Milton Obote: My Story

Dr Apollo Milton Obote tells his story about his his rise and fall from power – twice as president. In his story Obote narrates to Andrew Mwenda about the attempted assasination on him and the coup that took place in 1971 and how he fought Idi Amin; about how he dealt with the East African Federation after independence and his role in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.

Dr Obote tells Andrew Mwenda about the pre-independence struggle and the beginning of Uganda’s suffering; Obote tells the story of his childhood, and how he ended up becoming a politician; about the 1985 coup and how he escaped to Kenya.....and much much more!

Dr Obote's story is currently being serialized in The Uganda Monitor at this location: Uganda Monitor Serialization

Very Good Reading!

EXCERPTS: MILTON OBOTE - MY STORY
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Part 1: How I escaped after 1985 coup
In the first part of the series, Obote talks about the 1985 coup and how he escaped to Kenya.
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How I escaped after 1985 coup By Andrew Mwenda “I am not going to move again; I fought Amin, I do not want to fight again. I am going to die here.”

Political Editor Andrew Mwenda interviewed Dr Apollo Milton Obote from his home in Lusaka, Zambia in September-October 2004 for a special autobiographical series on the exiled former president and UPC leader. In the first part of the series, Obote talks about the 1985 coup and how he escaped to Kenya.


ob1: VICTORY: After hearing there was a coup underway, Dr Obote left Kampala on the night of July 27, 1985 and arrived in Kenya the same day (File photo).


HELPED: Former Kenyan President Moi assisted Obote for the first few days he was in Nairobi


FRIENDS? Dr Obote contacted the late Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda for asylum in their countries

I had learnt about it over many weeks that there was a political crisis involving the army. The first ominous sign came when I was in Mbale on the Co-operatives Day. There was some movement of the army in Kampala.

Paul Muwanga, [the Vice President], issued a statement in which he referred to “uncoordinated troop movement.” The troop movement apparently was about soldiers who were trying to cause the coup. They had organised support weapons from Mbuya [barracks] to move to Kampala.

[Brig.] Smith Opon Acak, [the army Chief of Staff] stopped it and then they started hunting for him. That’s why Muwanga referred to it as “uncoordinated troop movement.”

After Mbale I returned to Kampala and appointed Brig. Livingstone Ogwang to investigate the uncoordinated troop movement. However, because my advisors like [Gen.] Tito Okello and Paulo Muwanga were involved in the coup plots, Ogwang was frustrated; his inquiries went to nowhere. Bazillio [Okello] had been on leave in the north. Bazillio had found the Acholi trying to raise a militia against cattle rustlers from Karamoja and he joined them; it became his pre-occupation.

Then Muwanga then came to me and said Tito Okello should go and bring Bazillio Okello back to Kampala. I agreed and Tito went but he never came back. And when he did, it was with the invasion army, the coup army.

Then the late Henry Tungwako Deputy Minister of labour and the late Kasande came to me from Fort Portal and told me that the commanding officer there, an Acholi officer called Maj. Okwera had called Museveni’s rebels and handed over the town to them, then travelled to Kitgum to join Bazillio.

I told them that Okwera had been killed on his way to Kitgum by Bazillio’s troops who mistook his convoy to be Opon Acak’s convoy. In spite of all these happenings, I was not afraid of a coup. I was busy organising for the December 1985 elections and I was confident UPC would win. The victory would put the coup plotters in a difficult position of attempting to overthrow a government with a renewed mandate.

On the night of July 26th, 1985 I was in my office in Kampala, reading a World Bank report about prospects for oil in Semliki. I was trying to write a cabinet paper on it. The World Bank report said there was oil in Semliki, and our job was now to exploit it. I now had to get the Cabinet know about it, and then to approve what we were going to do about it.

Now, the problem about Semliki is that part of the oil was in Zaire.

That is when Muwanga rang me saying something was happening in Kampala; that he had sent his staff and found that all army officers had deserted their offices or stations. It was 1 a.m. on the morning of Saturday July 27, 1985.

I called [Chris] Rwakasisi [state minister in the president’s office in charge of security] who told me that Muwanga had called him and told him the same thing by telephone.

I said, “Rwakasisi, Milton Obote is not going anywhere; if there is a coup, they will have to come and kill me here.” Then I moved from my office at Parliamentary Building to Nile Mansion. Muwanga rang again and said, “Don’t remain in Nile Mansion and don’t go to Parliament Building, the thing might be serious.”

I called Rwakasisi again and a few other staff. We went to the home of my personal doctor, Henry Opiote, in Kololo. It was now 2 a.m. I did not go to my home in Kololo because Rwakasisi advised that it would be the first place the coup makers would attack.

At Opiote’s home, I told my colleagues that, “I am not going to move again; I fought Amin, I do not want to fight again. I am going to die here.”


ENCOURAGED: Chris Rwakasisi


ALERTED: Paul Muwanga


DESERTED: Tito Okello

Rwakasisi said a very memorable thing. He said, “No, we have to get you out of here, out of this country because if you are alive we can fight back, if you are dead we cannot fight back. So we are going to drag you out of here.”

Then I began to yield my position. The issue was where do we go? We could not go to Entebbe airport and use the presidential jet because it takes a lot of time to prepare to fly a plane. We would have had to wake up the pilot, then taken time servicing it, fuelling it and we did not have all that time.

We also decided that we could not take Mutukula road because that too was risky. We could not travel to the west because beyond it there was Zaire and Rwanda and we were not sure about those either.

My plan was to travel to Soroti where we had a strong militia we had trained to defend the people there against Karimojong cattle rustlers.

We never discussed this, but we all agreed to travel eastwards. We had five cars and a Land Rover.

Dr. Opiote sat in the lead car, me in the second car, and the other cars including that of Rwakasisi followed behind. But somehow it seems, because on our way out we passed by Rwakasisi’s residence, he possibly fell out of the convoy to pick one or two things, inform his family and all. But as far as we were concerned, we thought that he was with us as we hit Jinja Road.

It was about 4 a.m. We had radio calls in the car and Dr. Opiote was monitoring what the Okellos were discussing. So we knew they were looking for me, and they had ordered all roadblocks to arrest me.

When we reached the roadblock at Mukono, we were stopped. The soldiers started asking: “Who are you, where are you coming from, where are you going?” They were asking Dr. Opiote who was in the first car, while I sat in the second car behind.

Opiote showed them his identity card and told them that “Mzee has asked us to go and bring Mama Miria who is coming back from Nairobi.” He told them we were late because Mama was anywhere now at the border (Malaba).

The soldiers were suspicious and asked more questions but after some time they allowed the convoy to continue. They did not know that I was seated in the next car behind.

Dr. Opiote even lied to them that “Please be ready when we are coming back; we are supposed to be in a hurry; the president is waiting for us in Kampala, so when we come please give us clearance immediately.”

Surprisingly, the soldiers did not bother to inspect the cars to see who was in. When we reached the roadblock at the bridge in Jinja, we were again stopped and the same questions asked, and the same answers given.

The soldiers there also allowed the convoy to continue without checking who was in the car.

We had heard the roadblocks being put on all roads with orders to arrest me and I knew there were problems but we had to be humble. I had advised my security staff not to oppose anybody, not to confront the soldiers at roadblocks. It was now coming to 5 a.m.

Released at Jinja bridge, we continued on our way eastwards. Now, as we were speeding up, time was not on our side. We were getting late.

When we reached the roundabout near Jinja town, I asked my driver to go into Jinja town instead of going straight along the highway to Tororo. I wanted to create a diversion so that if anyone was following our convoy, they would get lost.

Dr. Opiote did not know this and his car proceeded alone. I think when he realised we were not behind him he turned and came back and joined us along the road where we had stopped to wait for him.

