda, were much higher than all the votes from the northern region.



Because Buganda is, relatively “modern”, it has demands that cannot be resolved purely by whoever is in State House giving it “tribal” gifts. It requires the kind of reforms, and policy actions that the Museveni government is incapable of, and that others failed to muster in the past.



Also, Buganda is the one part of the country that has nearly a whole two generations of exiles, as the trek begun in the mid-1960s after the ouster of Kabaka Freddie Mutesa.



The result is that the Buganda Diaspora is Uganda’s largest and provides a back-up for the region outside the control of the Uganda government that only the broader north is beginning to establish.



For Museveni, this means you can arrest all the Mayigas but you cannot really break Buganda’ political back.


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