The Katikiro of Buganda, the Honorable, Charles Peter Mayiga, from Uganda will present his lecture "The Role of African Traditional Leaders in Contemporary Africa."

Wednesday, May 20, 2015
4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
11348 Presentation Room in Young Research Library
*please note room change*
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Charles Peter Mayiga is The Katikiro (Prime Minister) of Buganda, Uganda's largest kingdom whose history goes back at least 400 years. Mr. Mayiga trained at Makerere University in Kampala, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in East Africa, where he took his first degree in Law and later completed graduate studies. (UCLA has had strong ties with Makerere for more than 50 years; James S. Coleman taught Political Science there in the 1960s and as the representative ofthe Rockefeller Foundation, helped to Africanize both the faculty and syllabus. )

Charles Mayiga has a long history of working with traditional governmental bodies and in 1991 was Secretary of the Council of Elders and later Secretary to the Lukiiko, the Parliament of Buganda. After the restoration of the Buganda Monarchy, Mr. Mayiga served as the Minister of Information for the Kingdom before he was appointed Katikiro in 2013. He has been active in Buganda cultural affairs from his student days in the 1980s when he helped start Nkoba za Mboga, an organization that's aim is to educate young Bugandans about their cultural heritage and support the Kabaka's efforts to develop Buganda. He is also a prominent lawyer in Kampala and an advocate for the recognition of the value of traditional values and government. Part of his visit involves his interests in promoting and developing Muteesa Royal University, a new private university in Uganda named after the Kabaka who was pre-eminent at the time of the European explorations in search of the Nile in the 19th century. He is also interested in developing student exchanges between that university and the University of California.

Mr. Mayiga’s address will be on "The Role of African Traditional Leaders in Contemporary Africa." His acclaimed book, King on the Throne: the story of the restoration of the Kingdom of Buganda and other publications, detail his views on the importance of traditional rulers in Africa at both the local and national levels. In King on the Throne he discusses the importance of traditional rulers with histories stretching back for centuries, and their significance both for local legal systems and social structure they preserve and the relevance of the stability of such systems for the creation of modern dynamic African societies.

Cost : Free and open to the public

www.international.ucla.edu/africa

Sponsor(s): African Studies Center