Now, there is a road from Magamaga, which goes to Busia, which I wanted him to take. So when Opiote came back I asked him if the driver knew the road from Magamaga to Busia. He did not. I had campaigned all over Uganda, so I knew the road. I wanted to avoid the main road to Malaba because since we had told soldiers at roadblocks in Mukono and Jinja, I was suspicious the Okellos would learn that I had escaped from Kampala and follow the convoy.

So I changed my plan of going to Soroti. We took that road from Magamaga to Busia and arrived in Busia town at about 6 a.m.

At the border a soldier tried to block our exit by closing the road because they had already learnt of the events in Kampala. Other soldiers just shoved him away and opened for us and we entered Kenya.

We had no money, no passports, nothing. My staff only told the Kenyans that “the president wants to enter” and they allowed us.

While we celebrated our narrow escape, I was downhearted because of the coup. Dr. Opiote had just returned from America and he had some dollars in his pocket. Other people who were with us had some money. So we bought gas and hit the road to Kakamega.

The Kenyan border security had informed the government of our coming. We were taken to a government lodge where I contacted President Moi to let him know that I was in his country and that I was running away from my own country.

Moi asked me to stay in the lodge and promised to contact us later. I think we stayed there for the whole day and night. President Moi made arrangements for me to meet him for breakfast the next day in Nakuru.

So we spent the night in Kakamega. Very early in the morning, about 3 a.m., we left for Nakuru and we arrived there at breakfast time.

I had breakfast with Moi and his Minister for Foreign Affairs. I briefed the president during breakfast about the coup and I requested him for asylum. Moi was very clear; he said, “This is a British orchestrated coup.”

Now unfortunately as we were talking, his minister left the table and went to ring Nairobi reporting to the British High Commissioner what his own president had said. The minister was called Elijah Mwangale.

So after breakfast, the president told me my request to be in Kenya will be considered by the cabinet. Meanwhile I had to go to Nairobi to stay with my friend Kitili Mwendwa.

So I left the president in Nakuru and I drove to Nairobi to stay with my friend Kitili Mwendwa. When I got to the home of Kitili Mwendwa I found Mama Miria was already there. She was in the house.

Mama had been in Nairobi attending a women’s conference and was planning to return to Uganda that same day. I briefed her about what had happened, and about the fate of our youngest boy, Ben, who was in Entebbe and another one, Tony, who was in Namasagali.

My first plan was to contact my friend, [President Julius] Nyerere. I called his home in Musasani, Dar es Salaam and he was not there. I called State House, they said he was not there. I asked his staff to ask him to call me in Nairobi. He did not! I have never heard from him since.

I felt betrayed by my friend Nyerere because he abandoned me.

Then I contacted President [Kenneth] Kaunda [of Zambia] who told me to wait; he was going to send me his ambassador. The ambassador came that same evening to Kitili Mwendwa’s home and I asked for asylum verbally and then the High commissioner asked me to put it in a short letter, which I did.

Kaunda first sent word that the aircraft was coming. The aircraft arrived and we left for Lusaka, about 100 people. Apparently when I left Kampala, word got spread out that I had gone to Nairobi, and people just took off by plane, buses, by road, by various means to Nairobi.

Many of them knew Kitili Mwendwa was my friend and they flocked to his home. But the majority were accommodated by the government at the Police training school.

I came to Zambia. I was met by the Secretary General of the party, Grey Zulu, because President Kaunda was in the northern region closing the conferences of his party.

I was taken to a government lodge, which became my home for about two years before I came to the current house where I am staying.

Kaunda returned, we met, we prayed. I briefed him and like Moi, he said this was a British coup. So I remained in Zambia until now, from August 1985.

One thing is for sure though, I have never taken a drink since I came to Zambia and this year I have also stopped smoking.

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Part 2: I come from royal ancestry
In the second part of this series, Obote tells the story of his childhood, and how he ended up becoming a politician...
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I come from royal ancestry
By Andrew Mwenda

I was born on 28th December 1925. I grew up in Akokoro City in Lango. I call it Akokoro city because Idi Amin told Americans that Obote spent all the government money building a city in Akokoro.

The Americans went there and did not find a city. They only found a village with destitute villagers. My father was Stanley Opeto and my mother was Priscilla Aken Opeto.

My father had another wife; she had three children, one son and two girls. My mother had five children with my father, and I grew up with two brothers. My mother’s first two children were girls and they both died in infancy. So when I was born, they wanted to organise a ceremony in order to undo what made the other two girls die. My grandfather, Ibrahim Akaki, said no. He was called Iburahimu Akaki.


THE START: Obote’s interest in politics begun when he left Uganda and went to Kenya and joined the Kenya African Union (KAU) File Photo)

He was a Christian and all his sons were Christians. The one who made him Christian was called Isaac who married a woman called Rebbeca and his first son was called Esau. My father was a Gomboloola chief.

My grandfather Akaki was the King, who even served as a general in Kabalega’s army. Initially, Akaki had his own army.

Later, he went to Bunyoro and he became a general in Kabalega’s army. So when the British came to look for Kabalega and Mwanga, my grandfather said, “You come to my place”.

So Kabalega and Mwanga came to Akokoro. My father fought alongside them against the British during the resistance to colonial conquest.

As you may have read from history, Kabalega was arrested in Lango.

So you can see the unity of the African peoples’ which the colonialists distorted and today’s politicians promote divisions between northerners and southerners.

That is my ancestry. It is a royal ancestry as you can see. I began school at the age of eleven when I joined catechism class to get baptised. I studied there for one year, got baptised and then went to Ibuge Primary School, 16 miles from Akokoro at the age of twelve years.

I used to go for catechism class by bicycle. Very near our home, there were leopards. One such morning we were going on two bicycles. The road was blocked by leopards. So we alighted, waited, but the animals were not moving. Then somebody came from behind and said: “Leave the leopards. Let us pass through the bush.” We passed through the bush with our bicycles and we went to school.


BEST FRIEND: Zikusooka


FELLOW POLITICIAN: Tom Mboya


HELPFUL: Obote during a visit to India. An earlier visit to the country had Obote meet people who were supporting the liberation struggle in Africa (File photo).

On another occasion, I came back home on holiday. I had a friend called Lesley Okao who was very fond of animals. He was a trapper of animals. I was fond of animals because between my father’s place and my mother’s birthplace there were plenty of animals on the road.

So every time I had travelled I used to see those animals and spend hours looking at them. I used to go with Lesley Okao to the bush to trap animals.

One day I was going to his place, then I saw a waterbuck. I saw a python catch the waterbuck and was winding it’s self around it. I went to Okao and reported to him. He came and killed the python, and took the waterbuck home for food!

Another time we were swimming at River Nile and standing next to me was a young girl of my age. She was taken by a crocodile! I was also a trapper of birds. I would climb up a tree to trap birds and two incidents happened. Once, I fell from the tree and broke my right arm, I became left-handed. Another time I climbed the tree on top of a nest of an owl; the owl came and nearly did away with my eyes.

At my primary school at Ibuge, I did class one and class two. I did not do class three and class four. I was selected to sit class five entry exams and I passed and was sent to class five at Boroboro Primary School near Lira.

In Lira, I stayed with my uncle, Yakobo Adoko, father of Akena Adoko who was county chief. I did class five and six. In class six I was given a recitation on Parent’s Day. I was the District Commissioner, so I did that recitation in English and all the Gombolola chiefs were there. The chiefs used to sit with the DC to select two boys to go to secondary school on a Lango scholarship.

I was not selected by the chiefs. They said my father was a Gombolola chief, he could pay. The two chiefs, one was the chief of Maruzi which is part of Akokoro, the other was another chief from another part of Lango. They plotted to get rid of my father. That same week they wrote a letter to the DC asking for my father to resign office. So my father lost his job because of my performance in primary six.

When he was Gombolola chief of Akokoro, he used to produce cotton. And every January and December part he used to deposit part of his earnings with his brother, Yakobo Adoko. So when he lost his job, he told me, “Don’t worry, I have been giving my brother money for years, let us go and see my brother, he will pay for your secondary school.”

