Ugandan King Who Almost Bankrupted Britain For Killing 2.4 Million Of Bunyoro People.

“I am sure they can afford it, I think they spent much in Iraq. But it's their problem. If the British had not destroyed our kingdom, today we would be a superpower and even tell America Shut up"

In 2004, Rukirabasaija Solomon Gafabusa Iguru I, the omukama of Bunyoro―a kingdom in western Uganda―at the time had never forgiven the British for the disposition of his grandfather, Chwa II Kabalega, and for stealing his cattle during a five-year war in the 1890s.

The report on Telegraph in 2004 states: “Dressed in his blue velvet coronation robes, richly embroidered in white and gold, the king peered down from one of his thrones yesterday and condemned the “colonial terrorism” of Queen Victoria’s government.

"The British burned down houses, destroyed crops and introduced syphilis to my people,” the king said “They were responsible for the deaths of 2.4 million people. Moreover, they stole my grandfather’s cattle and ivory.

It is not what we expected from civilized people. What they did then is no different to what al-Qa’eda is doing today,” he added.

The king and his courtiers were said to have retained lawyers in both Uganda and Britain and were planning to begin proceedings, possibly in London.

On how the £3.7 trillion figure was arrived at, Telegraph states that it was by the king’s private secretary, Yolamu Nsamba, who read economics at the University of Hull. Nsamba noted that the figure reflected only the costs of an initial suit based on possessions looted.

Were the Bunyoro to have won the amount claimed, it would have been the equivalent of every Briton, at the time, paying out more than £60,000 and the British Government would have been forced to nationalise private companies.

This would have meant that the economy of the western world would have probably been plunged into depression. Bunyoro’s then 800,000 subjects, however, would have received £4.63 million each.

The evidence for the case―as detailed by the Telegraph―rests largely on contemporary military field notes, diaries, and dispatches by colonial officers in Uganda at the time.