Benedicto Kagima Mugumba Kiwanuka born in May 11th, 1922 - Sep 22st, 1972 in Kisabwa in the Buganda kingdom of Uganda, the son of a minor but wealthy Roman Catholic Buganda chief. Kiwanuka received his early education in mission schools, and his career must be seen in relation to a continuing relationship with the Catholic groups of Uganda. During World War II Kiwanuka served in the African Pioneer Corps, with duty in Kenya, Egypt, and Palestine, completing his military career with the rank of sergeant major.
A year before becoming prime minister in March 1961, Kiwanuka had defeated the colonial government, and all those who had been illegally imprisoned were released by the courts.The colonialists had imprisoned thousands of Ugandans who demanded independence.
New elections, however, were held in April 1962, with Kiwanuka 's party losing to the alliance of Milton Obote' s Uganda People 's Congress and the Buganda traditionalist party, Kabaka Yekka. In addition, Kiwanuka 's Catholicism made him unpopular with his fellow Buganda, a mainly Protestant people. [2] Uganda achieved independence on 9 octubre 1962, with Obote as the first prime minister of a fully independent Uganda.
It was because of his spirit to fight injustice and dictatorship that Kiwanuka ignored the threats warning him to stop rebuking the Amin military government for its heinous activities against the Ugandans. One day, enraged, Idi Amin Dada personally telephoned Kiwanuka about his position in the country's affairs. But the lawyer did not flinch.
He did not want to follow Amin's tyranny and ignore the law. They even insisted that if he did not follow, they would kill him. But he was a committed man. He knew what was right. And knowing that he would not have been killed if he supported Amin, he knew that he could not do so because of his democratic principles.
President Yoweri Museveni dedicated a monument to him with his initials and those of Kiwanuka