The father of Adoko Nekyon was Ezekiel Akaki. Nekyon’s grandfather is the brother of my grandfather. He was number two to my grandfather. Nekyon’s grandfather was called Opeto and my father was named after him. After Boroboro, I went to Gulu High School where I did Junior one, two and three.

I performed very well because I was on top of my class every term. Even in primary I was always on top of my class every term. I was never number two or number three, I was always number one.

I passed on top of my class at Gulu High and went to Busoga College Mwiri in 1946.

Gulu High School used to send students to Nabumali High School near Mbale. I did not want to go to Nabumali High School because in Lango they wanted somebody to pass and go to Makerere. The last Langi to go to Makerere was in 1941 when we were joining Gulu High School. That was the first Langi to go to Makerere.

From there onwards they wanted someone to go to Makerere. Lango sent very brilliant boys to Nabumali but they did not pass to Makerere.

So I wanted to change and go to Makerere, so I chose Nyakasura School. However, that year Nyakasura had no teachers and could not take any students into secondary. We were all transferred to Mwiri and Budo.

My headmaster at Boroboro was Stanley Owiny, and at Gulu High School, Stanley Moore.

My favourite teachers at Gulu High School were Elisa Lakol and Reuben Anywal.

My favourite teachers at Mwiri were F. D. Cotts, the headmaster, Nabeta, Frick and Nsajja, our mathematics teacher. But it is Cotts, who influenced me most. He was a very good man. He even taught me classics, Plato. We used to read Plato in secondary four.

Again throughout my stay at Mwiri, I was on top of my class every term. It is only when I came late for secondary four, I became number two at the end of the term. I was again number two in secondary six, final term.

One day I was playing tennis when I saw my friend Wilson Aguma go to the dispensary.
Then I heard a very great yelling then I ran and found Aguma down with the nurse crying, both of them were crying.


OLD BOY: Obote greets students of Busoga College Mwiri. He was one of only two students who were admitted to Makerere University from the school in 1948 (File Photo)

The nurse had poured something in Aguma’s eyes. I think it was acid. Frick came, put Aguma in his car we went to Jinja hospital and I was in Jinja hospital for two weeks. That term I was second in my class. That is why the head of the class in academics is written on the board, so I was not on the board.

I was in Mwiri from 1946-1947 and then I went to Makerere.

Only two of us passed from Mwiri to Makerere, Tibamanyire, a Munyoro boy and me. My best friend in Mwiri was Zikusooka, and Luba both of whom later became engineers, Luba for Kampala City Council. Zikusooka remained my friend, and I even appointed him minister.

My other classmate was Muwanga, who became a forester. I do not know where Muwanga is now.

I went to do intermediate at Makerere and studied political science and geography although my favourite subject, history was not there. I was given a scholarship by Lango Local Government to do law at Khartoum University. I was the first Langi to pass to go to Makerere since 1941. That is why I won a scholarship to go to Khartoum.

I left Makerere voluntarily, although some people say I was dismissed because of a food strike. I was a participant in the food strike, but I did not lead it. I was given a scholarship starting with 1948, about June-July in Khartoum.

When Makerere begun in March I did not go back because I was waiting to go to Khartoum. However, I got a letter from the secretariat in Entebbe written by the former DC in Lango saying that my scholarship could not be entertained. The British did not want me or someone from Lango to go and study law at that time. I rebelled. I went to Kenya.

The people I studied with at Makerere were Martin Aliker, who remained a close friend and was best man at my wedding.

Others in my class were Lameck Luboowa and many others. I came back from Kenya and went to Jinja, got a job with Mowlem, an Italian construction company as a general clerk, accounts clerk.

I was twenty-seven years old by this time. So I went to Jinja, I did this work. So 1952, they transferred me to Nairobi, exactly what I wanted. Remember that in 1952 the Uganda National Congress (UNC) was formed. We from Jinja under Lubogo went to Kampala as Busoga delegation. I was therefore a founder member of UNC.

When I went back to Jinja, I was transferred to Nairobi, I think of involving myself in politics. I worked in a place called Kabete near Nairobi. Then I was transferred to Mt. Kenya, a very cold place to work. Then I decided to leave Mowlem because I wanted to do correspondence courses in Nairobi. I got a job with an oil company called Stanbak, which later changed its name to Mobil.

By this time, I had a grudge with the British government. They refused me to take my scholarship in Khartoum. So I joined the Kenya Africa Union (KAU). I had friends in KAU like Odede whom I had studied with at Makerere. I met Paul Ngei, a Mukamba. He later became a minister in Kenya.

I also met Argwings Kodhek. I met Tom Mboya and we became great friends. Then I met Oginga Odinga. Jomo Kenyatta was in jail. Tom Mboya was later killed in 1969. I did not attend his funeral because I was in Zambia when he was killed.

As a close friend who was head of state I got in touch with his family and they advised me not to go for his burial because it was suspected that there was foul play, that it was a political assassination.

In Kenya, I became the chairman of Kaloleni Social club. It was a social club of mainly KAU members mostly.

Our job was to do politics when politics was not allowed by Africans. We used to invite Europeans to lecture to us and then we put questions to them. That way we got around to discussing politics.

I decided to leave Kenya in 1956 because there was a movement in Uganda on land.

The British government wanted to change land tenure in Lango from communal to private ownership. Lango people were very opposed to it. The UNC in Lango was very much opposed to it.

So UNC got in touch with me and they said the minister was going to Lira to launch the private land tenure, and UNC had organised protests. They asked me to join in the demonstration.

So I left Nairobi suddenly, without even saying bye to Kaloleni Social club.

I went by train up to Tororo, then by bus to Soroti, then another bus to Lira. I was welcomed in Soroti by the Lango leaders of UNC including their chairman, Ben Otim, whom I had left at Gulu High School. From there we went by bus to Lango where I arrived after the demonstration had taken place the previous day. Before I could even settle down, I got arrested the next day by the colonial police on accusation of leading the demonstration.

I was handed over to the DC who decided to take me throughout Lango to address people about Land tenure.

The British wanted me to promote private land ownership. I went throughout Lango with the DC but he did not know that I was well known in the district. I had been the last person from the district to pass exams and go to Makerere, so my name had been spread all over Lango.

Later the British released me and I joined active politics in Lango. I had saved some money from Kenya. Frederick Gureme said I went abroad and I got some money from communists, I never did.

So I began preaching Self Government Now. I immediately became a key leader within UNC! In Kenya just before I left for Uganda, I was the representative of UNC so they selected me to go to India. So we went by ship to India to Bombay. From Bombay I went with some Kenyans by air to New Delhi where we met Nehru, who was very close to African politics.

From there we flew to Cairo and I met Nasser. Nehru and Nasser were supporting the liberation struggle in Africa and the Third World. The UNC had a good policy of “Self Government Now; One Man One Vote”.

We leave Cairo by ship back to Mombasa after which I left for Uganda.

Meanwhile in Lango, the member representing the district in the Legislative Council was Yakobo Omwonya, one of the Lango people who was the first to go to Makerere and did commerce. He wasn’t effective in the Legco, so we put pressure on him to resign. He resigned and the district council had to elect a new representative.

I stood against three other people: the late Okai, Okello Odong and someone else whom I cannot remember. I beat all of them hands down, and went to the Legco and I set it on fire.

The records are all there, you can find them. I transformed the Legco from a timid talking shop into an effective assembly.

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How UPC was formed
In this third part of our series, Dr Obote tells Andrew Mwenda about the pre-independence struggle and the beginning of Uganda’s suffering.
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How UPC was formed
By Andrew Mwenda

Some time in 1960, a decision was taken to merge the UNC with the Uganda Peoples’ Union led by Rwetsiba. A decision was made and the Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) was born.

