The Kabaka’s Palace -‘’King’s Palace’’

The Kabaka’s Palace -‘’King’s Palace’’ : The Kabaka’s palace means ‘’King’s palace’’ locally Twekobe which means working together. The Twekobe is the most highlight site basing on the history of the Buganda ‘’Uganda’’ ,more so it is the royal compound of the Kabaka ‘’King’’ of Buganda that sits in mengo a suburb of Kampala capital city of Uganda .The king’s palace is located in Kampala mengo and historically it has been in existence since late 1885, began by King Daniel Mwanga 11 who become heir for his biological father Mutesa 1 in 1884.Futher more it is called Twekobe which means working in one accord and it has been a union of over 52 clans thus forming Buganda kingdom by then.

The King’s palace was built in 1922 in the reign of King Duadi Chwa who succeeded his father King Daniel Mwanga 11 in the year of 1887 when he was exiled to Seychelles island. He had to take over because the throne couldn’t stay there without a king ruling it and by that time he was one year of the age so he had to be helped by the three legend people who were Sir Apollo Kagwa, Stancious Mugwanya and Zakalia Kisingiri till the age of 18 years old by this age he was old enough to rule the kingdom on his own in power.

In general, the palace has four main gates namely the Wankaci gate is the first gate and it is the main gate for only the King ,the Queen and the prime minister responsible to pass through it, the second gate is Kalala where king used to meet every beautiful women to marry ,the Nalongo gate is a mother of twins where the kabaka’s gift can be received from and the forth gate is called Ssabagabo gate it’s only the king uses it to go through for personnel issues here he uses normal cars in secret and no one should notice that the king is getting out its done secretly by the King himself.

Interestingly, there is a road that runs into two palaces Twekobe and Bulange that connects each other and are both found in Mengo, these two round about leads through Bulange in the straight line of Twekobe thus the same way from Lukiko building called Bulange. And the pass which is founded in the middle of the round about its locally called Natawetwa and it’s only the King of Buganda uses it. Bulange is also part of the palace where you can be attracted by over 56 trees which were planted on the side of the palace because of owning large piece of land and each tree species represents a Buganda clan and over 154 trees are found within the Twekobe, each tree has its meaning.

However, the palace is located on top of Mengo hill which gives spectacular view of the city and other beautiful selling point inside and outside the gate like the fire palace which is found at the entrance of the palace it is meant to keep burning day and night and the person in charge of it is must be coming from the lineage of the Nyonyi Nakasinge who has to keep it burning. There is also torture chamber where Idi Amin killed thousands of people in one cell both men and women for no reason.

Below are some of the highlight information about each of the attractive place inside the palace;

The Twekobe has got very many interesting things that rewards the palace to act as a tourist’s attraction on Uganda City Tour, so far thousands of visitors have visited the palace just to prove right where Idi Amin Dada tortured millions of people and also knowing about the history about Idi Amin. Also taking you through all the historical back ground of the kings who have ruled the Kingdom for the ancient years. Currently, the King who is in power is His Execellent Ronald Muwenda Muteebi 11.

The fire place locally named Ekyooto which keeps burning day and night and the person in charge of it must be coming in the lineage of Nyonyi Nakisinge ‘’Bird’’ and that person is called Mr Kyeyune who live in Kyagwe, his work is to collect woods which keep the Kyooto burning.

The Kabaka’s palace itself it’s a tourist attraction which has played a great role to Uganda’s Tourism. The torture chamber is one of them which was built in 1971 to 1972 during Idi Amin’s reign, by that time he was acting as Uganda’s president. Idi Amin was the person who constructed the chamber through using the Israelites because they were the professional in building by then.

He first built a place of armoury which later he turned it into a torture chamber. The chamber was built with 5 inches inside with metallic door, it was also designed with a pool of water electrified its mission was that whoever tries to escape from the cell was to be shocked by electricity there and then. Each cell had to be accommodating more than a hundreds of people with no widow and ventilators it was really a torturing place. The number of tourists is increasing yearly who come here to experience the historical back ground of this chamber.

Visit now and experience one of the greatness African traditional site ‘’the Twekobe’’ King palace which has acted as a tourist’s attraction to number of visitors who visit Uganda City Tour worldwide.