{"id":697,"date":"2026-03-04T19:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nwtdev.com\/tcr2\/?p=697"},"modified":"2026-03-04T19:37:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:37:45","slug":"100-years-of-the-ugandan-parliament-a-history-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nwtdev.com\/tcr2\/100-years-of-the-ugandan-parliament-a-history-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"100 years of the Ugandan Parliament; A history hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By\u00a0Jackline Kemigisa<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Mutesi Sekaziga<\/strong><\/em><\/p>

The Parliament of Uganda recently celebrated 100 years since its inception. This celebration raises three interesting questions; firstly, whose history are we celebrating? Secondly, is it possible to celebrate 100 years that include colonisation\u2019s epistemic violence without legitimising it?<\/p>

Thirdly, can a once colonised people genuinely celebrate an era riddled with legislation tenure (ordinances) aimed at imposing British tyranny upon its lands without erasing the different freedom struggles of Bunyoro, Buganda and other communities?<\/p>

What exactly is this history?<\/strong><\/p>

Scrolling through the\u00a0Parliament website<\/a>, the \u2018History of Parliament\u2019 page lists 1888 as the foundational year of a legislative organ\u2019s first elements in Uganda. Tracing it back to when the Imperial British East African Company (IBEACO) started its coercive economic administration in Uganda and imposed taxes. This historical blurb fails to mention the violence and strongarming that followed these British economic hitmen as they implemented the ordinances they passed.<\/p>

The Parliament website further lists the\u00a0Orders- In- Council of 1902<\/a>\u00a0as the first constitutional framework in Uganda that provided for Uganda\u2019s administration. However, the devil is in the details; the so-called Ordinance Articles legitimised colonisation\u2019s violence. Such as the introduction of vampire-like taxes, seen in Article 12 of the Ordinance, which empowered the Commissioners to make laws for Uganda\u2019s governance.<\/p>

This British administration of Uganda destabilised the already existing administrative systems within the different kingdoms without consulting the affected masses. It also introduced a legislative system whose sole benefit wasn\u2019t the Ugandan but rather the British empire.<\/p>

Economist Vali Jamal in his article\u00a0Taxation and Inequality in Uganda, 1900-1964<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>demonstrates and maps the extent of inequality in Uganda in those times. Through this mapping, he focuses on the government\u2019s tax policy, pivoting on tax ordinances (laws) like the poll tax and hut tax. The taxation policy demanded that Ugandans forcefully grow cash crops that directly benefited the colonisers and boosted their economy at the cost of Ugandans\u2019 wellbeing.<\/p>

Justice George Kanyeihamba, in his book\u00a0Constitutional and Political History of Uganda,<\/a>\u00a0describes the legal leadership-backed ordinances to have \u201creeked with paternalism based on the assumption of the superiority of the imperial race over the subjugated peoples\u201d. Kanyeihamba writes of the myth of superiority being a necessary instrument for keeping a small minority, the colonial masters, in complete domination over a large majority, the colonised people.<\/p>

The history displayed on the Parliament website is therefore revisionist. It is akin to what Postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak terms as \u201cWorlding\u201d in her\u00a0essay<\/a>\u00a0Worlding;<\/em>\u00a0 a concept she describes as a\u00a0 process of how\u00a0 colonised space is transformed (worlding) for the natives by their colonial masters through acts such as cartography, writing, where the native begins to see his own home as belonging to his master.<\/p>

The parliament website frames the purpose for these Order- In- Ordinance as \u201craising of revenues and generally for the peace, order and good governance of all persons in Uganda\u201d. In the same spirit, the Parliamentary history\u00a0worlds\u00a0<\/em>Ugandan legislative history so that Ugandans can see that history through their former master- Britain\u2019s eyes.<\/p>

The history further dives into establishing the Legislative Council (LEGCO) in 1920, whose membership was purely European until the 1945 swearing in of the first Africans.<\/p>

The body\u2019s leadership remained in the hands of the colonisers until January 1958,\u00a0 with Sir John Bowes Griffin\u2019s appointment as the first Speaker of the LEGCO.\u00a0<\/p>

Again, what the Parliament website terms as critical landmarks are still a stark white- colonial centred governance. Even with some Africans on the LEGCO, the power and interests still lay with the coloniser. Historian Uzoigwe, G. N. describes the LEGCO best, calling it \u2018a colonial body that was hardly an object lesson in democracy\u2019 in his paper titled\u00a0\u2018Uganda and Parliamentary Government.\u2019<\/a><\/p>

It was not until 1945 that the first Africans were allowed into the Legislative assembly. The late 1950\u2019s political atmosphere demanded a global end to colonialism in Africa, pressuring\u00a0 the British to end its illegal occupation. At the same time, it was too expensive for them to maintain the empire.\u00a0 This led to a series of constitutional changes, especially as Uganda geared up for \u201cself-governance\u201d in preparation for independence by introducing an electoral law to the Constitution, providing direct election to the legislature leading to the first-ever general elections in 1961.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Even after independence, the speakership was still in the hands of colonisers, mainly Sir John Bowes Griffin recognised as the first Speaker of the first Parliament from 1962 \u2013 1963 before handing it over to Narendra M. Patel in May 1963, notably a Ugandan of Indian descent.<\/p>

Colonial Laws undermining the sovereign rule of societies<\/strong><\/p>

During the colonial governance period of 1888 to the 1940s, the British laws such as the Native Authority Ordinance of 1919 violently imposed the Buganda administrative model on the rest of Uganda.<\/p>

The Local Government Ordinance of 1949\u00a0 set up district council powers that effectively destabilised the existing administration forms of the country\u2019s different communities. Numerous ordinances sought to tax the already exploited\u00a0Ugandans of their land<\/a>; these taxes also redefined gender roles as only men paid the hut tax additionally engineering a taxation inequality and belittling women\u2019s labour, thus creating a category of underlooked, unpaid work and shifting gender relations as Professor Tamale explains in her book\u00a0Decolonisation and Afro- Feminism<\/a>.<\/p>

Uganda\u2019s 1890-1920 history is marked by unforgettable resistance movements that sprouted up against the unfair land taxes introduced by the British colonists led by the Omukama of Bunyoro, Kabalega and the Kabaka of Buganda, Kabaka Mwanga defending their people against the white man\u2019s injustices. It would therefore be impossible to celebrate the colonial history of Parliament without watering down these struggles.<\/p>

If we embrace the 100 year celebration as the beginning of Uganda\u2019s Parliament, we not only endorse the revisionist history as told and taught through the coloniser\u2019s lens but we also perpetuate the narrative that our history as a people starts with colonialism, a grave misconception that mars our identity as communities that had successfully led orderly lives prior to the epistemic violence that was visited upon us through colonisation.<\/p>

In a book titled\u00a0The Complete Guide to Uganda\u2019s Fourth Constitution<\/em><\/a>, David Mukholi writes about a pre-colonial Uganda with no written constitutions spelling out laws. Instead, each society had a set of conventions, customs and traditions which regulated behaviour and social relationships that ensured rules ensured harmony and stability.<\/p>

In theory, parliaments are critical institutions of democracy, playing a crucial role in legislation, oversight and representation. However, in the Ugandan context, the foundation of Parliament is rooted in a dictatorship and colonisation. To celebrate the entire 100 years of its existence is to legitimise the violence of the British Empire. Like the history blurb on the Parliament\u2019s website applies a colonial filter, applauding those years under occupation equates to exempting the British empire from the crimes committed against the people of Uganda during their violent dictatorship.<\/p>

References<\/strong><\/p>