In this third part of our series, Dr Obote tells Andrew Mwenda about the pre-independence struggle and the beginning of Uganda’s suffering.

When I joined the Legislative Council (Legco), it was a timid talking shop. I immediately set out to make it an effective assembly to voice the concerns of the African people. My first task was to link the members of the Legco with the wider community of the people of Uganda in the districts.


THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED: Andrew Mwenda interviews Milton Obote and his wife Miria last year in Obote’s home in Zambia.


FRIENDS: Obote and Sir Edward Muteesa chat. Obote first met Sir Edward through a lady called Kisosonkole, Muteesa’s mother-in-law (File photo).


Obote stands as Idi Amin (L) and Oryema (R) salute. Obote had no idea of events that would unfold when he suggetsed Amin be reprimanded only for murdering some Turkana (File photo).

We started mobilising for a constitutional conference. Although I was new in the Legco, I immediately stood out because I had a message: Self Government Now! It was the Uganda National Congress (UNC) message, but my job was to exploit it, and I became its voice and people wanted to hear it.

The Legco had great debaters like George Magezi from Bunyoro, John Babiiha from Tooro, John Rwamafa from Kigezi.

There was also a conservative fellow from Buganda, I forget his name, he was a very great fellow, but he was not my friend. There were very few black people in the Legco at the time. The majority were white and Indian. But we formed a formidable opposition.

The white people would sit on the government side. Some Indians would sit with us on the opposition side, others on the government side. The Indians with us on the opposition side included Madhvani, Varghi and Patel.

One issue dominated the Legco in the early years of my service there: the enguli issue.

People in Luwero and around Bombo were distilling Waragi from bananas.

The British colonial government was totally opposed to this and were using chiefs to stop people from distilling or drinking enguli on grounds that it was crude.

However, the real reason was to make Africans drink bottled alcohol from British companies. That is how colonialism had killed local African industry. I immediately took up this issue.

You can cross check with the records in the parliamentary records of the time. I stood firmly arguing that instead of ransacking people’s homes, burning down their bananas plants and jailing those who drink enguli, government should instead refine it to remove its health hazards.

I also promised that if an African government took over office from colonial rule, and if I were to play a key role in such an African government, we would build a factory to refine enguli into a healthy, non-crude drink and bottle it. And we did it. The first UPC administration built a factory and you can now drink Uganda Waragi. Meantime, problems began within the UNC. Jolly Joe Kiwanuka wanted to lead the party.

However, Ignatius Musaazi was the leader but Jolly Joe did not respect Musaazi. Musaazi was a nationalist, a very intelligent man, but unfortunately he was a gentleman, he was not aggressive. Now Joe Kiwanuka went to Moscow and got some money. He went to Cairo and collected more money.

Then he went to London and bought a lot of goods, presents for himself and his girlfriends. He had many girlfriends. He put some money into in his newspaper, The Daily Express which we wanted very much, but he was using the paper also against the party and its leader Musaazi.

Musaazi made a mistake when he said that is communism money. This gave Joe Kiwanuka an excuse to break up the party.


John Kakonge


Grace Ibingira


WARNED: Sir Walter Coutts

I had made a good impression in the Legco, so the elected members elected me to be their leader in 1958. The next year, the UNC called a delegates conference in Mbale. I was not in Mbale personally because my father was sick in Mulago. It turned out that the delegates did not want Musaazi because of the propaganda by Jolly Joe. On elections day I was elected president of the UNC in absentia.

Jolly Joe sent Paul Kiggundu and a lot of other people to take me to Mbale. So they came to my house at Naguru very early in the morning, said I was wanted by the delegates in Mbale.

They did not tell me I was elected until we were on the way. I went to Mbale and the first thing I told Jolly Joe: “I want to talk to Musaazi first.” I was loyal to Musaazi and I respected him. I asked him if he approved me replacing him and he said he was happy about it but warned me against working with Jolly Joe. I went to the conference and accepted the post.

I immediately set out to organise the UNC from being a party of members of the Legco into a party of the people. My first task was to organise the office of the UNC itself because there had been no office. Together with Abu Mayanja, we set up an office in Number 1 Entebbe road building.

Abu was the first secretary general of the UNC and we were very great friends. Up to now I consider Abu a great personal friend.

He is a very brilliant man and I did not have a problem with him.

So together with Abu, we mobilised the party by taking it to the grassroots and people received us well.

The colonial government tried to stop us when we began to open district, country and gombolola branches across the country. This was because when we called a meeting, people would turn up in thousands. It was now time for the Wild Commission on the constitution of which I was a member. We toured the country gathering evidence for constitutional advancement. I would send a message ahead in a district that, “The commission will be in your district on this day, I want you to organise yourselves, take the following demands to the commission,” and it was very impressive. Members of the commission found that people were demonstrating.

John Kakonge had just returned from India and I had appointed him to conduct inquiries about what we were doing in the Wild Commission.

He found that while the grassroots in the whole country supported UNC, UPU got members of parliament elected by district councils.

Abu Mayanja had left us and gone to Mengo to be a minister. He had been invited for a tour of the US and while he was there, Muslims wanted him to be minister at Mengo. We wrote to Mayanja asking him not to accept. Mayanja wrote back and said this is a good thing, he will work from within.

Sometime in 1960, a decision was taken to merge the UNC with the Uganda Peoples’ Union led by Rwetsiba. A decision was made and the Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) was born.

Prior to the conference for the merger, I had been in office with John Kakonge and I began to feel sick. I was taken to Mengo hospital where they found I had been poisoned. So I did not attend the delegates’ conference.

I was elected president of the new party in absentia and George Magezi Secretary General. I do not remember how, but later Kakonge took over from Magezi. Kakonge was a good brain and a committed nationalist.

We began to prepare for elections leading to self government. Buganda had been a headache to the British, they insisted on indirect elections to parliament through the Lukiiko.

When the British refused the demand, Buganda boycotted the elections. When we went into elections, Mengo was effective in organising the boycott since less than 10 percent of the registered voters turned up. Although DP won the election with a majority of seats and formed government, UPC polled more votes and formed a vigorous opposition. Some DP MPs like Senteza Kajubi were elected with 80 votes.

I regret to say that DP failed to make itself an effective government.

They could not articulate their programmes. We had powerful debating power with people like Aggrey Lanyoro, George Magezi, Rwamafa, John Babiiha, Mathias Ngobi, Cuthbert Obwangol, John Kakonge, Felix Onama, and me. I must also say that Cuthbert Obwangol was a difficult man, but a very dedicated nationalist.

I first met him in Nairobi when the British refused my scholarship in 1948. Onama was good when talking about an issue he understood well. Later we were joined by Grace Ibingira.

He was a brilliant and articulate lawyer, but also a royalist who had a private agenda. In Ankole, for example, he thought UPC should win, but Bahima should rule.

DP had failed to be an effective government. I was determined that UPC should lead the next government. But first we had to ensure that there is another election before independence.

Since Buganda had on instructions from Mengo boycotted the 1961 elections, we had a good argument that we cannot go into independence with a minority government elected by default.

I also realised that we had to listen to Mengo demands if we were to ensure a united Uganda into independence. Ben Kiwanuka (I do not blame him, but I blamed him at the time) said, “Look, the Kabaka knows where I am, if he has got any problem he should contact me.” He said this to Uganda Argus Reporter.

So we picked it up and said “A commoner saying Kabaka should go to him.”

Although Ibingira in his books has claimed that he is the one who initiated talks with the Kabaka that is not true at all.

The UPC-KY alliance was a matter of discussion between Muteesa and me only. Even UPC central executive committee did not discuss it. I used to report just the outcome. I had known Sir Edward Muteesa for sometime, having been introduced to him for the first time by a member of Legco called Kisosonkole, now she is dead. She was Muteesa’s mother-in-law and a South African married to chief Kisosonkole. She had been nominated by the governor to the Legco.

