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Olukiiko lwa Buganda lwanjudde embalirira ya buwumbi 7

The Kabaka of Buganda launches a book on Ssekabaka Muteesa II struggles:

Posted Friday, 27 May, 2016

By the Monitor, Uganda

Kabaka Mutebi (centre) with Mr Patrick Makumbi (right) and Dr Colin Sentongo (left) at the book launch at Bulange in Mengo, Kampala.

Kampala in the State Kingdom of Buganda:

Kabaka Ronald Mutebi on Wednesday, 25th May 2016, launched a book about the struggles of his late father and former Buganda king, Edward Muteesa II, touching on Uganda’s history before and after independence.

The book titled The Brave King, revisits the stories of Muteesa’s exiling, first between 1953 and 1955, and again from 1966 to 1969 when he died in London. The author, Mr Patrick Makumbi, drew from the documents preserved by his father, 99-year-old Thomas Makumbi, who was an official at Mengo, Buganda’s power capital.

“I was very happy to write the preface to this book,” Kabaka Mutebi said, adding: “It will help the readers understand what Kabaka Muteesa went through in those days.”

When Mutesa was exiled in 1953, the older Makumbi, the father of the author, led a team of six Buganda officials to negotiate with the British about the king’s return to Buganda, which was secured in 1955. The other members of the team were Mr Apollo Kironde, Mr Matayo Mugwanya, Mr Amos Sempa, Mr Eridadi Mulira and Mr Ernest Kalibbala.

Kabaka Mutebi, while officiating at the function, called on more people to document what they saw during those days, saying “it is a good thing” that some of those who witnessed or participated in the events are still alive. Muteesa himself wrote about the period in question in his autobiography, The Desecration of my Kingdom, and Kabaka Mutebi’s endorsement of Mr Makumbi’s new book will be seen as an extension of the kingdom’s bid to manage the narrative.

Mr Apollo Makubuya, Buganda’s third deputy Katikkiro, at the launch held at Bulange-Mengo said there have been attempts to misrepresent history by “those who do not like us”.

Accusations and counter accusations of betrayal between Buganda Kingdom and Obote are rooted in a rather happy start, when Buganda’s party Kabaka Yekka (KY) teamed up with Obote’s Uganda People’s Congress to defeat the Democratic Party and form government at independence in 1962.

But the two centres of power soon quarrelled violently and were involved in what many have regarded as a critical turning point in Uganda’s history. The army, on Obote’s orders, stormed Muteesa’s palace on May 24, 1966, killing multitudes and forcing the king-president into exile.

Mr Makubuya said his grandfather was among those killed during the attack, an occasion the kingdom commemorates yearly on May 24. He said in addition to explaining how Buganda and Muteesa suffered during that period, Mr Makumbi’s book will clarify a number of other issues, including how colonialism thwarted Buganda’s development efforts.

He said Buganda stiffly resisted colonialism and the demands of colonial governor Andrew Cohen in particular, to the extent of winning a court case in London against the exiling of Muteesa. In all its efforts, Mr Makubuya said, Buganda was consistently seeking autonomy, and that the kingdom can “never” lose sight of this objective.

Mr Makumbi, the author, said his father could not attend the launch due to old age.

The publication of the book was financed by Dr Colin Sentongo, who said at the launch that KY, which ceased to exist in the 1960s, is the only political party he has ever belonged to.

The fathers of Mr Makumbi and Dr Sentongo met with Muteesa as students at Kings College Budo, from where, Mr Sentongo said, the three men forged a life-long friendship. It is probably much for this reason that Kabaka Mutebi warmed up to Mr Sentongo and Mr Makumbi at the launch.

emukiibi@ug.

nationmedia.com

Fiscal Budget y'Ensi Buganda ebiro bino:

Posted 7th July, 2014

By Dickson Kulumba

Omuwanika wa Buganda, Eve Nagawa Mukasa

Omukyala Eve asomye embalirira y’Obwakabaka bwa Buganda eya 2014/2015 nga ya buwumbi 7 (7,411,638,600/-) .

