1952–1966: (Uganda’s and Nigeria’s Troubled Decolonizations — The UPC-Kabaka Yekka Alliance Taking Uganda to Independence in 1962 Under Obote, Obote Attackin…

1952–1966: (Uganda’s and Nigeria’s Troubled Decolonizations — The UPC-Kabaka Yekka Alliance Taking Uganda to Independence in 1962 Under Obote, Obote Attacking the Kabaka’s Palace in 1966 and Abolishing Buganda’s Special Status, Nigeria’s Three-Way Ethnic Impasse Between the Northern People’s Congress, the Yoruba Action Group, and the NCNC, the Federal Compromise of 1960 Independence Under Tafawa Balewa, and Tribalism Haunting Both Territories): In Uganda, a short-term alliance between the UPC and Kabaka Yekka, partly brokered by the British, took the territory to independence in 1962 under northern Milton Obote. The following year the kabaka was installed as executive president, but Obote’s growing support led him to consider the Ganda alliance unnecessary — the 1966 constitution he pushed through elevated himself to executive president, and he ordered the army to attack the kabaka’s palace. The Ganda monarch fled into exile and Buganda’s special status was abolished, but Obote had only papered over cracks that would have tragic consequences. In Nigeria, the decolonization process was slowed by the inability of the Northern People’s Congress, the Yoruba Action Group, and the NCNC to agree on a constitution. The crucial challenge was overcoming tensions between the Muslim north — which feared domination by Europeanized southerners — and the Christian south, compounded by Yoruba-Igbo rivalry within the south. The federal system was opted for, and in 1960 Nigeria became independent under Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Tensions were rife: the north dominated the first federal parliament while all three regions had considerable autonomy, leading to majority-group domination over sizeable minorities. The territories that Lugard and the British had assembled entered independence carrying the full weight of their unresolved contradictions.