I went to see Muteesa in Bamunanika with Abu Mayanja. This one Abu can confirm. That was the first time I met Muteesa and we become friends. Ibingira did not play any role in the UPC-KY alliance that I know of. Later, Muteesa claimed that during the discussions I promised him that if UPC and KY came into government, I would resign my job as prime minister and let him appoint whoever he wished to become prime minister.

How can I, a leader of a national political party make such a promise to a chief of a regional party?

Secondly, the constitution was clear: the leader of the party with a returned majority after an election would automatically become prime minister. Didn’t Muteesa know the constitution? I did not promise Mutesa anything, if anything it was Muteesa who promised me everything.

UPC and Mengo had a common cause: we both wanted DP government out of office. Our dilemma was how we get rid of DP. Mengo wanted to have indirect elections to the Lukiiko, UPC wanted direct elections.

By the time the talks began, KY had not yet been formed. In fact KY was formed as a result of the talks so that Mengo can have an organisation structure to relate to UPC. I told Muteesa that KY is in Buganda, it will win parliamentary elections hands down, don’t shame yourself with indirect elections. Muteesa did not want any vote to go astray.

He wanted Mengo to have all the 21 seats in Buganda. UPC did not even promise to support the proposal for indirect elections. We only promised we would not oppose it during the Lancaster House talks.

At one time during the talks, DP walked out of the conference over this issue. If there is any concession that UPC made to KY, it was that we would not field candidates in Buganda for elections to the Lukiiko.

As a result of the UPC-KY alliance, UPC actually lost a number of seats in Toro, Ankole, Bunyoro and other places. In the April 1962 elections, UPC got 37 seats, DP gets 24, KY had 21. If UPC had not allied with KY it would have won more than 50 percent of the seats in parliament in April 1962.

I had been prime minister for only a few months when Governor Sir Walter Coutts asked me go to State House. He told me the story of the murder of the Turkana by one Lt. Idi Amin.

Sir Walter told me about the inquiries made by the Kings Africa Rifles (KAR) in Nairobi about these killings and the case against Idi Amin. Sir Walter was the commander in chief of the KAR.

The GOC as I understand it found Amin guilty and sent the file to the commander in chief to confirm the sentence of dismissal.

Sir Walter sought my opinion whether he should confirm the sentence or not.

I regret to say to say that part of Uganda’s suffering today can be traced to the opinion I gave Sir Walter. Even now I cannot explain how I came to give that opinion for it does not fall into the various decisions involving loss of human life which I made subsequently or made before the opinion was given.

I advised that Amin be given a severe reprimand.

After I had given my advice, Sir Walter told me that an officer like Lt. Idi Amin was not fit to be in the KAR; the case against him should have at least have had the sentence of imprisonment and that I was wrong to advise that Amin should not be dismissed.

Then Sir Walter added “I warn you this officer could cause you trouble in the future.” I remember that warning word for word except for the word “could” about which I have some doubt whether Sir Walter said would or could.

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I did not sabotage East African Federation
In this series, Obote talks to Andrew Mwenda about how he dealt with the East African Federation after independence and his role in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.
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I did not sabotage East African Federation
By Andrew Mwenda

In this series, Obote talks to Andrew Mwenda about how he dealt with the East African Federation after independence and his role in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity:-

Trouble at home

Immediately after independence, we faced three major challenges: the East African federation, the organisation of the army, and the lost counties of Buyaga and Bugangaizi. Regarding the East African federation, there have been claims from people like Museveni that I am the one who frustrated it because I wanted to be a big fish in a small pond.

The East African federation could not have been sabotaged by me.

We were talking about two federations at the same time, Buganda federation within Uganda, and the East African federation.

There were problems in Kenya and Uganda which frustrated the drive towards the federation.


Obote and Peter Otai at an OAU summit in Addis Ababa. Behind them are Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe, Robert Ouko and Kenneth Kaunda. The OAU was formed in 1963 at a conference of leaders in Addis Ababa (File photo).


LEFT TO RIGHT: Godfrey Binaisa, Cuthbert Obwangor and Ignatius Musaazi. Binaisa was addressing the closing of UPC Buganda region annual conference (File photo).

I do not remember the factors in Kenya.

However, in Uganda, the UPC had come into government in an alliance with KY which was rabidly opposed to the East African federation.

Remember that the first time the British proposed an East African federation, there was a stand off with Mengo and the Kabaka was deported.

I find Museveni’s reasoning myopic because he tends to personalise obstacles to decision making in Uganda under my administration to me personally.

As prime minister of a political party in a coalition government, I could not make decisions without bringing different interests into agreement. In fact even within the UPC itself, there was no consensus about the East African federation. For example, Adoko Nekyon, Felix Onama and Cuthbert Obwangor were opposed to the idea but I now forget on what grounds.

The second challenge was the army. Immediately after independence in 1964, the army mutinied.

We had to call in British troops to cool it down. Secondly, within a few years of independence, Grace Ibingira with Edward Muteesa began working closely with Brig. Shaban Opolot, the army commander, to overthrow the government.

Ibingira had his own brother, Maj. Katabarwa in the army. Ibingira accuses me, in his books, of refusing to promote people like Major Karugaba because they were Catholics.

But I promoted many officers like Brig. Okoya who were Catholics. It was Ibingira in the UPC government of 1962 who had ideas about the army.

Ibingira had started in London to pick up boys from Ankole and send them to military schools including his own brother Maj. Katabarwa. Ibingira picked up about five Ankole boys to go to military colleges.

In 1964, I supported Muteesa to become president.

Mutesa knew very well that the constitution of 1962 mandated the government to hold a referendum in the lost counties for people to decide whether they wanted to remain under Buganda administration, return to Bunyoro or become an independent district.

So Mutesa wanted Buganda to retain the counties.

He began to frequent the counties and settle Baganda ex-service men there with the hope of increasing the numbers of Baganda in order to create an artificial advantage.

To ensure fairness, government declared that only those who were on the voter register would participate in the referendum. In fact Muteesa one time went to one of the counties and shot people, Banyoro, dead.

Although some unscrupulous authors have accused me of promising both Muteesa and the king of Bunyoro to help them win, in a game of double dealing, that is entirely untrue.

I published all my positions, even in the UPC manifesto of the 1962 elections on the issue of the referendum. Muteesa was not a fool. Neither was Omukama a fool to see a referendum and they say Obote said “I will do this for you”.

The referendum was held as per the constitution towards the end of the second year into independence and people voted by overwhelming majority to go back to Bunyoro.

I understand the difficulty such a referendum presented to Sir Edward.

Although he was president of Uganda, he was also Kabaka of Buganda.

Under the constitution, he was supposed to sign the results of the referendum in order to bring them into legal effect.

His dual role as president of Uganda and Kabaka of Buganda made this more difficult and he refused to sign. I do not blame him at all.


PORTRAIT: John Kakonge lost his post of Secretary General of UPC


Obote and his wife Miria at a function in the 1960s. The couple got married in 1963

The constitution also said in the event the president fails to ascent to a bill, the prime minister can. So I signed the results because I knew that was the best way to help Muteesa out of a difficult situation.

How could a Kabaka of Uganda sign away part of his kingdom to go to another kingdom?

Some people have written saying this was the beginning of the break-up of the UPC-KY alliance. The UPC-KY alliance did not break-up. It ended in a marriage because by 1965, 16 out of 21 KY members of parliament had crossed to UPC. Therefore by the time the dissolution was officially announced, there was little left of KY.

Muteesa and Ibingira deliberately encouraged KY members in parliament to cross to UPC in order to increase the number of UPC parliamentarians who would support a plot by Muteesa and Ibingira to get rid of me. So it was not done out of good faith.

I was to comment on the 1964 UPC delegates’ conference which has been a subject of much writing and much misrepresentation.