Embalirira eno eri wansi w’omulamwa 'Okwolesebwa n’Ebigendererwa' egendereddwamu okutumbula enkulaakulana okuli; okumaliriza Amasiro g’e Kasubi ne Wamala, Masengere, okulongoosa Ennyanja ya Kabaka, okussawo etterekero ly’ebyedda, okukulaakulanya ettaka ly’e Kigo ne Makindye 'State Lodge', okuzimba olubiri lw’omulangira Juma Katebe, okuzimba olubiri lwa Namasole, okuddaabiriza embuga z’Amasaza wamu n’okuzimba eddwaliro ly’abakyala.

Nagawa yagambye nti ensimbi zino zisuubirwa okuva mu Buganda Land Board, Amasomero, Minisitule ez’enjawulo, mu bupangisa, amakampuni g’Obwakabaka, ebitongole ebigaba obuyambi n’obuwumbi buna okuva mu Gavumenti eya wakati.

Ng’ayogera mu lukiiko luno, Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga yasabye abantu okutambulira ku kiragiro kya Kabaka eky’abantu okujjumbiro ebifo by’obulambuzi era n'ategeza nti pulojekiti zonna Obwakabaka ze butandiseeko ssi zaakukoma mu kkubo, zirina okumalirizibwa n’olwekyo enkola y’okunoonya Ettoffaali ekyagenda mu maaso kubanga Kabaka ayitibwa mufumbya Gganda n'antabalirira batyabi- ensimbi zikyetaagisa.

Olukiiko luno lwetabiddwamu abakiise bangi ddala ne baminisita ba Kabaka nga lwakubiriziddwa, Sipiika Nelson Kawalya eyagambye nti embalirira eno abakiise basaanye okugenda n’ekiwandiiko kino, bwe banakomawo mu lukiiko luno basobole okugiyisa.

Uganda Senior Police officers are facing eviction from Buganda State Police Barracks:

By Simon Ssekidde

Added 31st May 2016

Currently Mpigi Central Police station is faced with the challenge of housing

Officers at Mpigi Police Station gear up for deployment recently. (Senior officers have been told to leave the barracks).

Senior Police officers at Mpigi Central Police Station have been asked to vacate houses in the police barracks and rent rooms outside the barracks.

In the letter dated 23rd May 2016, authored by the District Police Commander, Ahmad Kimera Sseguya, he directed all officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and above to immediately vacate the houses where they are currently staying.

According to Kimera, all officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police and above are not allowed to sleep in the police barracks because they receive housing allowance in their salary every month.

“We have junior officers who are renting outside the barracks yet they are supposed to sleep inside the Police barracks, these senior officers are supposed to sleep outside the barracks and not inside because their housing allowances are consolidated in the salary” Kimera said.

Currently there are nine Senior Police officers sleeping in houses inside the barracks at Mpigi Central Police station who are facing eviction according to Kimera.

Kimera added that Cadet Officers are however excused because they are not yet confirmed ASPs and therefore they do not receive housing allowances.

Currently, the station is faced with the challenge of housing.

One of the officers who is facing eviction but preferred enormity, said the directive came at a time when they have no money to rent rooms outside the barracks and that they are expensive which they cannot afford now.

“We cannot afford to rent rooms outside the barracks now because they are expensive, we are still looking for money to take our children to school and they are now asking us to leave the barracks” he said.

'Paasita' eyeeyita Yesu bamuggalidde: Agaana abagoberezi be emmere enfumbe, okugenda mu ddwaaliro, n'okusoma:

By Musasi wa Bukedde

Added 1st July 2016

POLIISI mu disitulikiti y’e Nakaseke ekutte ab’enzikiriza egaana abantu okulya emmere enfumbe, okugenda mu malwaliro n’okutwala abaana ku ssomero abaabadde bakubye olukuhhaana okusaasaanya enjiri yaabwe

Emu ku makanisa amanji agagoberera ISA MASIYA mu nsi Buganda.

