KAMPALA– The Katikkiro of Buganda Kingdom, Mr Charles Peter Mayiga, has described as childish attempts by some officials from Kooki chiefdom to block his visit to the area.
Last week, Mayiga was briefly blocked from visiting the area and forced to camp in a Masaka hotel after loyalists of the Kamuswaga planned to cause violence over his visit to the area. Mr Mayiga was expected to visit St Bernard’s SS Mannya, which lost 10 students in a fire and then visit coffee farmers. Police later cleared his visit.
But addressing the Lukiiko on Monday, the Katikkiro said some officials from the chiefdom do not want development.
“In Kooki, there are some people who don’t want stability; who are bent on childish games. Those people don’t want development and they are enemies of the common person,” Mayiga said.
“The Katikkiro of Buganda, a trained lawyer-a man who does not want dust, I move out of my air-conditioned office and someone attempts to stop me? Aren’t those childish games? Does such a person need his people?” she said.
“Unfortunately those people connect with their colleagues in Kampala and attempt to destabilize us, he said. I think they are taking advantage of me as a calm man but I thank the Internal Security Organisation, the army and Police who knew that our travel to Kooki was helpful to people there and Uganda at large,” Mayiga said.
He stressed he is on a Mwanyi Terimba campaign, a move to popularise coffee growing to fight poverty in Buganda where the population depends on crop and animal husbandry.
Kooki was once an independent kingdom until 1886, when it became a semi-independent chiefdom under Buganda Kingdom. In an agreement between the then Kamuswaga Hezekiah Ndaula and Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda, Kooki county became part of Buganda Kingdom, but with a special status above other counties.
However, since the enthronement of the hereditary cultural leader of Kooki chiefdom, Kamuswaga Apollo Ssansa Kabumbuli II in 2003, there have been reports that he is hatching a plan to secede from Buganda Kingdom, after accusing the Mengo of not honouring the agreement his forefathers signed with Buganda.
The chiefdom has previously said that the Kamuswaga’s throne is supposed to be inside the Mengo Lukiiko Hall.
Last year, Kooki chiefdom petitioned the Central government asking it to intervene in its strained relationship with Buganda Kingdom.
In a June 2, 2017 letter to Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development; Hajjat Janat Mukwaya, Hajji Ahmed Kiwanuka, the Kooki prime minister complained that Mengo was undermining the Kooki chiefdom and its hereditary cultural leader, the Kamuswaga.
He said in the letter that the attitude of some Buganda officials was in total contravention of an agreement the leaders of the two institutions signed 121 years ago.
In April this year, the Kamuswaga of Kooki declined to turn up for the Kabaka’s birthday celebration at Villa Maria at Buddu which is said to have prompted the Buganda officials to also shun Kamuswaga’s coronation which was held at Byakabanda playground in Kooki the following month, in May.
