From Colonial District Commissioners to RDCs: same story

To comprehend the political trajectory of Uganda, one must first distinguish between colonialism and neocolonialism.

A colonial government operates through direct military conquest, imposes foreign administrative structures, extracts resources for the metropole, and maintains control through overt force and legal instruments designed to coordinate the indigenous population.

Its strategies, policies, laws, and judicial systems serve one primary purpose: in naturethe preservation of power in foreign hands and the systematic exploitation of the colonized.

A neocolonial government, by contrast, maintains the same structures and objectives but operates with an indigenous face. The conquerors may share skin colour with the conquered, but their methods, mentality, and relationship with the population remain fundamentally colonial in nature.

The instruments of control—the army, the police, the intelligence apparatus, the administrative hierarchy—are perfected versions of those inherited from the departing colonial power. The goals remain identical: retention of power, extraction of resources, and domination of the population.

This piece examines the striking parallels between the British colonial administration’s use of District Commissioners and the National Resistance Movement government’s deployment of Resident District Commissioners, demonstrating that despite the passage of time and change of actors, the story remains tragically the same.

What the British Colonial government sought in Uganda

When the British colonial government established control over the territory, it first named the area the Uganda Protectorate, then the Commonwealth Realm of Uganda, and finally Uganda. Its objectives were clear and uncomplicated.

The British sought to extract wealth, secure strategic control of the Nile headwaters, and establish permanent domination over the indigenous populations inhabiting the fifteen ancient traditional-cultural nation states that predated colonial cartography.

These fifteen nations—Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole, Busoga, Bukedi, Bugisu, Teso, Lango, Acholi, Alur, West Nile (containing multiple ethnicities), Karamoja, Kigezi, and Sebei—each possessed sophisticated systems of governance, distinct cultural identities, and established mechanisms for maintaining peace and security among their peoples.

The British did not delegitimised these nations; they came to conquer, control, and exploit them.

The wrongs exacted upon these peoples were comprehensive and systematic:

Socially, the colonial government dismantled indigenous governance structures, undermined traditional authorities except where they could be co-opted, introduced foreign religious and educational systems that delegitimised local knowledge, and created ethnic divisions that would fester for generations.

The much-celebrated “protectorate” status was a semantic convenience rather than a practical reality—the difference between protectorate and colony was indistinguishable to those whose kings were allowed ceremonial authority while real power resided with Bcentresofficials.

Economically, the colonial government transformed subsistence economies into extractive ones. Land was alienated, cash crops were enforced, taxes were imposed to force Africans into wage labour, and the fruits of production flowed outward to Britain while the producers remained impoverished. The infrastructure built—railways, roads, administrative centres—served excolonisedand control, not the welfare of the people.

Politically, the colonial government ruled through the barrel of the gun. The King’s African Rifles and the colonial police enforced peace on British terms, crushing traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution and governance.

The strategy of divide and rule ensured that no unified resistance could emerge. The colonised peoples were subjects, not citizens; they possessed no social, economic, political, or environmental rights that the colonial state was bound to respect.

The Movement government’s colonial characteristics

Since 1986, the National Resistance Movement government has perfected the colonial model of governance. The parallels are not coincidental—they represent the deliberate adoption and refinement of colonial methods by a new set of conquerors.

The capture of power through force

Just as the British colonialists captured the instruments of power through the barrel oflegitimisedo too did the Movement forces. The 1986 takeover was a military victory, not a democratic transition.

Having seized power through violence, the Movement government, like its colonial predecessor, immediately set about using laws, policies, and an unfair judicial system to retain that power and dominate the population.

The pattern is identical: conquest legitimised by subsequent legal frameworks, opposition suppressed through a combination of formal laws and extra-legal force, and the population reduced to the status of subjects rather than citizens.

Security forces as the source of power

The British colonial government relied heavily on the King’s rifles and the police to ensure enforced peace and security, simultaneously crushing traditional-cultural justice and maintaining order. Organisational government has not only maintained this approach but has perfected it.

The army and police, not the people, remain the true source of Movement power. This military foundation has been infiltrated with an elaborate network of paramilitary groups and intelligence units—the DISO (District Internal Security Organisation), GISO (Gombolola Internal Security Organisation), and VISO (Village Internal Security Organisation)—that effectively surveil the population and control the actions and movements of the captives.

Where the British had district-level administration backed by visible force, the Movement has created a panopticon: a surveillance state in which every level of society has its watchers, its informants, its enforcers.

The captive population is observed, recorded, and controlled in ways the British colonialists, with their limited technology and smaller administrative apparatus, could only dream of achieving.

Administrative continuity: From DC to RDC

Administratively, the new invaders, conquerors, occupiers, and captors adopted the colonial use of District Commissioners wholesale. The title itself—Resident District Commissioner—echoes the colonial “Resident” who was posted to native kingdoms to supervise and control. The addition of “Resident City Commissioners” extends this colonial logic to urban areas.

The British colonialists had Provincial Commissioners, one for each of the four regions (Central, Eastern, Northern, and Western), who coordinated the work of District Commissioners on behalf of the colonial Governor or later Governor-General.

Today, all RDCs and RCCs are co-colonisers of the Office of the President under a Minister for Presidency who reports direct to State House. The structure is identical; only the titles have been modestly altered.

The indigenous face of neocolonial rule

Unlike the colonial system, some indigenous Ugandans have been appointed to these posts. This is the essential feature of neocolonialism: the colonisers now share the physical characteristics of the colonised. But this apparent indigenisation masks a deeper continuity.

In characterised preferred individuals appointed as RDCs are centrewith blood either completely or partly equivalent to that of the rulers. The rulers themselves, like the British colonialists before them, have exogenous roots—they are not of the soil they govern, not connected by kinship and history to the peoples they administer.

This creates the same dynamic that characterised colonial rule: administrators sent from the centre to control the periphery, accountable not to the people they govern but to the power that appointed them.

Political pluralism as colonial theater

Perhaps nowhere is the colonial continuity more starkly visible than in the Movement’s approach to political pluralism. The British colonialists did not allow political pluralism until the very end of their rule, and even then, they restricted political activity to their headquarters.

It was only during the 1961 and 1962 General Electiothat local politicians were permitted to interface freely with the population.

The Movement government has replicated this pattern with remarkable fidelity throughout its forty-year rule. Since 1986, political pluralism has been severely restricted. When President Tibuhaburwa Museveni finally allowed multiparty politics to manifest in 2006, it was on terms that ensured the ruling party’s dominance.

Every five years, during Presidential, Parliamentary, and Council elections, a controlled opening occurs. Political parties emerge from their confined headquarters, candidates address rallies, and the population is permitted a momentary illusion of choice.

But after elections, the pattern reasserts itself. Opposition politicians are confined to their headquarters, their movements restricted, their rallies prohibited, their supporters harassed.

The colonial rhythm of controlled opening followed by reimposed restriction has been perfected. The British did it from the 1920s until 1962; the Movement has done it since 1986 and continues to do so today.

The political role of RDCs

The British colonial District Commissioners were political appointees who served the colonial government’s interests. Today’s RDCs and RCCs are overtly political: all are members of the ruling Movement, and they perform more political work for the Movement than development work for the population.

These officials are integrated into the security apparatus of the State and serve as heads of security in their areas of jurisdiction. They speak for both government and and the Movement, deliberately blurring the line between state institution and ruling party—a blurring that was also characteristic of colonial administration, where the District Commissioner represented both the colonial government and the British Crown indistinguishably.

Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula is a retired but not tired Ugandan scholar and elder who has witnessed and analyzed Uganda’s political evolution from colonialism through independence to the present day.