Baakwatiddwa ku kyalo Tongo mu ggombolola y’e Kapeeka mu disitulikiti y’e Nakaseke.

Omwogezi wa poliisi mu kitundu kya Savana, Lameka Kigozi yategeezezza nti abaakwatiddwa baggaliddwa ku poliisi e Kiwoko ne mukama waabwe Emmanuel Semakula 35, ng’ono yeeyita ISA MASIYA era agamba nti agaba n’emikisa.

Ensi Buganda ejjudde nyo eddini. Ono naye agenda kwefunira linya LYA SADAAKA (ekiweebwayo) MU DDINI ENO EYA TONDA nga Baganda banaffe wano e Namugongo bwebajjukirwa okukamala.

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WAGANDA KINGDOM AS A COLONY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 1907

Posted on 25th January, 2015

When Churchill, a Colonial Secretary visited the Waganda Kingdom(Ganda)(The Uganda British Protectorate)1907.

Winston Churchill

By Henry Lubega

Posted Sunday, January 25 2015

The first ever 17-gun-salute in Uganda was in 1907 in honour of the visiting Secretary of Colonies to the Uganda Protectorate. The gun salute was shot, not by Ugandans, but by Sikh soldiers who had mounted the guard of honour.

The secretary (minister) for British colonies, Sir Winston Churchill, embarked on a tour of the territory outside Great Britain but under the British Empire. Among the places he visited is what is currently known as Uganda.

Coming through the east coast, through Kenya and onto Lake Victoria up to Port Alice (Entebbe), Churchill reached the then government seat (British administration base in Entebbe in the Protectorate of Buganda (Ganda Kingdom) on November 18, 1907, where he was received by then colonial administrator Sir Hesketh Bell.

On his visit, Churchill informed his host that he had been elevated to the title of governor, and he was the guest of honour at his installation at a ceremony presided over by the principal judge in Kampala Judge Ennis.

After a two days’ rest in Entebbe, Churchill in the company of resident governor Bell travelled to Kampala where triumphal arches were erected on the roads entering Kampala. Shops were decorated with flowers and banana leaves to welcome him.

According to the Uganda Notes of December 1907 (the newspaper of the time) when in Kampala, Churchill inspected a guard of honour mounted by the Sikh.

At the coronation hall he met all Europeans in Uganda before attending a special sitting of the Lukiiko (Buganda parliament).

Four-day visit

During the four-day visit, he toured the Church Missionary Society in Mengo and the Roman missionary bases in Rubaga and Nsambya before going on to visit the only factory in the country at that time belonging to the Uganda Company.

According to the Uganda Notes of December 1907, Churchill paid homage to the Kabaka at his palace at Lubiri and met with the local chiefs in Buganda. The next day, he paid a visit to Kabaka Daudi Chwa II for the second time in two days where a Ganda war dance was performed in his honour, and he was presented with two spears and a shield, and he addressed the Lukiiko. Below is his full speech:

“I am very glad indeed to come to Uganda. I am glad to be here upon an occasion which is one of importance in the history of this country.

His Most Gracious Majesty king has been pleased to raise his excellency from the rank of commissioner to that of governor, that is a recognition of the high esteem in which the services of his excellency is held.

It is also a recognition of Uganda amongst the possession of the British Crown, but that the alteration in the position of his excellency involves as he has told you, no alteration whatever in the position of the government he regulates.

The basis of these regulations is the Uganda agreement-a human document and like all earthly things it is not perhaps in every way perfect, but it is a bargain and guarantee and it will faithfully be observed by both sides.

Rights and liberties

The chiefs who are gathered together here today need have no fear that it will be encroached upon or melted away.

So long as they themselves and the people of Uganda faithfully adhere to their portion of the contract. Under the agreement, all their rights and liberties are guaranteed and all their lands, possessions and ancient privileges.

Under the agreement they may preserve all their old grace and simplicity of their lives which has always so honourably distinguished the Waganda people.