I have been accused of siding with Ibingira to remove John Kakonge from the office of Secretary General. I was sick. I don’t know if Dr. Gesa is still alive but he will tell you that I did not attend the conference. I opened the conference and I went to bed. William Nadiope who was vice president of the party in collusion with Ibingira decided to have delegations which they financed.

Nadiope took the whole of Busoga, thousands of people, to Gulu. Kakonge did not know that this group had been financed by the CIA.

Kakonge’s group was accused of being communist with me in it, but Kakonge did not know.

They even gave him a CIA girl, Peace Corp volunteer to date so that they could spy on him. When it came to the conference, Nadiope and Ibingira had filled it with their supporters and they used this numerical strength to defeat Kakonge. That is how Ibingira used CIA money to become secretary general of the UPC.

If you read Ibingira’s writings, he admits that he was plotting to remove me also from being party president so that Nadiope could take over the leadership of UPC.

Formation of OAU

In the meantime, we had other foreign affairs issues to deal with other than the East African federation. This was the height of the cold war and the world was divided between east and west. I took a strong Pan African position in favour of a continental union.

In May 1963, I arrived in Addis Ababa where the first conference of leaders of newly independent states was going to take place.

Africa had been divided between two groups: the Monrovia group composed of conservatives, and the Casablanca group composed of the progressive radical.

The Monrovia group was opposed to Nkrumah’s proposal for an immediate creation of a union government for the whole of Africa.

On the first day I arrived, my friend Kwesi Ama, a Ghanaian came to me and said Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana wanted to have lunch with me and that I should ‘expect a bomb shell’. I had met Kwesi Ama in London.

He was my friend and was Nkrumah’s ambassador to London. Nkrumah was the leader of African progressive opinion. We all admired him immensely.

I personally admired Nkrumah immensely. He was an illustrious leader. He shaped African liberation and gave Africa a voice in world affairs. He supported liberation struggles all over Africa. So meeting him was a great honour and opportunity. People like Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, all progressive African leaders looked to Nkrumah.

When we sat down to lunch, Nkrumah told me there was no conference. “You should go back home.” He said the Monrovia group had already sabotaged the conference. I told him that we should not go back home. We should put our case to the conference on the need for African unity.

And I told him that as far as I could see, there was possible success if only we could reorganise what we wanted the conference to do. Nkrumah said we wanted All-African Union Government.

I told him that given the polarisation, we could not achieve that.

Although we could present our case for immediate African political union, we had to be careful because we could not get the majority needed to see it through.

So we had to argue our case as a bargaining tool to get the conference to form an organisation that would work towards the creation of a continental government.

I also told Nkrumah that while a continental union was a great idea, we could not wish it. We had to put in place an organisation to work towards it.

During the conference, Nkrumah made a great speech on the need for a union government for Africa.

He called for a constitution for an African continent government, a common market, an African currency, an African monetary zone, an African central bank and an inter continental communication system. I stood up in the conference called for the creation of a strong Pan African executive and an African parliament to which all African governments must be prepared to surrender their sovereignty.

This position was supported by Madibo Keita, president of Mali; Sekou Toure, president of Guinea; and the president of Egypt, Gamer Abdel Nasser. All these were my friends.

My call for immediate unity was tactics. We used the Nkrumah stand to bring others opposed to African co-operation to agree that a compromise meant building an organisation to promote the ideals of unity.

Later in the conference, I suggested that since African unity cannot be achieved overnight, let us put in place an organisation to work towards the realisation of that goal.

This was a compromise position between ‘unity now’ and the extreme position by people like President Tsiranana of Malagasy Republic (now Madagascar), Balewa and others against African co-operation.

Then Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria took to the floor with a moving call for African liberation. He pledged 10,000 Algerian volunteers to free African nations still under colonial oppression and white minority rule.

“A Charter will be of no value to us,” he said, “and speeches will be used against us if there is not first created a blood bank for those fighting for independence.”

I stood up and offered Uganda as a training ground for African troops to be used to liberate African countries from colonial rule and white minority rule.

Then Sekou Toure suggested that we fix a date after which “if colonialism were not ended, African states would expel the colonial powers.”

Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal and Nyerere stood up and made strong recommendations on building capacity to liberate the whole of Africa.

Finally we agreed to the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) whose mandate it was to end colonial rule and work towards unity.

Marriage to Miria

At the end of the conference, Nkrumah was impressed by my contribution and he cancelled his flight back to Ghana and instead came with me to Kampala where he planted a tree.

That same year I married Miria and we spent our honeymoon in Ghana with Nkrumah. In 1965, I together with Nkrumah and Nyerere took a strong stand against Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe.

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The birth of a republic
In this series, Obote talks to Andrew Mwenda about the 1966 crisis
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The birth of a republic
By Andrew Mwenda

In this series, Obote talks to Andrew Mwenda about the 1966 crisis

Let us come to the gold allegations motion introduced by Daudi Ochieng who was a KY member of parliament and also a personal friend of Muteesa.

Ochieng had introduced that same motion in October 1965 and the UPC parliamentary group and the cabinet had refused to support it because it had no substance.

In early 1966, he resubmitted the same motion. It so happened that I had organised to go to West Nile on tour. Again the UPC parliamentary group discussed it and rejected it. I offered to cancel my going to West Nile and be present in the House to discuss the motion but my colleagues said I should go.


Dr Obote says Sir Edward Muteesa and Grace Ibingira tried to use the army to change the government in 1966.

Now, up to that time, any resolution by the parliamentary group was never changed by cabinet, never! You don’t have backbenchers saying one thing and the front bench saying another thing.

I left for West Nile the next day, January 31, 1966. Ibingira and group waited for another cabinet meeting on February 4 where they agreed to support the motion.

That same day they contacted Ochieng to present it again in my absence.

Ochieng accused me, Onama and Nekyon of looting gold and ivory from the Congo with Amin. He also accused Nabudere of organising an army to overthrow the government of Uganda, in collusion with Idi Amin and me.

The motion was presented in parliament, debated and passed on February 4. However, the resolution did not censure me as prime minister as some people have claimed.

It only called for the suspension of Idi Amin and recommended the appointment of a commission of inquiry by the prime minister into the allegations raised by Ochieng.

Most UPC parliamentarians were confused by the actions of the front bench, led by Ibingira, and abstained.

Kakonge took a firm stand and in a moving speech opposed the motion and vetoed it. All this was illegitimate political action by Ibingira and group, and I would have handled it politically if something else had not happened.

On February 5, Onama who was Minister of Defence tried to suspend Amin as directed by parliament but found the action against the law and instead sent Amin on a short leave. While still in West Nile, Muteesa and Ibingira realised that parliament had not censured me.

So they could not constitutionally use the resolution to remove me from office. They decided now to use the army to change the government.

Working closely with the army commander, Brig. Shaban Opolot, the plotters sent Maj. Katabarwa, Ibingira’s brother to where I was in West Nile with orders to bring me back to Kampala “dead or alive.”

Unfortunately for the plot, it was leaked to me and when they reached me on February 6, they were disarmed and asked to deliver the message. They said Opolot wanted me in Kampala urgently.

I returned to Kampala on February 12 and Opolot claimed that Amin, who was his deputy, had planned to kill him. Amin also accused Opolot of planning to kill him. There had been a number of plots involving Muteesa and Ibingira on the one hand and Opolot on the other.

I summoned Opolot and the Inspector General of Police, Erinayo Oryema and asked them what was happening. Oryema said he was summoned by Kabaka Muteesa, the president and told that something was going to happen. When Oryema asked Muteesa what was going to happen, the president replied, “You go and find out.”

As Oryema left, I got a report that Moroto barracks was emptied. The army had left driving to Jinja. So I sent a word to Jinja. When they arrived in Jinja they were arrested. And they said they were going to Ankole to do a training exercise.


ARRESTED: Grace Ibingira


ACCUSED: Felix Onama

I called Opolot who said he did not know anything about it. However, I knew that Opolot was the one who had ordered this army movement.

