Obote was weak when in trouble - ex-minister

When Obote returned from exile in Tanzania in May 1980 – just ahead of the general elections - I was in Bushenyi to receive him and I had to surrender my official car for him to travel to Mbarara where he was to address a rally.

I travelled back to Kampala with Shaffique Arain [later Uganda’s high commissioner to London] and Gurdial Singh [Uganda’s high commissioners to India]. The three of us discussed the coming elections and agreed that whichever way the results turned out, it would be a unity government; involving all the parties in the elections.

The justification was that it would not be prudent for one political entity to win the elections and form the post-Amin Government alone at the exclusion all the others who had also participated in the removal of Idi Amin from power. During the UPC meetings held at Obote’s home in Kololo, majority of the party members agreed to that arrangement.

After the elections [which Obote won although some parties, including UPM’s Museveni protested], many were surprised when the cabinet was being formed. Five of the first nine ministers were all from Bushenyi; Adonia Tiberondwa, Yonasani Kanyomozi, Edward Rurangaranga and Patrick Rubaihayo.

The other was Ephraim Kamuntu, who was disguised as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and made to preside over the Ministry of Finance, at the same time as a Personal Assistant to the President/Minister of finance.

By early 1981, it was clear that those who had fought Amin expecting to participate in the governance of post-Amin Uganda were not happy to be left out in the cold. One cannot rule out the possibility that it was as a result of the “winner takes all” and the “loser losses all” attitude that exposed the UPC leadership after the 1980 elections.

A few of us openly expressed our discontent when it became apparent that the UPC leadership had dropped the idea of forming a Government of National Unity, but our concerns were ignored.

After the elections, Obote appointed himself finance minister, and he called me to his office at the ministry as he formed the cabinet and said: “Mr Makmot what have you been doing since the elections?”

I told him I had been at home. He said: “I understand you were in this ministry, where were you sitting?” I told him where I had been sitting and he told me to go back to that office as he handed me an appointment letter [as deputy Finance minister].

As a deputy minister, my major responsibility was mainly implementation of policy. I was not a policy initiator, which was done at cabinet level. I only attended cabinet once in a while to explain some things in the Budget.
There was a good atmosphere working with Obote. He was a fine man with extra ordinary intelligence. If you gave him a brief on something, the next time he would discuss it like he had known it his entire life. He was particular with legality on whatever was being done and his main question used to be “in everything you have said, how do we stand legally?

Tense moments
On one occasion, I was invited to cabinet while it was discussing different cash crops and I told him to let every crop be cash crop, encourage people to grow what they want in bigger quantities than they can consume. This upset Obote so much that he walked out of the room. I was told by [Chris] Rwakasisi that if the president walks out on you it means you have been fired.

However, after sometime during a speech at the commencement of Uganda exporting maize to Tanzania he called me aside and apologised for his reaction when he walked out on my idea.

The next tense moment was during the drafting of the Budget speech. He always wanted things to flow with his speech. There was a section I called Programme for recovery. When I said so he decided we relax.

At around 2am, the then rehabilitation minister Patrick Masette Kuuya and others joined us but Masette was drunk, and he tried to undo what we had finished. I told him: “Mr Minister, if you are drunk, why don’t you go and sleep?

Obote was very upset and he wondered how a deputy minister could talk to a full minister like that. I replied: “Mr President, it is you who appointed us”. He took a swipe at me but I stood my ground and told him: “Sir, this is what happens when we discuss things when we are drunk”.

At around 4am, I was told to get out and hand in my resignation letter by 10am. The next morning as I started dictating the letter to my secretary, I got a call from the president’s secretary Sarah Akora, asking me to rush to her office. I told her I was still drafting my resignation letter, but she told me to drop it and go to the office.

[Makmot was not relieved of his duties until Obote was overthrown for the second time by his own army in 1985]

Obote the other side
Although he was a very intelligent person, kind and nice to work with, in times of crisis, his intelligence and analytical abilities seemed to desert him. This was seen on the eve of the 1985 coup. He called Akena p’Ojok, me and others, for a meeting. The meeting was to devise a means of averting the impending coup.

During the meeting, when we learnt that Tito-Okello Lutwa’s men had reached Nakasongola, I advised him to resign and hand over power to his vice Paulo Muwanga but he was not willing to listen to me.
The reason I suggested Muwanga was because the information we had was that the mutineers wanted to have Smith Opon-Acak, Luwuliza Kirunda, Chris Rwakasisi, and Peter Otai arrested. These were not on good terms with Paulo Muwanga by that time.

Obote never took my advice, he became undecided on what to do in such a situation, and he seemed very restless. That is the only time I saw him in a crisis, I had never seen him in such a situation before.

Last 24 hours
Obote did not believe that Bazillio and his men were up to anything serious as he was kept in the dark by his security advisers. The British offered to send troops to disarm the mutineers, simply calling them gunmen. Obote’s security advisers persuaded him against accepting the British support.

He turned down their offer and he instead dispatched Otema Allimadi and Luwuliza Kirunda to Zambia to request for military support from Kenneth Kaunda, then Zambian President. I understand Kaunda had agreed. Unfortunately, by the time the coup took place, the rescue troops had not even boarded the plane to Entebbe.