The power of the British government is great.

It’s not easy to measure or describe how great that power is, but that powerful government will be the friends and staunch friends of Uganda and its people.

The Baganda chiefs must look upon the British government as their friend and guide.

As a sharp sword against their enemies and as a power always anxious to promote the prosperity of their people in times of trouble, in times of famine, in times of pestilence, and the just of the British Crown will be very evenly administered between all classes and all those who come under the authority of the king.

Therefore, let them take heart and labour reverently and piously with the government and help the governor to the advancement of the people committed to their charge.

I offer them my largest congratulations upon the elevated degree of civilisation and advancement to which they have already attained.

When I return to England I shall tell His Majesty the King how beautiful their country is and how good its people are.

That’s all I have to say.”

Way to the Sudan

From Lubiri, Churchill went to open Mengo Boys High School, now Mengo S.S.

From Mengo Boys High School, he headed straight to Munyonyo to board a boat to take him across the Nile on his way to the Sudan. On his journey up north, he saw the other part of Uganda beyond the Buganda region he had seen, taking time to travel inland other than on water alone.

Upon his return home in 1908, he wrote a book about his journey which had started from the Cape in South Africa and ended in Cairo.

In his book, My African Journey, he says “My journey is at an end, the tale has been told. The reader who has followed so faithfully and so far has a right to ask what message I bring back. It can be stated in three words concentrate on Uganda.”

He went on to say, ” …in my view in spite of its insects and diseases, it ought in the course of time, to become the most prosperous of all our East African possessions and perhaps the financial driving wheel of this part of the world.”

So impressed he was with the natural vegetation and potential of the country compared to the rest he toured all the way from the Cape to Cairo that he continued to write in his book that “My counsel plainly is- concentrate on Uganda!

Nowhere else in Africa will little money go so far…Uganda is from end to end a ‘beautiful garden’ where ‘staple food’ of the people grows fast without labour.

Does it not sound like paradise on earth? It is the pearl of Africa.”

He went on to write, “For magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion or brilliant life-bird, insect, reptile, beast- for vast scale- Uganda is truly the Pearl of Africa.”

“The Kingdom of Uganda is a fairy tale. The scenery is different, the climate is different and most of all, the people are different from anything elsewhere to be seen in the whole range of Africa…what message I bring back...concentrate upon Uganda.”

Churchill’s speech at opening of Mengo Boys High School

“Your excellency, your highness, my lord ladies and gentlemen, I am very much obliged to His Excellency and to all of you for according me the honour of opening this high school upon the occasion of my flying visit to Uganda.

I can hardly believe until looking at the excellent map provided on the wall, no doubt for that purpose that we are all gathered together here in the heart of Africa.

I am amazed at the spectacular before me and it is one that will be fixed upon my mind and I think that the greatest honour and the greatest respect is due to all those who have done so great a work whether they be representatives of the imperial government, or whether they be the native rulers and chiefs who aid the imperial government in their work or those engaged in fulfilling the purpose of the mission.

In most recent times a large, healthy strong, useful and religious work is daily and hourly lifting the masses of the people from the ordinary toil and routine of life to the contemplation of a world beyond our own.

I am aware that opinions are divergent and men differ as to advantages and disadvantages of missionary enterprise conducted in many parts of the world.

And you my Lord Bishop are centrally not unaware of the fact your work has its critics and difficulties, but I venture to think that serious objections may sometimes be given by the voice of prejudice.

And I think furthermore, that there is no part of the country’s enterprise in which more imminent difficulties have been overcome, and in which the results attained have been a grater reward for those who conducted the missionary work.

Here we have in Uganda an island of hope and progress in the very heart of the Dark Continent and I think as British people come to know more and I hope I shall be one of those to take part in telling them of the results which have been here achieved, their interest, sympathy, and support will be given in an increasing measure to you and on a far larger scale.

