Thread by @JonathonLEarle

We don’t talk enough about Daudi Ocheng. His political biography complicates much of what we think about Uganda’s late colonial moment. Some of the most articulate defenders of Buganda in the 1950s-60s were not Baganda. In this case, Ocheng was a son of Gulu. 1/11

Ocheng, unlike Okot p’Bitek, was one of the most articulate defenders of Buganda's political priorities. In my thinking, he was the most consequential Acholi activist in the late 1950s. Without his diplomatic work, KY & UPC would not have partnered to marginalize DP. 2/11

Ocheng was born in a Protestant home in Gulu. After attending Gulu Primary he joined Budo Junior School before matriculating at King’s College, Budo, where he and Kabaka Muteesa II began what would become a lifelong friendship. 3/11

Ocheng studied at both Makerere and the University of Wales in Aberystwyth (as did p’Bitek). He returned to UF and ran as an independent candidate in Kampala to defeat Benedicto Kiwanuka in a seat for the National Assembly. 4/11

Ocheng & Kabaka Muteesa were the closest of friends. Ocheng was arguably his closest advisor. They lived together for a time. Ocheng died of stomach cancer in 1966, a few months after Kabaka Muteesa II was removed from power (a parallel not lost on audiences at the time). 5/11

During the early 1960s, Ocheng, fluent in Luganda, wrote dozens of pamphlets for Kabaka Yekka. For Ocheng, the state of Uganda was legitimate to the extent that it upheld the region’s precolonial societies and kingdoms. 6/11

In a 1965 letter to Obote, Ocheng commented: “it is the duty of the Government you now lead to protect not only the Constitution but also the positions of our hereditary institutions in Uganda.” 7/11

In this same letter, Ocheng expressed strong concern over the influence of international Communism, with its hostility toward monarchies, on Obote and the UPC. The letter was sent to Obote while he was travelling in Ankole on 27 September 1965. 8/11

Ocheng worked to unify the kingdoms to challenge the UPC's expanding grip on power. Ocheng was also concerned that Communist historians would underplay the important role that kingdoms had played in UG in the past. The 1960s constituted a crisis of history writing in UG. 9/11

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***UF (typo) = UG