RELIGION AND POLITICS IN UGANDA: THE CASE OF BUSOGA, 1900–1962

Abstract

IN THIS PAPER, we shall consider the extent to which the religious factor has influenced the recruitment of chiefs and political figures in Busoga. The principal suggestion is that with the early entrenchment of a Protestant chiefly establishment at Bugembe and the consequently dominant role of Protestant chiefs in the allocation of resources in Busoga, religious conflicts did not assume serious political proportions. Catholic and Muslim interests, after early demands for a share in resources, were faced with a fait accompli and found it politically expedient to seek patron-client relationships with the politically dominant chiefly Protestant establishment at Bugembe rather than attempt to overturn it. Whereas in other parts of Uganda religion has been considered to be a critical variable in political conflicts,' this was certainly not the case in Busoga. Under colonial rule, once it was clear to the Catholic and Muslim interests that they had lost out to the Protestants, local politics thenceforward mainly centred on the constitutional nature of Busoga's relations with the Protectorate Government, the chiefly groups' concern with a loss of privileges they thought they were traditionally entitled to, and their desire for Busoga to have special constitutional status in an independent Uganda.2 On the eve of independence one of the major issues was the status of Kyabazingaship (traditional headship of Busoga district) and who its incument should be-Sir William Wilberforce Nadiope or Henry Muloki, and local politics at this time too transcended purely religious cleavages. In this paper we shall consider the role of religion in chief-making in the early days of colonial rule and how the patterns of recruitment ultimately led to the assumption of power by the Protestant groups. Then we shall see how, through time, the religious factor receded into the background and other issues became dominant.