Employing Amin’s son Lumumba

The fall of Amin. In our series on the Idi Amin published in the Saturday Monitor and the Sunday Monitor, Amin’s son Jaffar Remo narrated their dramatic rescue from Kampala preparatory school as the liberations forces cut off Kampala access. Conrad Nkutu was one of the pupils in that school and in the following article recounts the events of that day, what it was like studying with the president’s children oblivious of the fact that his father was one of the first victims of Amin’s government.continued from yesterday.

Most students were still too young to understand the upheaval and were puzzled because they’d always known President Amin as Head of State, a cool dad who was the father of our friends and generous benefactor of our school.

We now discovered from newspaper and radio reports that the father of our school-mates was a much feared mass-murderer, known as “Kijambiya” (the man with a big knife) by the Baganda.
Years after I left the school, I read somewhere that our wonderful headmistress, Mary Hayward had been awarded the well-deserved honour of an OBE by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth for her long and dedicated education and missionary service to Uganda.

During my last term in the school in 1979, a chubby young boy was brought to KPS for admission to Primary One by his 30-something year old father, who was dressed in a cream-coloured Kaunda suit and ankle-length boots. They were driven into the school in the popular 1970s Mercedes Benz model 200.

I later learnt that this slender, balding man with a somewhat unkempt moustache, stern demeanour and an erect military bearing but betraying a visible soft spot for his young son was one of the senior UNLF liberators and was also the new Minister of Defence, Yoweri Museveni.
This was our first time to hear of him. The boy was introduced to fellow students as Muhoozi Museveni, now better known as Brigadier General Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

The writer, a former KFM, NTV and Daily Monitor Managing director is the Chief Executive of Greenewus Energy