Mutesa vs Obote style, and a silly column for 62

Uganda was granted independence on 9 October 1962 and on 10 October, Obote was sworn in as the executive prime minister and Kabaka Freddie Mutesa as the country’s ceremonial president. We know that in 1964, the alliance unraveled spectacularly, and in 1966 it all ended in political tragedy, with a clash between the Obote government and the Kabaka’s palace.

The government stormed Lubiri, and soon after Obote scrapped the federalist constitution of 1966, abolished the kingdoms, declared Uganda a republic and became an executive president with authoritarian powers. We never looked back. Today the presidency is more powerful than Obote would have dreamed.

However, it is not today’s story that has captivated us. It’s one of the little things that happened hours before October 9 and October 10, 1962. We’re probably making a mountain out of an anthill, so you don’t need to read these silly thoughts, or if you do, perhaps more sense of them reading the paper upside down.

Derek R Peterson is the Ali Mazrui Professor of African Studies at the University of Michigan in the United States. He and Richard Vokes edited the 2021 book, The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin: Photographs from the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. On October 9, 2024, on his social networks, Peterson posted one of those telling little things.

“Here is the original version of George Kakoma’s hymn. The first line was ‘O Uganda, thy people praise thee.'” A week before independence, however, the bishop of the Church of Uganda protested that God was not mentioned anywhere.

“Milton Obote hastily agreed to change the phrase to ‘May God keep you’. The new version had to be printed in a hurry. It is the last phrase Ugandans will sing today.” It became one of the most important editions in the history of Uganda and in the same way the power to confer honor on our country was taken out of our hands.

On October 7, 1962, the Duke and Duchess of Kent arrived in Uganda to represent the British Queen at independence. They were received in Entebbe by Obote and Kabaka Mutesa. They were given a reception at Casa del Govern (State House), essentially by Prime Minister Obote. On October 8, the Kabaka threw them a cocktail party at his palace in Mengo.

A reception is more formal than a cocktail party, and the Duke and Duchess’s at Government House was a very structured event. The Kabaka’s cocktail party at Mengo was a more relaxed black-tie event, attended by some of his famous free-spirited friends. Both he and Obote wore conventional black tie.

The contrast between the strictly structured and the relaxed form could have been a signal about the power that should have been captured. On October 10, when both Obote and Mutesa were sworn in, there was a banquet and dance in the evening. Obote liked balls. The duke and duchess were in the house. Obote danced with her. It was another black-tie shindig, but this time Obote broke ranks, dressed in a white jacket. Not so the Kabaka.

For the next four years, the Kabaka and the Obotes carried forward images that were sometimes very different, and sometimes subtly different, defined by their choice of dress. The Kabaka had a wider fashion repertoire; He could do plain kanzu and jacket, wear royal regalia, wear his military uniform (he had it in black, blue and dirty white), get up in black tie and even safari wear and business suits.

Obote’s options were limited to a business suit, black tie, the occasional kanzu, and an open-neck UPC shirt. Who knows, maybe he had outfit envy. Or, perhaps, the Kabaka gave an Obote-style attitude. These differences in style and imagery that possibly hinted at political divergence were right under the noses of Ugandans, but they couldn’t smell them.

I like Kawa’s website. It easily tells the story of Uganda. He collected these pregnant style and image issues: “This alliance (between UPC and KY) was seen from the beginning as a ticking time bomb. Even during the October 9, 1962, independence celebrations in Kololo, two types of images were visible on the posters. The UPC one had a huge portrait of Obote in the middle and a small Mutesa in the corner. The other one from KY had Mutesa in the middle and a little Obote on the sides. This was simply a sign of the fundamentally conflicting views and interests of the leaders and their supporters.”

Small Ugandan things, which are big Ugandan political things.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”.
X (Twitter): @cobbo3