And I think when we find these people clothed amid the barbarous races which surround them, anxious to glean information and knowledge from all other races with when they get into contact, it seems to me to be to be a most solemn and scared duty to be impressed upon the British people to shield and guard the natives of Uganda from any danger and peril or suffering which may visit their homes.

I shall certainly carry away with me a vivid impression of those things and shall certainly not neglect to bring it before the colonial office, and I trust that if any difficulties arise in the conduct of their work, I shall be made acquainted at the colonial office through His Excellency the governor.

I understand that the duty His Excellency the governor has placed upon me by his usual kindness and courtesy is to open this school.

I declare this school which has been constructed and which has already been I understand from Mr Gills a reputation of high standard of educational excellency to be open and I hope the boys educated here will as the bishop has said acquire not merely the education of letters and words but also the education of practical things and useful and technical acquirements or at any rate will acquire the facility for comprehending those strong principles of character which will make them straight forward and trustworthy persons fit to be the props and pillars of the people of Uganda, to help and guide others who without those props and pillars would not have been able to develop prosperity.

Who was Churchill?

Born November 30, 1874, to Winston Leonard Spencer and Randolph Churchill at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, his first exposure to education was in Dublin though he went on to three different schools before joining Sandhurst to start his childhood ambition of a military career which he had been exposed to at a tender age in Dublin.

While at school, he realised he had a stutter and a lisp. The lisp continued throughout his career, with Churchill describing himself as having a “speech impediment” which he worked to overcome.

He went on to say “my impediment is no hindrance”. He married Clementine Hozier in 1908 with whom they had five children.

He became Conservative MP in 1900, only to cross to the Liberal Party four years later, re-joining government from 1919-1929.

In 1941, he received the honour of being appointed Regimental Colonel which was increased after the Second World War when he was appointed Colonel in chief; a privilege usually reserved for members of the royal family.

According to biographer Roy Jenkins, Churchill took interest in war correspondence as a way of increasing his income from the annual £300.

His writings brought him to the attention of the public, and earned him significant additional income.

He acted as a war correspondent for several London newspapers and wrote his own books about the campaigns. It was while in Cuba reporting for the Daily Graphic, on the Cuban war of independence that he acquired a taste for Havana cigars, which he smoked for the rest of his life.

Churchill was transferred to Egypt in 1898 and served in the Sudan. While in the Sudan, he participated in what has been described as the last meaningful British Calvary charge at the battle of Omdurman.

Churchill was opposed to India’s self-rule, and he was the first leader to warn the world of the rise of Nazis in Germany. He cemented his war leadership during the Second World War after becoming a prime minister.

He is the only British prime minister to have had two different terms. When he lost power in 1945, he bounced back as a prime minister in 1951 until 1955.

He died on January 24, 1964, and was given a state burial.

In 2002, Winston was voted the best Briton of all times by the British population.

hlubega@ug.nationmedia.com

How Catholic religion took root in Buganda(Uganda):

The then Rubaga Cathedral 1897. Kabaka Mwanga gave the

Catholic Missionaries land at Rubaga where another mission

was opened.

By Henry Lubega

Posted Sunday, June 28 2015

During the two years and eight months that the missionaries were out of Buganda, there were leadership changes that took place. Kabaka Muteesa died on October 10, 1884, and Mwanga took the throne.

It was during Muteesa’s reign that Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism came to Buganda and later spread to the rest of the territory. Although he welcomed all the three religions, Muteesa never fully subscribed to any of them, and neither was he openly hostile to any of them.

Despite him not committing to any of the religions, Muteesa did not stop his subjects from subscribing to any faith of their choice.

Enter Mwanga

Mwanga ascended to the throne at a tender age of 18 when the kingdom was going through hard times. Colonialists were making inroads into the kingdom and the new Christian converts were turning to a different supreme king to believe in and follow than the palace king.

Besides, the different factions were doing their best to endear themselves to the king.

Faced with such challenges, some historians branded Mwanga a weak king, as compared to those Buganda had before him.

His ascendance to the throne gave the exiled missionaries hope that their return will be eminent with the new king since he had been their sympathiser when he was still a prince.

