Milton Obote

Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan politician who led Uganda to independence from British colonial rule in 1962.

Apollo Milton Obote was born in the Akokoro village in the Apac district in northern Uganda, on December 28, 1925.

He was the third born of nine children of a tribal chief of the Oyima clan Lango ethnic group.

He began his education in 1940 at the Protestant Missionary School in Lira, and later attended Gulu Junior Secondary School, Busoga College Mwiri and eventually university at Makerere University.

Having intended to study law, a subject not taught at the university, Obote took a general arts course, including English and geography.

At Makerere, Obote honed his natural oratorical skills; he may have been expelled for participating in a student strike, or alternatively left after a place to study law abroad was not funded by the protectorate government.

He worked in Buganda in southern Uganda before moving to Kenya, where he worked as a construction worker at an engineering firm.

While in Kenya, Obote became involved in the national independence movement.

Upon returning to Uganda in 1956, he joined the political party Uganda National Congress (UNC), and was elected to the colonial Legislative Council in 1957.

In 1959, the UNC split into two factions, with one faction under the leadership of Obote merging with the Uganda People's Union to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC).

He founded the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) in 1960, which played a key role in securing Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.

He then became the country's prime minister in a coalition with the Kabaka Yekka movement/party, whose leader King (Kabaka) Mutesa II was named president.

Obote represented the UPC at the Ugandan Constitutional Conference, held at Lancaster House in 1961, alongside fellow Ugandan politician A. G. Mehta.

The Conference was organised by the British Government to pave the way for Ugandan independence.

In the runup to independence elections, Obote formed a coalition with the Buganda royalist party, Kabaka Yekka.

He served as the second prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and later as the second and sixth president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and from 1980 to 1985.

The two parties controlled a Parliamentary majority and Obote became Prime Minister in 1962.

He assumed the post on 25 April 1962, appointed by Sir Walter Coutts, then Governor-General of Uganda.

The following year the position of Governor-General was replaced by a ceremonial presidency to be elected by the parliament.

Mutesa, the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, became the ceremonial President, with Obote as executive prime minister.

Due to a rift with Mutesa over the 1964 Ugandan lost counties referendum and later getting implicated in a gold smuggling scandal, Obote overthrew him in 1966 and declared himself president, establishing a dictatorial regime with the UPC as the only official party in 1969.

Obote implemented ostensibly socialist policies, under which the country suffered from severe corruption and food shortages.

In January 1964, a mutiny occurred at the military barracks at Jinja, Uganda's second city and home to the 1st Battalion of the Uganda Army.

There were similar mutinies in two other eastern African states; all three countries requested the support of troops from the British military.

Before they arrived, however, Obote sent his defence minister Felix Onama to negotiate with the mutineers.

Onama was held hostage, and agreed to many demands, including significant pay increases for the army, and the rapid promotion of many officers, including the future president Idi Amin.

In 1965, Kenyans had been barred from leadership positions within the government, and this was followed by the removal of Kenyans en masse from Uganda in 1969, under Obote's guidance.

As prime minister, Obote was implicated in a gold smuggling plot, together with Idi Amin, then deputy commander of the Ugandan armed forces.

When the Parliament demanded an investigation of Obote and the ousting of Amin, he suspended the constitution and declared himself President in March 1966, allocating to himself almost unlimited power under state of emergency rulings.

Several members of his cabinet, who were leaders of rival factions in the party, were arrested and detained without charge.

Obote responded with an armed attack upon Mutesa's palace, which ended with Mutesa fleeing to exile.

On May 24, 1966, Obote ordered an assault on the (Lubiri) palace located at Mengo in Kampala, the residence of King (Kabaka) Edward Muteesa II of Buganda.

The attack aimed to dislodge Muteesa from power and diminish his influence.

During the assault, the palace was heavily shelled, resulting in substantial damage notable of which were his Rolls Royce cars that were set on fire.

Muteesa managed to escape and sought refuge in the British High Commission in Kampala.

This incident marked a pivotal moment in Ugandan politics and had profound implications for the country's future.

In 1967, Obote's power was cemented when the parliament passed a new constitution that abolished the federal structure of the independence constitution and created an executive presidency.

The attack on Muteesa's palace refers to a significant event that occurred during Milton Obote's first reign of presidency in Uganda commonly known as the Mengo Crisis.

He was overthrown in a coup d'état by Idi Amin in 1971, settling in exile in Tanzania, but was re-elected in an election reported to be neither free nor fair in 1980, a year after Amin's 1979 overthrow.

His second period of rule ended after a long and bloody conflict known as the Ugandan Bush War during which he was overthrown a second time by another coup d'état in 1985 led by Tito Okello, prompting him to live the rest of his life in exile.