Milton Obote - Early Life

Early Life

Milton Obote was born at Akokoro village in Apac district in northern Uganda. He was the son of a local chief of the Lango ethnic group. He began his education in 1940 at the Protestant Missionary School in Lira, and later attended Gulu Junior Secondary School, Busoga College and eventually university at Makerere University. Having intended to study law, a subject not taught at the university, Obote instead took a general arts course, including English and geography. At Makerere, Obote honed his natural oratorical skills, he may have been expelled for participating in a student strike, or alternatively left after a place to study law abroad was not funded by the protectorate government. He worked in Buganda in southern Uganda before moving to Kenya, where he worked as a construction worker at an engineering firm.

While in Kenya, Obote became involved in the Kenyan independence movement. Upon returning to Uganda in 1956, he joined the political party Uganda National Congress (UNC), and was elected to the colonial Legislative Council in 1957. In 1959, the UNC split into two factions, with one faction under the leadership of Obote merging with Uganda People's Union to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC).