A guard of the current Kabaka at Wakiso. Kabaka Mwanga II had the loyal support of courageous generals like Gabudyeri Kintu and Semei Kakungulu. Picture: File
In defence of biographies, Tom Mboya’s biographer David Goldsworthy said, “I retain enough belief in the capacity of leaders to affect outcomes, and certainly to affect the sum of human happiness… the nature of the task is to try to combine interpretation of a leader’s doings with interpretation of historical events, working from the premise that each will influence the other.”
Is Kabaka Mwanga II simply the merciless butcher of martyrs at the Namugongo pyre and executioner of Bishop Hannington? Not so, argues a new biography of the controversial late 19th Century Buganda king by Prof Samuiri Lwanga-Lunyiigo.
