Olive Najjuma, Presenter on The Fatboy Show, has argued that Buganda Federal governance would be idealistic for a culturally diverse society of Uganda.
This was during Tuesday’s Fatboy Show, as her and Fatboy commented on the ongoing pro- democracy protests within Eswatini, former Swaziland largest cities of Mbabane and Mazini.
This saw schools close definitely as students, members of the civil society and opposition groups demonstrated against the monarchical rule of King Mswati the third while asking for a more liberal society.
Olive, who thinks that the movement is organic, stated the monarchical rule initially benefits the royal heritage which rendered people to protest for democracy so as to have an equal access to the social and economic services within the country.
However, Fatboy asked Olive whether African democracies have been indifferent from monarchies, pointing to their flaws and failures that have existed in them since independence including the rising number of military coups and vote rigging.
In response she said, ” Most African countries had been transformed from the kingdom to a liberalized system of governance that when they got independence, they followed the same paths. But in the case of Eswatini, the same thing happened in England and Russia where people want to have a king but with a central government that will make uniform decisions for the benefit of the many.”
Fatboy, also referring to Buganda, said that some people in Uganda are asking for federal governance, saying that they would prefer being ruled by the Kabaka to a central government.
“In a country like Uganda with numerous tribes, it would be impractical for the king to rule over everyone that is not a muganda. So the people demanding for the federal government in Buganda are fighting a losing battle because the country can never go back to that which they too know,” Olive said.
She added that in a democracy, people can easily join the ruling class to become part of the decision makers unlike in kingdoms that follow strict bloodlines when it comes to holding power.
Jokingly, they said that in Uganda one can get a chance to become part of the ruling class as long as they sing the right tunes and pledge allegiance, pointing to people such as Bebe Cool whom they said has made so much for himself that now the State House is like his playground.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy and Olive Najjuma every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.