When Tabliqs sect members declared war on Muslims

Alhajj Nsereko Mutumba was a member of the Nakasero Muslims but was opposed to a violent takeover.
Photo by Henry Lubega

The Aga Khan Mosque was put under the Muslim management by a decree by Idi Amin after the expulsion of the Asians in Uganda. That’s how it became a seat of the Muslim leadership in the country.

However, after the fall of Amin there was a backlash against Muslims. Some of us joined a group meeting at Bilali Mosque on William Street, before moving to Nakasero.

This group was opposed to some of the Old Kampala teachings where people such as Sheikh Saad Luwemba as head was supporting the idea of conducting last funeral rites and Duwas (special prayers for the dead), things the Muslims at Nakasero did not believe in.

As a result, in 1982 during a meeting in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, an agreement was reached and Obedi Kamulegeya was made the chief Khadhi and head of Dawa (Islamic propagation).

Unfortunately, the Nakasero-based youth group now called the Tabliqs, opposed the decision.
Instead elections for office bearers at the Supreme Council were organised at Kibuli Primary Teachers College.

The different factions were represented and Ali Senyonga and Prince Badru Kakungulu contested for the post of chairman of the general assembly. Senyonga won causing those who did not agree with the outcome to walk out of the election.

Sheikh Saad Luwemba was elected the Mufti but his election was challenged in court. As a result an interim leadership under Rajaab Kakooza was put in place as court proceedings went on.

The Nakasero group had a working relationship with Kakooza because he was well-educated in Islamic studies. They never liked Luwemba, and often said “tetuyinza kujawo mulwade netuleta muffu” loosely translated as (we cannot replace a sick person with a dead one).

The attack
The court battle went on from 1987 to 1991. The day the court was giving its verdict was the very day the youth from Nakasero planned to take over the supreme council offices. On Friday, March 22, the Muslim youth gathered at Nakasero mosque for the usual lectures that were being conducted by Jamil Mukulu.

He had been doing this for some time and managed to get a good number of youth to follow him. I was a cattle dealer at the city abattoir then.
After the morning lectures, the youth matched to the Aga Khan Mosque saying they had heard that court had decided in favour of Luwembe as the rightly elected Mufti of Uganda.

They were shouting; ‘we cannot believe this (Luwemba) omukubi we bitabo (fortune teller) a Shia, who believes in conducting Mawuledi, and last funeral rites’ all aspects that the Nakasero group was opposed to.

That’s when they decided to take over the place. As they marched to the Mosque then known as the Old Kampala Mosque they were chanting “Takbir, Allah Akbar” and at the mosque they declared a ‘Jihad’.
I used to go to Nakasero for prayers and I sympathised with them on religious grounds. The problem was that there were radicals such as Jamil Mukulu using terms such as giving PPF injections to whoever was not agreeing with them (PPF injections meant canes) and those they saw as defiant they would say their heads are ripe to be cut off.

As they went to attack the mosque they said they cannot have a dead person (Luwemba) replacing the sick (Kakooza).

Mukulu commanded the group to take over the supreme council offices. They had stocked piles of weapons in form of sticks, pangas, and others.
Although police was deployed they did not match the force of the Tabliqs.

They youth killed some of their dogs and a policeman. It was not until around midday that military police from Makindye Barracks moved in to restore calm.

The military police took over security of the places. Some of the radical youth were arrested and sent to Luzira prison.

Many of them had joined Mukulu not as militants but he had managed to convince them during his lectures at the Nakasero mosque that they were fighting for their religion because the current regime did not like them as Muslims.

After serving their term in Luzira prisons those who were released took their radicalism from religion to politics when they went to Biseruka in Hoima and started a rebellion before heading to the Rwenzori Mountains to form the Allied Democratic Force in 1995.

Genesis of Jamil Mukulu militant group

Jamil Mukulu and 400 others were arrested and sent to Luzira prison. Their leader Kamoga fled to Kenya.

Sheik Sulaiman Kaketo was elected as head of the Nakasero sect in 1992, at a time Mukulu and group were in detention.

In Luzira, Mukulu met Joseph Lusse and a one Tumushabe who later became to be known as “Benz”. They introduced him to the idea of turning his scheme into a political cause of turning Uganda into a Muslim state governed by Sharia law.

They allegedly offered to teach them some military skills like gun stripping and assembling. About 40 prisoners became the core of the militant group upon their release from the cells two years later.

When in 1994, Mukulu was released with his colleagues, they met up with Sheik Muzafar Mulinde, and it was as if they were starting from where they had ended as immediately, they started accusing Sheik Sulaiman Kaketo of incompetence and being a mole in Islamic faith.

The Nakasero group thereafter split into two factions – the SALAF Foundation headed by Jamilu Mukulu and TALAF headed by Sulaiman Kaketo.