
President Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Museveni is not a Ugandan. He belongs to the Tutsi of Rwanda, who in turn trace their origin among the Cushite / Kushite who make up the largest ethnic group in the Horn of Africa. However, Museveni casts himself as an Ankole (or Mnyankole) – sometimes Hima – from western Uganda. The Hima or Bahima and Tutsi share a language and culture with minimal regional variations, which Museveni has taken advantage of to camouflage himself as a native of western Uganda.
Political, cultural and spiritual institutions of the clans of Busoga
Cultural institutions of Busoga belong to the clans. Each clan also has a spiritual institution and a political institution. The clan spiritual institution has a spiritual leader called Mandwa, and a cultural leader who is the political head of the clan. Normally, none interferes with the functions of the other. They are mutually inclusive. And all serve to ensure harmony in the clan.
However, the Uganda Constitution 1995 designed by the combatants in Luwero Bush War, who were mostly children and grandchildren of Tutsi refugees in Uganda and Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo), led by Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Museveni (of Tutsi extraction) and, therefore, with historical, biological, and ecological roots outside Uganda, distorts the traditional cultural, spiritual and political institutions of Busoga.
The constitution converts the political institution of Kyabazinga into a cultural institution and as I will show elsewhere in this treatise, thereby destroying the traditional structure and function of Busoga society. In fact, it does not only confer cultural and spiritual functions but depoliticises the Kyabazinga institution, making it fully dependent on central power for its social and financial survival.
The current Kyabazinga of Busoga, William Wilberforce Kadhumbula Gabula Nadiope IV was appointed an ambassador of special duties by President Tibuhaburwa Museveni (The New Vision, 2017) in addition to giving him a monthly allowance of Ush60 million ($16,110) and funds to study for a PhD degree.
An ambassador is a political envoy, representing the interests and choices of a reigning government of a given country. Therefore, the appointment of Gabula Nadiope to the post of ambassador, special duties violated the Uganda Constitution 1995, which bars so-called cultural leaders from participating in politics and casts them as just ceremonial leaders.
However, the President went on to defend the appointment while addressing the gathering at the Kyabazinga Day Celebrations by asserting that cultural leaders should get employment and work for the development of their kingdoms. He hit back at those who criticised the appointment (see also Kiggundu, 2017), He said,
“I have seen some people criticise my recent decision to name Kyabazinga William Gabula a special ambassador in the Office of the President. As someone who was involved in restoration of kingdoms, I know the laws governing them. I know where a cultural leader can contribute to Uganda without interfering with the law”.
This way, apart from using the Uganda Constitution 1995 to depoliticise and deradicalise Kyabazingaship, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni is determined to despiritualise the Basoga for the benefit of central power using employment of the Kyabazinga and money to make it appear as if he is subordinate to the President and who paid for his services to the presidency. As such a Kyabazinga cannot lead his people to resist evils such as land-grabbing and stealing of the natural resources of Busoga by foreigners backed or encouraged by the President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s government or the centre.
Jobs and money are two tools the centre, dominated by the children and grandchildren of the Chwezi, is using to de-culturalise the Kyabazingaship and render it useless to the restoration of the traditions, culture, spirituality and political development of Busoga and to sow discord between that institution and the people of Busoga. This needs further scholarly investigation.
Kasedde (2023) recorded that the nature and role of the traditional institution and its leadership in Busoga has changed overtime from the pre-colonial, through colonial and post-colonial Uganda. The traditional cultural leaders have been sideslined from the centre of the political and economic life of the Basoga and relegated to ceremonial role and parasitic patrons of the Uganda state. In this new status, Busoga cannot meaningfully and effectively challenge the excesses of the centre, for example in exploiting Busoga wealth unfairly or exporting her youths into foreign slavery in the Middle East.
Traditional healing practices and witchcraft in Busoga
Isiko (2018) discusses the gender roles in traditional healing practices in the Bantu ethnic society of Busoga, in the eastern Uganda. He attempted to answer the following four questions:
- How do the local people in Busoga perceive and interpret health and healing?
- How did colonial activities influence traditional health practices in Busoga and how did this affect men and women?
- What are the patterns of access and responsibilities of men and women in healing among Busoga society?
- What are the specific roles of men and women in traditional healing practices in present day Busoga society?
