By Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi
President Yoweri Museveni, while presiding over 60th anniversary of Uganda’s independence cerebrations on Sunday October 09th 2022, recalled in early sixties when leaders of Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika and even Somalia resolved to have an East Africa Federation.
Whatever the President recalled that day, shows a lot of nostalgia saying that had that happened there would not have been 1971 coup d’état that brought Idi Amin to power in Uganda, neither would genocide have happened in Rwanda in 1994 and the secession of South Sudan would have been an easier struggle.
In Sowing the mustard Seed, the president places blame on the shoulders of the then leader of Uganda Milton Obote, who did not support the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania’s efforts, to have an East Africa Federation, which was easy to achieve, and instead preferred the late Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana’s overwhelming ambition for a United States of Africa, a remote dream at the time.
The late Grace Ibingira and Ignatius Kangave Musaazi, also wrote open letters to Nyerere in 1971, informing him that Obote was opposed to East African Federation project. The two had welcomed Amin’s coup but Nyerere did not because to him, it was jumping from a frying pan to fire. He was proved right later.
The 1964 mutinies that shook governments in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika, were only politically motivated and successful in Zanzibar under a Ugandan Field Marshal John Okello, that successfully swept away the minority reign and rule of the Sultan of Zanzibar and the isles and Tanganyika united to form United Republic of Tanzania with Mwalimu Nyerere as President and the late Sheikh Abeid Karume as First Vice President and President of Zanzibar.
According to Prof. Samwiri Karugire in, Roots Instability in Uganda published by the New Vision (1988), while Kenya and Tanzania dismantled the colonial army after the mutiny, Uganda made a deal with them fulfilling their demands. Brig. Bernard Rwehururu, From Cross to Gun published by Monitor Publications, says that one of the demands was to have Amin as the Commanding Officer at Jinja barracks which Obote fulfilled even after the humiliation of his defense Minister Felix Onama by the mutineers, who had gone to address them.
Obote used that army to abrogate the 1962 independence constitution, at the peak of 1966 crisis and ordering Amin to storm Mmengo palace, to flash out the Kabaka of Buganda, Sir Edward Muteesa dead or alive. He escaped narrowly to England via Burundi. In 1971, it turned against Obote himself and the rest is history.
If Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika rifles and police were political, the Zanzibar successful revolution would have covered the whole of East Africa and the East Africa Federation could not be realized by speeches and resolutions of the day, would have been realized by iron and blood, to borrow the phrase of Chancellor Bismarck during the struggle for the unification of Germany.
In 1994, while holding a press conference at State House Nakasero, for Christmas and New Year festivities, President Yoweri Museveni was asked why he lent a presidential jet to Rwanda’s then Vice President and Defense Minister Maj.Gen.Paul Kagame. His answer was that one presidential jet could be enough for heads of state and government in East Africa.
He went far suggesting that while each state should have an Army, but when it comes to specialized and auxiliary forces like air force and navy, East African states could have joint ones.
Unlike the old East Africa community, 1967-1977, the new ones address peace and security issues, joint exercises and training and exchanges are done, games rotating from one state to another, which was not the case, in the past, if it is the will of God, East Africa Federation will be realized in our life time covering not only the East Africa coast between Mogadishu and Mozambique, but also the great Lakes Region covering both Nile valley and Congo basin where both Sudans, Somalia and Somalia Irredenta, and Zambia and Malawi, with whom, we share ancestry shall be integrated parts of it.
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