Fom Protectorate to Command Post Series: How Uganda Became a Militarised State

It is almost impossible today to picture Uganda without a military presence looming over its civic life.

From the saluting of generals at national functions to soldiers supervising agriculture and infrastructure, the image of the gun has become so normalised that many struggle to imagine an alternative.

But Uganda was not always this way. The story of militarism is neither inevitable nor natural; it is a construct, shaped by choices, crises, and power struggles. And it is time we unpicked that story.

Long before colonialism, societies across what we now call Uganda had systems of defence, yes, but they were never designed to replace civic authority. In Buganda, the abambowa (royal guards) protected the Kabaka, but power remained deeply tied to the Lukiiko (Council), the clan system, and the rituals of accountability.

In Bunyoro, Tooro, Ankole, and other societies, defence was mobilised when necessary—warriors served the people, not the state itself. Armies did not legislate, police, or farm. Nor were they imagined as a ruling class.

The arrival of British colonialism introduced a subtle but devastating shift. The gun was no longer just a symbol of protection—it became a tool of control. Colonial rule taught us that whoever holds the rifle controls the land, the people, and the law.

It taught communities to fear the uniformed man and to obey not because he was right but because he had power. This inversion of civic logic, where violence dictates authority rather than service, was the beginning of Uganda’s long descent into militarism.

In the north, conflict and militarism were already part of the region’s colonial entanglement. Egyptian and Sudanese military expeditions, Islamic governance influences, and resistance from Bunyoro were all part of a complex regional power struggle.

The British arrived amid these tensions, exploiting divisions and inviting Buganda to fight on their behalf. Baganda soldiers helped subdue Bunyoro and install the British in the region. It was a move driven by short-term alliances, not foresight.

The irony, of course, is that Buganda’s strategic alliance with the British would later cost it its monarchy and political sovereignty. When Obote attacked the Lubiri and exiled Kabaka Muteesa II, Buganda’s foundational role in the making of the Uganda Protectorate was forgotten.

This betrayal wasn’t just personal; it was structural. It teaches us something about modern nation-state formation:.that it often begins not in consensus, but in conquest, and that those who help build the state may not be welcome within it.

And yet, even after independence, Uganda did not rebuild the civic spirit that colonialism had shattered. Instead, it recycled the same logic with new faces. Armies continued to be formed not for national defence but to guard regimes and suppress dissent.

Power transitions were brokered not in parliaments or through ballots but in barracks. Unlike other postcolonial states that struggled but eventually ringfenced their militaries (like Kenya or Botswana), Uganda allowed its army to slowly consume the state.

But how exactly did this militarisation unfold? What decisions, betrayals, and ideologies turned a country of communities into a nation of combatants and spectators? And can a country so shaped by the gun ever be governed by the pen again?

These are the questions this five-part series will explore.

In Essay 2, we trace Uganda’s descent from colonial militarisation to post-independence chaos in Bayonets and Boundaries – How Uganda Was Militarised (1885–1986).

In Essay 3, we examine the tangled loyalties of military power under Obote and the role of kinship, assassinations, and betrayal in Kin, Guns, and Ghosts (1966–1985).

Then, in Essay 4, we study how military logic became a model for governance under Museveni in When the Gun Replaced the State – The Militarisation of Civics (1986–Today).

Finally, in Essay 5, we ask: Can the gun be retired? Or has Uganda become a command post in search of a civilian flag?
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Yours sincerely, Gertrude Kamya Othieno
Political Sociologist/Writer. Alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science: gkothieno@gmail.comGive us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com