On February 9th, Muteesa called the British High Commissioner and asked for massive military assistance including soldiers, arms and ammunitions through a certain company.

When I asked Muteesa why he had made such orders, he said it was a precaution against trouble. I asked him, “Trouble from whom and against whom?” He just waved me to silence.

Although he was president, head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces, Muteesa did not have powers to order for arms. All these factors convinced me that Ibingira, Muteesa and group were not relying on constitutional methods in their political struggle against me.

On February 14th, I called a cabinet meeting and asked all those ministers who believed Ochieng’s allegations against me to resign from cabinet and no one did. I proposed to cabinet that a judicial commission of inquiry be appointed to investigate the allegations and cabinet unanimously adopted the proposal.

Because Ibingira and Muteesa were using the army, I decided to take decisive action.

On February 22 1966, I called another cabinet meeting, mainly with a view to get the coup plotters and arrest them since the best place to get all of them at once was at a cabinet meeting.

During the cabinet meeting, police (not the army) entered and arrested Ibingira and co-conspirators – George Magezi, Balaki Kirya, Mathias Ngobi and Dr Emmanuel Lumu.

On February 27, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Basil Bataringaya, appointed a judicial commission of inquiry consisting of Sir Clement de Lestang from the East African Court of Appeal, Justice Augustine Said from the High Court of Tanzania and Justice Henry Miller from the High Court of Kenya. Wako Wambuzi was secretary to the commission.

This was a truly independent commission since all the commissioners came from outside of Uganda. I personally testified to the commission as did Amin, Onama, Nekyon, Nabudere and all others.

The commission found Ochieng’s allegations baseless. There was the problem now of Muteesa and his involvement in the coup plot. I sought the advice of my Attorney General, Godfrey Binaisa QC. Binaisa was among the best legal brains in the country and I trusted his professional advice.

He told me that given what Muteesa had done, asking for military assistance, I had to suspend him from being president of Uganda.

Binaisa also told me that the only way I could suspend Muteesa was to suspend the constitution itself.

I had worked hard to hammer out the major compromises that made the 1962 constitution. I told Binaisa, “That constitution was my very child. I cannot become its killer.

“You do not have to kill it,” Binaisa advised, “it is already dead, as dead as a door nail, killed by Muteesa when he asked for arms from the British government unconstitutionally. All you have to do right now is to burry your dead child as decently as possible.”

There was no constitutional way out, so on February 24, 1966 I called the press and suspended the constitution and hence the posts of president and vice president.

On April 15, 1966, I introduced the 1966 constitution in parliament whose only difference from the 1962 constitution was to merge the office of the prime minister with that of the president. There were 55 votes for it and only four votes against.

Events were moving fast at this time because six of the 21 members of KY in parliament refused to swear allegiance to the new constitution.

On May 20, the Lukiiko met and passed a resolution saying that, “This Lukiiko resolves not to recognise the government of Uganda whose headquarters must be moved away from Buganda soil.”

The motion was passed after intimidating everybody else at Mengo who wanted to oppose it by using the mob to lynch them. I retained calm amidst this extreme provocation from sections of Mengo.

On May 23, we arrested three chiefs – Lutaaya, Matovu and Sebanakita and detained them for organising rebellion against the state.

There were reports of unrest in some parts of Buganda. I think some police stations had been attacked by thugs while others had thrown logs of trees to block roads in Makindye.

Later in the day, I was having lunch with Muwonge of Bugerere, Odaka’s father-in-law Kavuma and Prince Badru Kakungulu, the uncle of the Kabaka discussing the situation.

We heard gunshots. Oryema came and said that Amin was shooting at the Lubiri. I ordered for Amin who was called. He came and I talked to him alone.

He told me there were reports that there were a lot of arms inside the Lubiri and when I sent an army contingent to verify the reports, they were shot at and they responded. I ordered him to stop immediately, but by this time Muteesa had fled.

For the next nine months, we worked within cabinet on proposals for a new constitution.

In early 1967, these proposals were published for the public to make comments on them. The government revised the proposals by incorporating some of the reactions from the public.

Parliament then constituted itself into a constituent assembly and freely discussed the new constitution as the records of parliament attest.

The new constitution came into effect in September and abolished federalism, monarchies and made Uganda a republic.

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I left Amin to pull the trigger

Dr Obote talks about the attempted assasination on him and the coup that took place in 1971 and how he fought Amin.
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I left Amin to pull the trigger
By Andrew Mwenda

Investigations in both the attempted assassination on me and the murder of Okoya were leading to Idi Amin by the time I left the country for Singapore in January 1971

During the 1969 UPC delegates’ conference, we invited delegations from other countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Congo and other countries.

President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia was there and so were Presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Jomo Kenyatta and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Some of them were my friends, very close friends like Kaunda and Nyerere.

On the last day of the conference I escorted the presidents back to Entebbe to take their flights to their respective countries and I returned to the conference to find that a resolution had been passed declaring Uganda as a one party state.

At the conclusion of the conference I rejected the resolution because it was not part of the party programme. The party was solidly behind multipartyism.

After the closure of the conference, I walked out and I saw somebody aiming a gun at me. After that I do not know what happened because I was shot at: I broke my tongue, broke my teeth, then I was taken to Mulago hospital.


BETRAYED: Obote (centre) walks with his wife Miria and Amin at a dance in Lugogo. Amin took over the country when Obote left for Singapore in 1971.

At Mulago Hospital as I was walking in I met Rwetsiba coming out of the building, I did not greet him. I had no teeth, I had no mouth; I could not talk, but he did not know.

I saw him clearly, he saw me clearly. Rwetsiba went to Uganda Club. He met some people who told him there had been an accident in Lugogo and I had been shot.

He said “No, the president is at Mulago I met him there. He is okay and he is walking and it seems he had gone to see somebody there in the hospital.”

It caused a hell of trouble because people wanted to lynch him.

At Mulago a nurse nearly killed me! When I was waiting at Mulago, my sister-in-law Mey, came in my room. There was another nurse in the room. I know her but I won’t mention her name.

This nurse prepared an injection for me. Mey was looking at it.

When this nurse tried to give me the injection, Mey jumped up from her chair, got hold of the needle and they fell down both of them, breaking the needle.

My wife Miria was still at home in Kololo. I was operated on and now I still have a tongue to cause people like Museveni trouble. I was in the hospital for about three weeks.

While still in the hospital, my vice president, John Babiha, who was an excellent debater and the best Minister for Animal Husbandry ever in Uganda took charge of the country.

He declared a state of emergency all over the country, because since 1966 it had only been obtaining in Buganda. The government also arrested many people like Dan Nabudere and Benedicto Kiwanuka.

All those were done the very night of the (attempted) assassination by cabinet, under Babiha. I was in hospital, virtually not operating at all.

The state of emergency in Uganda was declared to be reviewed every three months. It was just natural to leave it for three months when parliament could review it.

This was the time when we had declared a move to the left, and some people wanted to force me to stop the move to the left. The attempted assassination did not intimidate me.

I am a politician. I do things I believe in. So I cannot just change course because someone tried to assassinate me. After the attempted assassination, Idi Amin who was army commander went missing.

He did not come to the hospital to see me. He did not attend subsequent defence council meetings. Later, there was a meeting of the defence council where I heard that his deputy, Brig. Okoya, accused him of cowardice and desertion.

A few weeks later, Okoya was killed. Investigations in both the attempted assassination on me and the murder of Okoya were leading to Idi Amin by the time I left the country for Singapore in January 1971.

In 1970, I reorganised the army, just an ordinary reorganisation, which took two years to implement, even to announce.

This action was not aimed at Idi Amin. In my absence when I was at Entebbe Airport seeing off visiting presidents, Amin apparently made a very moving speech at the UPC conference.

I was told about that and later I heard the recordings. It was very moving. It was in support of UPC. But after the attempted assassination, Amin had disappeared! He was not to be found anywhere.

