Paper short abstract:

This study describes Acholi leaders' strategies for shaping political leadership and attempts to delineate its impact on the nation's political development. It contends that the usage of several agents at the time allowed for agreement on unification and a workable framework of leadership.

Paper long abstract:

Following Idi Amin's demise in 1979, creating and re-configuring Uganda's political framework in the interests of all Ugandans became a national priority. Every region had difficulties left over from the previous administration with each imagining different means to dealing with them. For Acholi leaders, mechanisms of aggregating unity and a working framework of leadership were; first, putting together Acholi leaders' unified front to maintain neutrality in this period's power struggles. Second, mobilizing and backing Lule and later Binaisa to take leadership of the NCC and presidency. This way, they sought to have credible leadership to save the nation from the violent political system that Obote and Amin left behind, one that also violated human rights.

Acholi leaders utilized multiple agents -the police, military, DP, liberal UPC members and leaders in Buganda Kingdom, to covertly influence decision making on leadership at the Moshi Conference. And, to assure the strategy's success, Semei Nyanzi discreetly contributed monies to conduct Lule's political activities. Calculations to negotiate and shape NCC and national leadership is an important dimension of Acholi politics and intellectual history that is overshadowed by narratives of war and violence. Nevertheless, Acholi leaders’ efforts to mobilize for unity were short lived. But how could dialectical tensions in negotiations and a political context marked by elite politics and ethnicity result in unity? Based on interviews with former NCC members in Acoliland, the paper discusses strategies used to produce convergence of ideas of unity and peace among the Acholi, DP, Buganda and liberal UPC members.