Milton Obote
(born December 28, 1924, Akoroko village, Lango, Uganda?died October 10, 2005,
Johannesburg
, South Africa) was a politician who was
prime minister
(1962?70) and twice
president
(1966?71, 1980?85) of
Uganda
. He led his
country
to independence in 1962, but his two terms in office (both of which were ended by military coups) were
consumed
by struggles between Uganda’s northern and southern ethnic groups.
Obote was born the third of nine children in a farming family in north-central Uganda. He first attended Busoga College in Mwiri and then Makerere College in
Kampala
from 1948 to 1949, but he was expelled from the latter for his political activities before he could graduate. The British colonial government prevented him from accepting scholarships to study in the
United States
and
West Germany
, and in 1950 Obote went to
Kenya
. There, while working as a labourer, clerk, and salesman, he became involved in the independence movement and joined the Kenya
African Union
.
Obote returned to Uganda in 1957 and became a member of the Uganda National
Congress
Party. In 1958 he was elected to represent his home district in the Legislative Council, where, despite the fact that he was one of a small number of African delegates, he did not hesitate to criticize the British government. When the National Congress Party split, he formed the
Uganda People’s Congress
(UPC), which drew its support mainly from the northern
Acholi
and
Lango
peoples. The UPC’s main political focus was opposition to the powerful southern kingdom of
Buganda
under King
Mutesa II
. Having become prime minister in 1962, Obote accepted a constitution that granted federal status within Uganda to five traditional kingdoms, including Buganda. He was thus able to form a governing
coalition
made up of his UPC and Buganda’s Kabaka Yekka (“King Alone”) Party. In 1963 Mutesa was elected to the (largely ceremonial) post of president with Obote’s encouragement.
In 1966, however, the conflict between Obote and Buganda reached a head. Obote sent troops led by
Idi Amin
, an officer from a northern district, to attack Mutesa’s palace, and Mutesa fled to Great Britain. In an effort to solidify his rule, Obote introduced a new constitution that abolished all the kingdoms and other remnants of federalism in the country. The new constitution also established an
executive
presidency, which Obote assumed while continuing to serve as prime minister. But Obote’s increasing reliance on the military and police to terrorize his political opponents aroused the
resentment
of southern Ugandans, and it allowed Amin to build a following based on recruits from among his own Kakwa people. Early in 1971 Obote was overthrown in a
coup
led by Amin.
Obote settled in neighbouring
Tanzania
, where he maintained a small emigre army under the generalship of
Tito Okello, an Acholi. This army aided Tanzanian forces in deposing Amin in 1979, and Okello was able to secure Obote’s election to the presidency after Obote’s return from exile in May 1980. As president, Obote solicited
foreign aid
in an attempt to raise Uganda’s economy from the ruin of the Amin years, but he did nothing to prevent Acholi and Lango soldiers from conducting a campaign of murder and pillage in the south and in Amin’s home district. In 1985 Obote was forced out of office by Okello. He eventually settled in
Zambia
but continued to play an active role in the UPC until his death in 2005.