According to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda and the Organisation of the Catechumenate 1879-1914, a history publication series by the Society of Missionaries of Africa, “ten days after his [Mwanga’s] installation, he sent messengers to the missionaries, inviting them to return.”

By the time they were sent away, the missionaries had only baptised 15 people with another 400 at different stages of baptismal training.

There was fear that with the absence of the Catholic missionaries, the new converts would easily be absorbed into the Church Missionary Society and become Anglicans. This did not happen.

Despite the little classifications created by the religions, Baganda converts were of the same socio-political standing. There were, however, back and forth movements to the different regions by converts.

Writing in the book Growth and Crisis of Buganda Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century, Médard. H said: “Almost all the first Christians have been Muslims for a while. In general, the first Catholics were not only ex-Muslims, but also ex-Protestants.”

With the missionaries gone, the few converts continued practising their faith but cautiously.

According to Hastings’ book From Mission to Church in Buganda, he says: “During this period without pastors, it is noteworthy that, instead of disappearing, the group of Catholics survived and grew without the assistance of any missionary. They were grouped around what we might call four ‘house churches’.”

These house churches were in different locations, with each house having a different leader.

Some of these leaders were the first Baganda to be baptised by the missionaries before they were forced out of the kingdom. One such group was led by Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, assisted by Jean Marie Muzeyi, and later by Charles Lwanga.

Another group, based in Nateete, was led by Andrea Kaggwa and deputised by Mathieu Kasule.

The two leaders, besides being Christian converts, held important offices at the palace.

Kaggwa was the chief musician while Kasule was the head of the forges. Luka Bannakintu and Matia Kalemba were based in Mityana while Yosefu Kaddu led a church house in Kitomu in Bulemezi. All these church house leaders had been baptised by the missionaries, except Kaggwa and Muzeyi.

As some converts stayed to carry on with preaching from where the missionaries had left, others like Paulo Nalubandwa, Karoli Buuza and his brother Cypriano Mutagwanya, and Gabriel Kintu went out in search of the missionaries in Tanzania.

They went as far as Tabora were Lourdel had opened a mission post.

Return of the missionaries

Having received Mwanga’s invitation, the missionaries stared the long trek back to Uganda in November 1884. Father Lourdel, Brother Amans and Father Giraud, a new missionary priest, docked at Entebbe on July 12, 1885.

The trio was received at the palace and they continued from where they had stopped. Upon their return, the king was very kind to them and their expectations of their mission were high until 1885.

The young king’s kindness soon evaporated and the missionaries became very anxious about what the future held for them. They had learnt that while they were away, the young king had ordered for the killing of three Anglican servants.

The death of Bishop Hannington in October 1885 also provoked the assassination of Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, who was the guide of the Christians at court.

According to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda, history series number nine: “Mukasa had reproached the king with this murder, and he was suspected of having communicated to the missionaries the state secret.”

These were troubled times and Lourdel, aware of the threat, agreed to baptise more readily those who requested baptism, even if they had not completed four years of training. From November 1885 onwards, Christians and catechumens came to the mission at night.

By May 1886, the king’s kindness had turned into rage, in that between May 25 and 30, a combined number of 12 Catholic and Anglican Christians were killed.

A week later, on June 3, 1886, 13 Catholics and 13 Protestants were burnt alive at Namugongo. Many of those burnt had been baptised by fellow converts after their arrest before the final journey to Namugongo.

Mwanga’s anger, according to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda, was not restricted to his palace alone

“Mwanga also sent soldiers outside the capital, to Mityana, among other places. There is no doubt that many other Christians were killed, but the exact number is unknown. At the end of January 1887, the Kabaka seems to have grown calmer and the persecution ceased,” the book said.

Missionaries and palace coups of 1888

In mid-1888, Kabaka Mwanga tried to gain firmer control over the new regiments he had founded two years earlier. Others say he wished to eliminate them.

