Ugandan presidents since 1962

How Semakula Mulumba catalyzed Uganda’s independence struggle

by · The Observer

The origin of the struggle for Uganda’s independence from the British colonial rule is in the 1930s but picked momentum in the 1940s when Ugandans staged various demonstrations against the colonial rule largely objecting to economic exploitation.

The spark was when the agitators objected to the manipulative pricings of their cash crops that did not give the deserved benefits. Such bold and courageous faceup against the colonial rule later metamorphosed into political agitation, leading to the formation of various political parties, all agitating for self-rule.

As a result, Uganda’s first political party, the Uganda National Congress (UNC), was founded in 1952. The party that was largely for farmers was founded by Ignatius Kangave Musaazi, Abubakar Kakyama Mayanja, Stefano Abwangoto (Bugisu), Ben Okwerede (Teso), Yekosofati Engur (Lango), and S.B. Katembo (Tooro).

Musaazi was the founding president general, and Mayanja was the founding secretary general. The others were chairpersons in their respective regions. The party was first based at the Kabaka’s Lake, Mengo, in the house of a one Kitamirike. His place was the headquarters of the party for several years before it moved to Katwe and later to Kololo in the late 1950s.

However, among the heroes of our agitation for independence is a one Semakula Mulumba. Mulumba is unfortunately less talked about largely because his fellow tribesmen, the Baganda, didn’t warm up for him since he chose to be a republican and criticized the exploitative Buganda monarchs who he felt were in bed with the exploitative colonialists.

SEMAKULA MULUMBA’S STRUGGLES

Semakula Mulumba’s struggle for Uganda’s independence dates back in the 1940s when he repeatedly clashed with the colonial Protectorate Government officials in Entebbe and British government officials in London.

He did not spare Kabaka Edward Muteesa II, whom he accused of conspiring with the colonial masters to suppress the indigenous communities. His message became very popular with the masses, but he became the most unwanted figure both by the colonialists and Kabaka’s government at Mengo.

In a telegram to Muteesa on February, 21, 1949 he wrote: “The African people of Uganda should know that the powers conferred on either the Kabaka or the governor, have certain limits. Neither the Kabaka nor the governor has any power to enslave any section of the Uganda community.

The people ought to know and safeguard their rights as citizens. They certainly have the right to speak their mother tongue just as pleased. Therefore, anyone - Kabaka, governor, bishop, priest, teacher, chief, peasant, etc who provoke the Africans by interfering in their conversations, or greetings of: Jambo, bu, etc, does so at his own risk. The Africans should take a stick and give him a good beating. That is the only way to put a stop to all that nonsense of harassing people for saying ‘BU’.”

‘BU’ was the greeting slogan of Semakula Mulumba’s party which was fully known as “Bataka BU”. Party members would greet each other by simple shouting the last phrase “BU”. ‘Bu’ was the kiganda rallying call for peasant action against oppression. Both the colonial government and the Mengo establishment of Kabaka Muteesa passed legislations outlawing the “BU” greeting.

Semakula Mulumba, who at the time was in London, moved from office to office and frantically wrote telegrams to whoever mattered, championing the call for Uganda’s independence. As a result of his efforts, the United Nations Organization discussed Uganda’s independence during a session in New York for the first time in 1947.

The struggle for Uganda’s independence had begun in 1931 under the Bataka Party [Movement], a Buganda-based peasant movement. They opposed the 1900 Buganda Agreement and subjugation by the British, among others. Through the years, the movement changed names and approaches and re-emerged in the 1940s with the original name Bataka Party, led by James Miti.

At the time, the movement lacked a well-educated and charismatic leader to captain the struggle.

SCHOLARSHIP TERMINATED

In 1947, Semakula Mulumba, a 34-year-old radical and charismatic university student, returned from England after his scholarship was terminated as part of a crackdown on independence freedom fighters. Two years earlier, there had been a riot during which the colonial government carried out a brutal crackdown on independence crusaders.

One Indian was stoned to death, two Europeans were severely injured and eight Ugandans shot dead by the police, when the riots began in the first week of January 1945, according to a 1949 Confidential Inquiry Report. Back home, members of the Bataka Party were impressed by Mulumba’s charisma, eloquence and wealth of knowledge.

They raised money to send him back to England to complete his education and agitate for freedom. On October 2, 1947, he returned to England. The Bataka Party wanted Buganda to secede and they totally opposed the colonial White Paper 210, which pushed for creation of an East African Federation. However, Mulumba lobbied for national independence instead, which annoyed many party members.

Mulumba took the British head-on, attacking the British government as well as Kabaka Muteesa. “They were pro-British and I must excuse them because they were not enlightened. They knew nothing about democracy and, in fact, all the people in Uganda at the time knew nothing about democracy.

I was the one who introduced the idea, the idea which I got from England in 1945 when I took part in the general elections after the war which the Labour Party won. I saw the British people having the right to elect their MPs and realized that the people of Uganda should have the same right to elect their MPs so that the sons of the bakopi (commoners) could enter in the Lukiiko which was then the preserve of sons of chiefs,” Mulumba’s said in an interview published in the February 14, 1980 issue of Weekly Topic.

He added, “They used to say mwana w’ani? [whose son is that one?]. That statement is still being quoted. But when I introduced the idea of democracy, the people fought for it and got it. Then democracy started in this country. Today, the people do not know who introduced voting in this country,” Mulumba said.

The British colonial secretary, Mr. Creech Jones, dismissed Mulumba as a man representing a “mushroom political party” that was not recognized by the Protectorate and Mengo governments. He described Mulumba’s party as being “unrepresentative of the great mass of the people of Uganda”.

He accused Mulumba of consistently refusing to use constitutional methods to express his views. However, the Bataka wrote letters to the British prime minister and the UN, saying they supported Mulumba, and the British resented him because he was fighting for the independence of Uganda.

Surprisingly, as Uganda approached independence, and political parties including traditional rulers were being invited at table to discuss the possible independence of Uganda, Semakula Mulumba was never invited to officially participate in the process that laid out the framework for Uganda’s independence.

Finally, when he returned at independence, egoism and politics of intrigue came in. He was arrested in 1969. Upon his release, Mulumba quit politics and nursed his frustration quietly. In 1980, he said, “You do well to them and they forget you; for they have forgotten me.”

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