ABSTRACT
Various members of the Legislative Council, representatives of the western kingdoms prominent among them, urged the Protectorate Administration not to give Buganda special treatment, but Buganda ignored their protests. The British Government having rejected a demand that the Commission should report before the elections or else that Buganda should be guaranteed federal status, the kingdom declared its unilateral independence on 1 January 1961. As the memorandum presented to the Colonial Secretary in September 1961 had implied, the Congress did not consider that to confer federal status upon the kingdoms would involve any significant transfer of powers, for that would have meant an undue weakening of the Central Government which they themselves hoped to control in the near future. The strong Democratic Party element in the Commission led to claims that the party was unduly sympathetic to the dissident elements in the kingdom and might even be implicated in the disturbances.