As a result, a Christian coalition led by Honorat Nyonyintono and Apollo Kaggwa in conjunction with Muslim units chased Mwanga from his throne on September 10, 1888, and replaced him with his brother Kiwewa.

It was a coup d’état and an event with far-reaching long-term implications which brought about this coalition. It was the start of the weakening of royal power and the transfer of political power to a group of young leaders who, for the most part, adhered to the new ‘imported’ religions.

Writing in the book Crisis and Growth, H. Médard says: “October 1888 opened a new leaf of religion in Buganda. That is when the link between political power and religion started with the coups d’état.

Religion was at the heart of military-political groupings, and this situation was to be for generations, the cement of socio-political positions in Buganda.”

He goes on to say: “At first, it was just a matter of rivalry for power between chiefs; later this was translated into opposition between armed and structured political parties, which were called bafransa and bangeleza.”

“The origin and internal cohesion of these parties was generally religious, even when their goal was political power. From then on, access to power and the associated privileges was achieved, not by favour of the king, but from religious political parties.”

Beneficiaries of the coup

It’s the missionaries who were the first beneficiaries of the coup. The involvement of the Christian chiefs in the coup brought many new sympathisers to the faith.

However, soon after the alliance between the Christians and the Muslims broke, the Muslims turned against the Catholic missionaries, taking advantage of their superior army.

With a better army, in October of the same year, the Muslims engineered another coup which led to another round of expulsion of all Christian missionaries from Buganda.

Writing in the book African Slavery and Europe Volume Two, Archbishop Lavigerie says after the Muslims seized power on October 10, 1888, Bishop Livinhac, fathers Lourdel and Denoit and Brother Amans were imprisoned by one of the Muslim chiefs.

With the Muslims in power, they installed another king, Kalema, and during this time, they stripped the missionaries of all their possessions and had some of the missions burned down.

For the second time, Catholics of Buganda were left without priests and the mission closed while others were burnt down. Those who took on the leadership mantle of the Christians were military leaders who had either engaged with the Muslims before or fought against fellow Christians.

Under the leadership of the Catholic and Protestant chiefs, Nyonyintono and Apollo Kaggwa respectively, the Christian armed groups who had been driven out of Buganda by the Muslim army to Kabula, then part of Ankole, reorganised and made a forceful comeback to Buganda. With their return so did Kabaka Mwanga.

To show his appreciation to the Christian armies upon his return to the palace in Kampala, Kabaka Mwanga gave the catholic missionaries land at Rubaga where another mission was opened.

Fr Lourdel went ahead to lay a foundation stone for the construction of the new church on the land given to them by Kabaka Mwanga. Unfortunately, a few weeks after that, on May 12, 1890, he died.

His death did not deter the increase in new converts flocking to the mission to start baptism classes.

Ancestors in faith

In 1974, Archbishop Nsubuga (pictured) took the opportunity of a journey to Europe to visit the birthplaces and the surviving relatives of the first five Catholic missionaries who arrived in Uganda in 1879.

On his return to Uganda, he decided that, to remain true to the traditions of Buganda, these five missionaries, “our ancestors in the faith”, as he called them, ought to be buried in Buganda.

“We consider it a right and a duty to bring, their remains back to the land for which they have died, with no other purpose than that of giving us the message of Christ,” said the archbishop.

He added: “Let us be real Ugandans and by seeing to our Fathers in the Faith who died years ago for us, as real Ugandans see to their beloved dead, we will bring to our country the blessings of God. This whole exercise is basically a very religious and Ugandan gesture.”

With the kind assistance of president Amin’s office in Kampala, the various governments concerned gave their authorisation and the archbishop travelled in turn to Zanzibar and Bagamoyo where Fr Barbot and Br Amans respectively had been buried, then to Algiers where the remains of Archbishop Livinhac were resting in the cathedral.

An interesting detail noticed by many was that the remains of these three arrived at Entebbe close to the spot where, as young missionaries, they had landed for the first time 95 years earlier.

Source: africamission-mafr.org

lubegah@ug.nationmedia.com