When I retuned to office from Mulago, Amin came to my office and said the normal things: “Oh, thank you Mr President, glad to see you.” I began to suspect that Amin was up to something. Why did he disappear the night of the attempted assassination?

Before I left for Singapore, I called Amin and the minister of Defence Felix Onama to my office. The Auditor General had issued a report to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, where he said Shs2.6m in the defence budget had not been accounted for.

So, I told Amin and Onama that I led a clean government; the AG had found money missing from the Defence ministry. I told them to find the money by the time I return from Singapore and restore the account.


HELPING HAND: Obote usually turned to Presidents Nyerere and Kaunda for help. During the 1971 coup, Nyerere offered him asylum and advice on consolidating manpower (File photo).

David Martin, in his book General Amin, said I loaded the gun, put it on my head and left Amin to pull the trigger, which I suppose is correct.

The Israelis were also involved in the coup of 1971. When Gen. Nimery came to power in Sudan in 1969, relations between Uganda and Sudan improved.

The OAU had pronounced a new policy on mercenaries not being tolerated in Africa.

The Israelis were using mercenaries to destabilise Sudan, which they considered the soft under belly of the Arab world.

So the Israelis were financing the Anyanya rebellion in southern Sudan in order to tie Sudanese troops down in the south so that Sudan could not play a major role in the Arab-Israel conflict.

In 1970, we arrested an Israeli mercenary, Steiner, and we deported him to Sudan where he was due to testify in court, a factor that would have exposed Amin’s involvement.

Another factor leading to the coup was the British. I did not want to go to Singapore. At that time there was what was called Mulungushi Club composed of Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and we used to coordinate our policies, particularly foreign policies very closely.

There was a conference in Singapore of the Commonwealth countries. Since I did not want to go to Singapore, I had to go and tell my colleagues why. I didn’t want to go to Singapore because one, there was going to be elections in Uganda around April; two, I had to complete presentation or writing of the five year development plan. The second five-year development plan had been completed in 1970. 1971 was the introduction of the third five-year development plan.

I went and reported these things to my colleagues. However, during this time, the Labour Party under my friend Harold Wilson had lost power to the Conservatives under Edward Heath.

Heath immediately announced that Britain was going to resume arms sales to South Africa, which arms would be used to fight the ANC who were fighting against apartheid.

I did research on the nature of arms sales by Britain to South Africa and its likely implications on the liberation struggles in the whole of southern Africa.

I presented the research to my colleagues who included presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and the leader of the ANC, Oliver Tambo.

Having presented to them the research we had made on the British arms to be sold to South Africa, they understood my difficulties and requested that since the research could only be presented by me at the Commonwealth conference, I should go to Singapore and present the research.

They also argued persuasively for the need for a united front of progressive African leaders in Singapore. I reluctantly and in the interest of African liberation decided to go to Singapore. I left the country on January 11, 1971.

In Singapore, I presented my case in a moving speech. Two or three days later, Edward Heath, the British Prime minister made a statement saying: “Those who are condemning the British policy to sell arms to South Africa, some of them will not go back to their countries,” and I understood it to refer to me. I could see no country that presented a stronger case than I did about sale of arms to South Africa.

Secondly, events were unfolding in Uganda. First of all Chris Ntende who was permanent secretary in the Ministry of Internal affairs arrived suddenly in Singapore. His discussions with me could not give me exactly what was happening.

So I rang Babiha, and rang Basil Bataringaya, the Minister of Internal Affairs. They said there was an attempted coup but they had incapacitated it. I asked what specific action they had taken.

They said Amin had planned to assassinate me upon arrival at the airport, but they had taken care of that. Secondly they said they had alerted loyal army officers. I told them that was very little, too late. “Oh dear, Oh dear,” I told them on phone, “it’s already too late, it’s already too late!” and two hours later, Amin’s tanks surrounded parliamentary building and began to shell it.

Later, Bataringaya rang me from Kampala and told me that the coup had succeeded. Amin had said the army has asked him to take over government. I called my delegation to my room and briefed them about the situation back home.

I said, “Loyalty to me personally ends here. When we are free either in Bombay or Kenya, you will decide for yourselves what to do, go back to Uganda or go to exile with me.”

I had decided to go back and handle the situation myself. So I flew to Bombay. From Bombay we contacted President Nyerere who was on a state visit to New Delhi. I was disgusted! It was a terrible shame! I was also worried about my family.

In New Delhi, President Nyerere asked that I go and meet him there. So we flew to New Delhi. In New Delhi he told me: “You go to East Africa, from Nairobi go to Dar-es-Salaam, I will find you there.’
I got back to Bombay and flew back to Nairobi.

In Nairobi, we were taken to hotels, I was given one hotel and my delegation was given another hotel. In my hotel, I divided my people into two groups.

One group close to me, I directed them to ring various numbers in Kampala. Ring so and so, ring so and so, ask what is the situation of the coup, can it be altered?

The result I got was that there were many reliable army officers and the coup could be altered.

I started sending loyal staff to town to look for vehicles. I asked them to give me money so that we could pay for the vehicles.

We had mobilised six vehicles to drive to Tororo when all of a sudden, Kenya authorities stopped anybody from leaving my hotel.

The key was to return to Eastern Uganda where we were assured that we could get into the barracks and we made plans to get into the barracks.

But Kenya stopped us flat. Nobody left the hotel, our telephones were cut off. I decided to go to Tanzania quietly.

In Tanzania, I was given a state welcome. Prime Minister Rashid Kawawa received us and took me to state house. A few days later President Nyerere returned and told me that what we lacked was manpower.

If we could get manpower, he could train any number. I assured him that I could raise manpower. Then I flew to Nairobi to inform President Kenyatta about the circumstances of the coup, then I flew to Addis Ababa to talk to Emperor Haile Selassie. I wanted their support to reverse the coup.

Kenyatta just said he understood but that I should be careful about a war. Emperor Selassie also said the same thing. He said we should avoid a war. However, Siad Barre, the president of Somalia, even without consulting me, sent a delegation to Nyerere that the coup should not be let to consolidate.

He said he was ready to send troops to Tanzania from where they could launch an attack on Uganda. I liked it very much and Nyerere agreed but somehow Somali troops never arrived in Tanzania.

Then in March I was woken up at night and told that a delegation from Khartoum wanted to meet me. I met the delegation and they told me that they had instructions from President Nimery that I should go to Khartoum.

I packed up and we flew that same night to Khartoum. I remained in Khartoum for more than a year. I met President Nimery who was with his advisers.

I presented my case that I wanted to use southern Sudan to enter northern Uganda, contact UPC members, raise an army send them in Southern Sudan and attack Uganda.

They discussed it, and then said it was not possible because southern Sudan and northern Uganda areas were occupied by Anyanya under Joseph Lagu. When they said that one, I said I wanted to meet the president alone.

It was agreed. So we adjourned, afterwards I was allowed to meet the president, I told him my case.
I said if one area is under Anyanya there was a possibility of raising an army through Koboko market which is in Southern Sudan but is attended by Uganda, Sudan and Zaire. A very big market!

So I said I could go there with his staff, enter the Koboko market, meet Ugandans there and see whether we could use the facility as a way to get into northern Uganda, Arua in particular.

This was agreed. So we made preparations to go, and I flew with seven people to Koboko market.

When we were there we nearly caused security problems. When Ugandans saw me, they were celebrating in the market on the Sudanese side of the border.

I would send people to call them out. So I reported to the Sudanese and they found that it was possible to raise an army through Koboko market, send people through Koboko and bring people through Koboko, which I did and I raised 900 people.

From West Nile, Acholi (Kitgum and Gulu), Lango, Teso, Bukedi, Bugisu, Bunyoro.

In the next series, Obote talks about fighting Amin in the coup in 1971.
Follow the rest of Dr Obote's story in The Uganda Monitor.

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