Isiko (2019) also addresses the specific ways in which Busoga society conceives witchcraft with specific interest in those aspects that make the Basoga glorify witches and condemn their victims. He argues that Busoga society’s determination of acts of witchcraft depends on the intention. Besides, some of these acts are legitimate with community approval. He suggests that it is high time that we sought to re-examine witchcraft as not entirely deviant in itself but instead used as a legitimate weapon against deviant behaviour.
Prehistoric Batembuzi influence on Busoga
The Batembuzi were a medieval civilisation in the Lake Victoria region in eastern Africa. Some writers credit them by mythology and oral tradition to be the originators of the Empire of Kitara rather than the Chwezi (see below). The Tembuzi Dynasty existed from about 1000 to 1300 AD. However, some writers claim there was a Tembuzi king called Kintu in the late 900 AD. No one knows the clan to which Kintu belonged. Apart from Bukuku, the only Mwiru that ever ruled during the Batembuzi Dynasty and belonged to the Baranzi clan, all the rest of the kings belonged to the ruling clan called Bagabu (Table 2).
The Batembuzi are historically characterised as superhumans who were divine with creative powers and never died but merely disappeared into thin air or into the underground. The founder of the Batembuzi is said to have been Ruhanga, considered to be a creator or a god. Table 2 below shows some Batembuzi kings.
The Batembuzi are in the oral traditions of Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole, Rwanda and Karagwe in Tanzania. However, there is no evidence to suggest that they are in the oral traditions of the Basoga, although Isaza (the name of the last king of the Batembuzi), Kintu (the name of the first Tembuzi king), Mukonko and Nseka are names used in Busoga. One of the sons of a daughter of mine married to someone from Kamuli District in Busoga is called Isaza. I have to find out why the father of my grandson is Isaza. It could be a gateway to understanding if there was a connection between the Batembuzi and some clans of Busoga. Besides, Kamuli is a place in Busoga but in the Tembuzi dynasty, Kamuli was a King.in the late 1100.
Besides, when King Isaza divided Bunyoro into counties (Sazas), Busoga was named one of the districts of his kingdom. While the name Ntege is common in Buganda, the name Ntembe is similar to the Ntembe of Butembe. Bugaya and Kamuli are names of places in Busoga. I have never heard of the name Nkya in Busoga and Buganda but I have only heard of Nankya. If Busoga was a district of Batembuzi dynasty, then some Batembuzi must have reached Busoga and interacted with the people, even by marriage. I don’t know whether the name Batambuze, which is very common in Busoga, is not a distortion of Batembuzi. More scholarly work is needed to establish the cultural, spiritual and traditional links between the Basoga and the Batembuzi. There has been total silence on this. How could Busoga have been a district of Batembuzi dynasty and a kingdom, yet there is no record of Batembuzi in Busoga?
Bunyara, one of the counties established by Isaza (Table 3) must have been the home of a people called Banyara. However, there are many Banyara in Buganda and Busoga. The Banyara first settled in the northern part of Uganda, but later migrated to the western Uganda to the Bunyoro Kingdom as the king’s guards. There has been so much genetic mixing between the Banyara and Basoga.
Buruli was the home, still is the home of a people called Baruli. The Baruli or Baluli (ethnonym: Baluli; singular Muruli), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Bunyoro-Kitara, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. They stay in an area called Buruli (which was one of the counties established by Isaza (Table3). They share a common ancestry with the Banyara, a Bantu ethnic group that Isaza, the last Tembezi King, characterised as a county (Saza) at the same time he characterised Busoga as a District. I have not established any meaningful historical link between the Baruli and the Basoga.
