Kabaka Sir Edward Muteesa: King of Buganda & First/Independence President of the Republic of Uganda.
President Edward Muteesa was deposed in 1966, four years after becoming president. The coup was plotted and conducted by his Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote who immediately proclaimed himself president, abolished all Kingdoms in Uganda, ordered a permanent daily curfew across Buganda from 6pm to 6am, suspended the independence constitution, the judiciary, and all political parties, and jailed all his political opponents without trial. Some of the imprisoned politicians were Obote's own government Ministers. While Obote had ordered the army to raid Muteesa's palace, the army commander General Idi Amin secretely leaked the information to Muteesa and advised him how to escape capture. Amin was close to the Buganda Royal family and only acted because he was a military officer bound by the military code of conduct which meant following orders of his executive Prime Minister Obote. The General's mother had been a traditional herbalist treating members of the Buganda Royal family for years. They were so grateful for her effective herbal treatments that they had gifted her with a sizeable piece of Buganda Royal land in Bugerere county.. So it was following Amin's timely advice to Muteesa that the King succesfully escaped unharmed from the palace during the raid which Obote had wanted presented to the public as a simple search for weapons illegally imported by Muteesa. The reality was that Obote took the presidency for himself following that raid on 24th May 1966.
The King of Buganda went into exile overseas via Rwanda and Burundi. Even then, Obote continued to pursue him. According to former Buganda Kingdom Attorney General Apollo Makubuya "Milton Obote left nothing to chance in ensuring that Muteesa was rendered a destitute. He personally oversaw that Muteesa had no access to funds from Uganda. According to a memo from the British High Commission in Uganda dated January 4, 1967, Obote himself on one occasion summoned a Standard Bank official and asked him if he could shed light on the possibility of funds being passed from Uganda to Muteesa. On another occasion, Obote summoned the local Barclays Bank Manager, Mr. Woodcock, and interrogated him at length to establish that the Kabaka had no funds.
The King passed away mysteriously three years later in London on 21st November 1969. He died a poor man in a small one-room flat, and in a poor London neighbourhood called Robert High. The Obote government never. Obote was accused of having murdered Muteesa by sending a Muganda lady, a known friend of Muteesa, to poison him during a birthday party organized for the exiled president/King. The day of his death, Muteesa had told BBC journalist John Simpson about his fears that the Obote government wanted to kill him. Mr P.M. Forster, the British High Commissioner in Uganda wrote that on matters concerning Muteesa, Obote’s “emotions are strongly engaged and his behaviour tends to be irrational.” The Obote government also made no effort to mourn Muteesa.
There are also accusations against the British government which was known to have been against the continued existence of the Buganda Kingdom which was hampering their colonial agenda. Britain therefore had a motive to see Muteesa and his Kingdom secretely eliminated from the politics of Uganda. Remember it was Britain who before independence, had sent the King into exile before allowing him back again to due to public pressure.
However, who knows what journalist John Simpson could have been up to while visiting and interviewing the Kabaka? He was the last person to see the King alive. It is also known in security circles that journalists have always been some of the best assets of the UK secret service.
There were some suspicions raised especially when the British police did not investigate Mr. Simpson even after being told that he was the last person seen with Muteesa.
After first being buried at Kensal Rise cemetary in London on December 3rd 1969, the late Kabaka Muteesa was finally granted a State Funeral and traditional Royal burial two years later, on March 31st 1971, in Uganda following the fall of Obote's presidency. Four days of national mourning and a grand State funeral with full military honours was decreed by the new President, General Idi Amin who also became the guardian of the young crown Prince of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi (todays King of Buganda). The Amin government embarked on educating him. Paid for all his upkeep in London, and that of his family relatives in Uganda. The care of the Buganda Royal family by government was terminated in 1979 by the so-called Liberators, including Obote and their fascist, indisciplined and murderous UNLA army that marched shoulder to shoulder into Uganda with the Tanzanian forces of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere before embarking on a genocide against the Baganda people particularly in Luweero district.