AUDIO: I helped Amin sign at swearing-in
Edward Ochwo (Left) shows Idi Amin where to sign in the book after the latter swore in as president in 1971. Inset is Ochwo, today.
At the time of Amin’s take over, I was the clerk to the National Assembly or Parliament, and also in charge of Kampala Club.
Thus, I was in charge of the VIP lounge at Entebbe airport on the day Milton Obote left for Singapore.
Normally, all heads of security agencies and ministers see off the president at the airport when he is going on a foreign trip. I had noticed that Amin and other senior army officers were missing.
As soon as Obote’s plane was airborne, Amin arrived at the head of a convoy of four military jeeps with an APC at the end. I was standing at the VIP lounge entrance seeing the ministers off.
Amin takes charge
He parked at a short distance from the entrance and sent for me. He knew me personally; from 1963 when I was the assistant District Commissioner of Jinja. When I got to his jeep he instructed me to tell the ministers to go back to the VIP lounge, 20 minutes later, he sent for me again, and asked whether the ministers had assembled in the lounge.
I waited for him at the door, and as he entered he asked where the president had been sitting. I pointed where Obote’s seat was and told him once the president leaves we take away the chair.
He ordered for the chair to be brought back, and sat in it as he addressed the ministers. He asked all of them to give account of their ministry’s activities.
The meeting which started soon after 7pm went on past 11pm in the night.
As I went to work the next day, I noticed there were soldiers at every corner though not armed. Around 6am the next day, one of our drivers Sebi Kelili, a Nubian in the speaker’s office rang me to say: “My Lord, Amin has taken over government, but for you, you don’t have to fear anything. Stay in your house don’t move.”
The night was quiet until around 5am when gunfire was heard almost all over the city. This went on up to around 3pm when a big blast went off and the guns went silent. Soon after, the coup was announced on Radio Uganda and all civil servants were ordered to report to work the next day.
Following the orders, I left my home in Nakasero where the present day UNRA offices are which was the official residence of the clerk to the National Assembly. I could not drive, I walked to Parliament. At Parliament there were soldiers almost in every space. As I settled in my office some soldiers came and asked me to show them around.
I took them around all the offices except the one above the Sergeant at Arms’. This was Obote’s private office and it was his bodyguards who kept the keys. In there he kept his private things such as spare clothes, books and a radio set. He also followed parliamentary proceedings from there. I told the soldiers it was the president’s bodyguard with the key.
Saved by the bell
They said “we onacheza tutapiga we lisasi tu (you are playing we shall shoot you) bring the key now”.
The situation was saved with the arrival of Lt Ocima who I had gone to college with. He told the soldiers around me to behave “this is our man” with that I breathed a sigh of relief.
They broke into the office and ransacked it, taking whatever was there. There were two suits, a pair of cufflinks, a radio set, and other personal effects. That evening, the permanent secretary in the office of the president and head of civil service Justus Byagagaire rung me to say that I should prepare Kololo Airstrip for the swearing in ceremony, the following day.
Amin arrived at Kololo in style; he was standing alone in an open roof Cadillac. After taking the oath, he had trouble locating where he had to sign in a book. He didn’t know how to read or where to put his signature. I had to show him and explain what to write on the dotted line.
Two days after the swearing in, Lt Ocima called me and said the military head of state (he was not being referred to as president at that time) wanted me to hand over Kampala Club to the army.
A day after handing over the club to the army, Amin personally called me to his office at Parliament and told me to take charge of the Nile Conference Centre and the Nile Hotel. By then, they were being called the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) centre. I was to report direct to him.
Taking a new role
With that appointment, I became the officer in charge of the centre at the same time retaining my title of clerk to the National Assembly because the decree dissolving the National Assembly did not abolish my office.
The vote for running the centre came to the office of the clerk to the National Assembly.
I was the clerk to the nonexistence National Assembly and director of the conference centre. As a result, it was me to usher Amin into the conference centre whenever there was a function. To the extent that in 1974 when King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was coming, while I was in France to publicise our conference facilities at the annual conference of an association called International Congress and Conventions Association in Paris, message came that I was needed home immediately.
The status quo remained that way until 1978 when the Tanzanian war started. Two days after Tanzanian shells fell in Kampala Amin left the city. That was about five days before Kampala fell to the Tanzanians. Amin left five days before Kampala fell. It’s not true that he left on April 10 from Luzira. Those areas had already been infiltrated by that time.
Amin parting moments
The day Amin left Kampala, he drove into the Nile Mansions complex from the direction of Kololo. I was there to receive him.
He arrived at around 10am in a convoy of about six jeeps with him in the lead car. He was dressed in his full Field Marshal uniform.
We shook hands and he said he was “going on safari to Karamoja for one week” he directed me and the manager of the hotel, Mbuga Kaggwa to keep the place in top form because upon his return from the safari, there was going to be an international conference, “nobody should be allowed to use the facility,” he directed us as he got back into his jeep.
He drove off towards the direction of Jinja Road.
That very afternoon, he made a statement on Radio Uganda castigating Tanzania president Julius Nyerere and assuring all Ugandans that all Tanzanian soldiers who had invaded Uganda were going to be destroyed. He said he was not running away he was coming back to finish off the Tanzanians. Unfortunately, he never returned.