Table 2: Some Batembuzi Kings
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Kintu Unknown 900 AD
Ruhanga The creator Unknown late 900
Nkya brother of Ruhanga late 900
Kakama son of Kintu early 1000
Itwale son of Kakama early 1000
Hangi son of Itwale mid 1000
Ira lya Hangi son of Hangi mid 1000
Kabengera Kazooba Hangi son of Hangi Late 1000
Nyamuhanga son of Kazooba Early 1100
Nyka I son of Nyamuhanga Early 1100
Nyka II son of Nyka I Mid 1100
Baba son of Nyka II Mid 1100
Kamuli son of Baba Late 1100
Nseka son of K Baba Late 1100
Kudidi son of Nseka Early 1200
Ntozi son of Kudidi Early 1200
Nyakahongerwa son of Ntozi Mid 1200
Mukonko son of Nyakahongerwa Mid 1200
Ngonzaki Rutahindika son of Mukonko Late 1200
Isaza Waraga Rugambanabato son of Ngonzaki Late 1200-early 1300
Bakuku (The Mwiru) Early 1300
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More on Isaza, the last Tembezi king
Isaza is considered the last of the Batembuzi dynasty. His full name were Isaza Waraga Rugambanabato. He ascended to the throne when he was still very young and he faced many difficulties including the first cricket disasters during his reign. The crickets are known to have destroyed forests and all he vegetation. The king and his people could not defeat these crickets because they were so many. Scientists of the era sat down and tried to look for a solution and it was revealed by the scientists that Lakes Rwitanzige’s water was poisonous and could kill millions of crickets. Rugambanabato ordered his men from northern Uganda to southern Rwanda to work hard to face these crickets. Their work was to line up one by one from northern Uganda to southern Rwanda and dig a long dam in which they would plant a tree that crickets liked a lot. During that hard work old men were not able to work as King Rugambanabato wanted. He ordered that all old men be killed to give space to young ones who were able to face the challenge. This was akin to President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s retrenchment in the very early 1990s, of old people and their replacement with young people, mostly of Chwezi ethnicity (he erected a law called Sectarianism Law to protect them against the wrath of the indigenes).
The young monarch was, therefore, nicknamed “Rugambanabato” (he who talks only with young people). Trees that were most liked by crickets were planted and the crickets left Lake Nzige and started eating these trees from Lake Nzige to Lake Rwitanzinge. However, the king changed his attitude towards old people when young people failed to save him when he was almost killed by a skin of a gazelle he had put on but when it dried it squeezed him. Only an old man’s wisdom saved him. The old man told him to dip himself in water. When he did, the skin softened and the old man was able to remove it from him. He then surrounded himself with old people whom he was convinced would give him the best advice. “Experience is the best teacher”! The method can still be used to combat Nzige effectively.
Isaza is remembered more for have been the first king to introduce the concept of Saza (county) and to divide Bunyoro into Sazas. Some accounts reveal that the word Amasaza (counties) was coined from the name Isaza, ruler of the time. He appointed chiefs, whose names appear in the surviving accounts. In his appointment, he showed gratitude and respect to the old men whom he gave many counties (Sazas) to rule. For he remained their overhead and unifier who could command and summon them at any time. He assumed the name of Nyakikooto – meaning the greatest of all Saza chiefs and the lord of all. Apparently, Counties were adopted in Buganda and Busoga and other parts of Uganda.
The first Saza chiefs whom Isaza appointed were all old men. The Sazas (counties they were given were given are shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Isaza’s Saza Chiefs and their Sazas
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Name Saza
Yamenge Kitara (kyaka Saza
Ntege ya Koya Muhwahwa (Buganda)
Machumulinda Nkore (District)
Ntembe Busoga (District)
Kabara Bugangaizi (Saza)
Nyakirembeka Mwenge (Saza)
Kogere (his aunt) Busongora
Nyangoma (his sister) Buruli (Saza)
Nyamurwana Bugahya (Saza)
Nsinga Bugoma (Southern Bugahya Saza)
Ichwamango Bugungu (Northern Bujenje Saza)
Kaparo Chope (Kibanda Saza)
Kalega Bulega (The West Bank of Lake Albert Saza)
Mukwiri Mwera (Buddu)
Nyakadogi Busindi (Buruli Saza)
Nyakaranda Bunyara (Saza)
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When Isaza was about to die he passed the instruments of power to a Mwiru called Bukuku to succeed him. This annoyed the Chwezi of the time who the Banyoro had called Bahuma on account of how they sang, humming like a bee. They couldn’t imagine being ruled by a Mwiru (slave). The Bahuma attempted to extend their power northwards into Isaza’s Kingdom, which lay between Katonga and Nkuse Kafu Rivers (Oliver Ronald cited by Kitara Foundation for Regional Tourism)
Genetic connection between Batembuzi and Chwezi
The Chwezi dynasty, which succeeded the Batembuzi,is thought to have been related to the Tembuzi dynasty in a way that King Isaza, the last Tembuzi ruler, ostensibly before descending to the underworld, fathered a child (Isimbwa) with Nyamate, the daughter of the ‘underground’ or invisible king – Nyamiyonga. Isaza got trapped in King Myamiyonga’s Kingdom and could not retrace his palace. He had left his kingdom in the hands of his Mwiru with the support of Bukuku of the Baranzi clan. He declared himself the new king of Kitara. He was involved a power struggle with the Bugabu clan, to which Isaza clan was related, when Isaza disappeared.
