In the early 1980s, while the central and western corridors of Uganda burned in the fires of civil war, a quieter but equally destructive battle was being fought in the political halls of Busoga. Between 1981 and 1986, Busoga’s political elites engaged in a relentless campaign of bickering, infighting, and systemic disunity that cost the sub-region its collective political voice at a critical turning point in Ugandan history.
Rather than uniting to guide their people through the violent upheavals of the second Milton Obote administration, Busoga’s leaders turned inward.
Old royal rivalries over the Kyabazingaship continued to split Busoga fused with the toxic national politics of the UPC and DP, pitting neighbor against neighbor and leader against leader.
Dr. John Mikloth Magoola Luwuliza Kirunda, Mathias Ngobi, professor Yoweri Kyesimira, Kirunda Kivejinja, Dr. David Kazungu, Frank Nabwiso, Fred Mukisa, among others drove the political train of Busoga.
While Dr. John Mikloth Magoola Luwuliza-Kirunda was the most powerful and influential political leader, Professor Yoweri Zirabamuzale Kyesimira and Mathias Mbalule Ngobi were the most loved and respected political figures among the Basoga.
The major battle was between Luwuliza-Kirunda and Yoweri Kyesimira. They wete the chief antagonists. This was the most direct and brutal clash of power in the sub-region.
Dr. John Luwuliza-Kirunda was Milton Obote’s highly powerful Minister of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). He was the face of state authority in Busoga. He weaponised the state’s security apparatus to aggressively enforce UPC hegemony and crush local opposition.
Creation of the JIK Network
To consolidate his regional patronage, Luwuliza Kirunda founded and headed the (JIK) political forum named after the three core districts of the sub-region at the time: Jinja, Iganga and Kamuli. He used JIK as a vehicle to fast-track young Basoga into state structures, notably packing the national police and civil service with his regional loyalists.
Orchestrating the “Floor-Crossings”
In the 1980 elections, the Basoga electorate overwhelmingly rejected the UPC, voting seven out of eight Democratic Party (DP) MPs into parliament. However, using a calculated mix of state intimidation, bribery, and imprisonment, Luwuliza-Kirunda single-handedly bent the region to his will. Through his immense pressure, Busoga DP Members of Parliament crossed the floor to join the UPC, with the sole, heroic exception of Professor Yoweri Kyesimira (who chose prison over defection).
Professor Yoweri Kyesimira, an eminent economist and Democratic Party (DP) stalwart, represented the intellectual resistance to the Obote II regime. Despite winning his parliamentary seat convincingly, he was arrested under Luwuliza-Kirunda’s internal security directives on trumped-up treason charges and spent years imprisoned at Luzira.
There was also the Old Guard Conflict. Mathias Ngobi vs. The UPC Hardliners. This rivalry represented the unresolved trauma of Uganda’s first post-independence government. A legendary Busoga politician who had been imprisoned by Obote in 1966, Ngobi returned in 1980 to lead the Democratic Party’s campaign in the region.
He fought to stop the re-establishment of the UPC machine. Ngobi was fiercely opposed by Obote’s regional loyalists, who viewed Ngobi’s enduring local popularity as a direct threat to the regime’s legitimacy.
There was also the Ideological Rebels. Kirunda Kivejinja vs. The establishment. Kivejinja was a young elite breed. He rejected both the UPC and DP camps, viewing them as relics of old sectarian and tribal divisions and joined Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) and later backed the underground National Resistance Army (NRA).
Other targeted Basoga politicians, such as Frank Nabwiso and Fred Mukisa, fled to Kenya. Operating from Nairobi, they formed political forums (informally known as the “kiosk”) to plan for a post-Obote landscape and disconnected from the leaders who remained within Uganda.
Some leaders immediately took up ministerial positions under the short-lived Lutwa junta (including Kyesimira and Dr. David Kazungu).
Summary of dominance.
While men like Mathias Ngobi possessed historical respect, Professor Kyesimira was an intellectual giant and Kirunda Kivejinja held ideological purity, Dr. John Luwuliza Kirunda was the undisputed “main man” and most powerful political influencer in Busoga sub region. Between 1981 and 1985, nothing moved in Busoga’s political, social, or security landscape without his direct hand or seal.
The writer, George Mubiru, is a Jinja based researcher, senior teacher and Assistant RCC Jinja City.
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