Rubunda Omugabu, son of Isaza had a child whom he named Nkoni ya Rubunda literally meaning that “He Beat a Mwiru” (Bukuku) with a stick for becoming a King (Omukama) in his father’s palace. This he did as a sign of expressing discontent and anger at being ruled by a Mwiru. When the Bagabu realised that regaining power was a farfetched idea, they decided to withdraw from Kitara. They went to Busongora where they stayed until today. All the saza chiefs who had been left by Isaza Rugambanabato rebelled against Bukuku on account that they could not be ruled by a Mwiru. These rebellions left Bukuku in control of a very small piece of land that was united to Kikwenuzi, Kisengwe and Kajarazi, places which have not been pin pointed by modem informants. although Bukuku’s reign was faced with political failures and rebellions, it remains significant because of the status group he represented, the Bairu agriculturalists. He is the only Mwiru remembered to have achieved this feat in Kitara.
Isimbwa, son of Isaza, and Nyamata paid a visit to Bukuku from the underworld, where he had been since his infancy and he had already fathered a son called Kyomya. Isimbwa eloped with the daughter of Bukuku and sired Ndahura. Bukuku wanted Ndahura to die by drowning but when he was thrown into water but he did not drown because he stuck on a tree. He was saved by a porter called Rubumbi. He came to be known as Ndahura Karubumbi in appreciation of the porter who saved Ndahura from death The old men in the land said he resembled King Isaza. He grew up to be a strong fierce young man. He stabbed Bukuku to death and sat on the king’s stool. He was eventually installed on the order of his mother, Nyinamwiru. The Banyoro became very happy because the royal lineage had been restored. The Mwiru King had been slain. Ndahura became King and opened a new dynasty of the Bacwezi. He established his capital on Mubende hill, while Bukuku got buried at Kisengwe in Bugangaizi.
Ndahura: The first Chwezi king
Ndahura became the first Cwezi King in succession to his maternal grandfather, Bukuku Omuranzi. His capital was originally built at Kisengwe but later moved to Mubende Hill, where he could have a clear view of his kingdom. When Isimbwa heard that his son Ndahura had become king of Kitara, he decided to return to Kitara. He walked through Bukidi, Isaka, Kafo, Buruli, Muduuma and Bujogoro. He crossed to Kirahoiga, Kikondo, Kyehabugingo, Mpogo, Bukonda Kitahinduka, Kicunda, Bujugule, Kikwenuzi and arrived at Nyinamwiru’s palace at Kisengwe.
For God and My Country
- A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Center for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.
About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)
The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA). They saw their innovation as a new opportunity to demystify disciplinary education and open up academia and society to new, interlinked knowledge and solutions to complex or wicked problems that disciplinary education cannot solve. To this end, the CCTAA promotes linking of knowledge through the knowledge production systems of Interdisciplinarity, Crossdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity and Extradisciplinarity (or non-disciplinarity), which allow for multistakeholder team knowledge production instead of individualised knowledge production, which glorifies individual knowledge production, achievement and glorification.
The issue of alternative analysis towards deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge is taken seriously at the CCTAA. Most recorded knowledge needs deconstruction and reconstruction within the context of new and different knowledge production systems listed here in. Therefore, instead of disciplinary academics, scholars or professionals, we can begin to produce new ones. We can, for example have professors of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity or non-disciplinarity. Besides, academics, scholars and/or professionals, civil servants, researchers, etc can choose to reorient themselves via the CCTAA and become enhanced learners via the new and different knowledge systems.
It is attitudinal change to thinking, reasoning and practice in knowledge production and use towards solving simple and complex problems! We are all learning beings, and by virtue of the construction of our brains we are supposed to continuously learn and to be good at thinking correctly and reasoning effectively. As learners who can engage in critical thinking and alternative analysis, we become more open to change and alternatives to development, transformation and progress of society, embrace change, imagine possibilities, learn through the activity of experience, and rejuvenate ourselves and ourselves continuously. The CCTAA is committed to enabling this to happen. It does not abhor resistance but creates opportunities for meaningful resistance that opens opportunities for all.