Rukikaire’s school days and the road to exile under Obote

What you need to know:

  • Part I. Matthew Rukikaire belongs to a generation of Ugandans old enough to have lived through the colonial era, woken up to the dawn of independence, then survived the turbulent years that followed. For more than 70 years he has witnessed and participated in the making of Uganda. Below is part 1 of the excerpts of his book 70 Years A Witness.

“I was born on October 14, 1938, at Rugarama, Kabale, the second-born son of Erinesti Nyabagabo and Enid Kagore, the first being Samuel Baingana. My mother died when I was barely three years old and I have absolutely no memories of her; she died shortly after giving birth to my sister Robina.
My earliest memories are of me residing in a girls’ boarding school (Hornby High School) at Rugarama, Kabale. I lived with my aunt, Merabu Nyinenzangye, who was a school mistress and an assistant to Miss Constance Hornby, the Irish missionary headmistress. I was placed under the loving care of Merabu when my mother died, and had the dubious distinction of being the only boy in an exclusively girls’ school. I lived in Merabu’s private room and did not attend regular classes as I was under-age. I must have stayed at Hornby High School for about two years.

When I reached four years, Hornby decreed that my age disqualified me from living in and attending an exclusively girls’ school and I was, once again, transplanted from the loving parental care of Aunt Merabu and placed under the care of my uncle, William Biteyi, my father’s elder brother, who was working in Kabale as a sub-county chief. I was registered to attend Primary One in the Lower School of Kigezi High School and soon became a boarder in the children’s dormitory called Bishops’.

In Bishops’, and later in the big boys’ dormitories into which I graduated, among the striking things I remember were the sound of a bugle at 5.30am as a wake-up call, as well as the biting morning cold, which we had to brave every morning to do garden work. At the beginning of every term, the entire school had to go through the ritual of killing the bed bugs that infested the holes through which the sisal strings forming the base of the bed passed.
But even after the ritual of disinfecting the beds, the first night or two were unbearable as the remnants of the bugs feasted on us, before we finally won the battle against them. I spent six years at Kigezi High School, interrupted by a two-year spell at Seseme Primary School, Kisoro where I attended Primary 3 and 4, and another two years at Nyakatare Primary School. I returned to Kigezi High School for Primary 6. These interruptions were most unsettling for me but unavoidable.

My father, a clergyman, was very poorly remunerated and found it difficult to keep me in boarding school. It might have been tolerable if I had stayed at one school, even as a day student, but both my father and Uncle Biteyi lived a nomad-like existence and I followed them around. As a result, my schoolwork suffered and I failed my Primary 6 leaving exams. Even at that tender age, the news of my failure came as a shock and I could not be consoled by the fact that it had largely not been my fault. Yet my father and my uncle were committed to our education, and arrangements were made to transfer me to Nyakatare, Kanungu, where my uncle, William Biteyi, had been transferred on promotion as a county chief. I repeated Primary Six, passed, and re- joined Kigezi High School for my secondary school, before joining Ntare School.

Going to Ntare opened up new horizons for me. Ntare School was a new school and we were the pioneers, consisting of only two classes – graduates of Junior 3 and of Junior 2. A new school system had been introduced in Uganda and Junior 3 had been abolished, as a result of which those in Junior 3, me included, had skipped Senior 1 and gone to Senior 2, while those from Junior 2 had then started Senior 1 to kick-start the new system.

My second childhood passion was sports, especially athletics. I focused on high jump, long jump and added cricket, which was a new sport to me. I was a member of Ntare School’s first cricket team; before the end of the first year, we were already traversing Uganda to play cricket with other schools such as King’s College Budo, Mwiri, Sir Samuel Baker, and Nyakasura School, putting up commendable shows and sometimes even winning. It was during one of these cricket visits that I first met Major Katabarwa Rutaasyangabo at Nyakasura, and played cricket with him. About 15 years later, Katabarwa would become my brother-in-law when I married his sister, Sheba.

The two years I spent at Ntare marked my transition from childhood to young adulthood. I underwent a transformation in intellect and knowledge, and also in physical strength. Academically, I performed better in exams than I had expected, obtaining a first grade and gaining admission to King’s College Budo for my “A” Level. The role of head prefect at Ntare coupled with my passion for sports were distractions to my academic work and, with the benefit of hindsight, I might have had even better results had I been free to concentrate on preparing for exams in my final year.

At the new school assembly, it was announced that I would be the new head prefect. I stood up for recognition and heads turned – everybody was surprised. I was the first non-Muganda head prefect. Some years earlier, Wako Muloki, who later became the Kyabazinga of Busoga, had been head prefect at Budo, but because of the proximity between Basoga and Baganda, Muloki was always excluded from the non-Baganda head prefects; I have, therefore, always been regarded as the first non-Muganda to break the barrier. By the end of 1960, I was set to embark on the final stretch of my education, a university degree at Makerere University College. I looked forward to it. I was also beginning to feel that by keeping out of politics, I was shunning my responsibility. The focus of my impatience was no longer the colonial power, but our new leaders, for dividing the people even before we got independence. They were not a credible alternative to British rule.

At the end of my first year, 1961-62, I began to actively engage in guild politics and to consider running for Guild President. This was a long shot because, for nearly a decade, no Ugandan had been elected to the position. It had always been Kenya, Tanganyika or Zanzibar. The Ugandan students interested in guild politics had agreed to promote a Ugandan candidate this time around.

By the time of polling, only four candidates remained in the race: Ben Ole Kantai from Kenya, who was affiliated to the Kenya African Democratic Union, polled 136 votes, Hatim Amiji from Zanzibar polled 114 votes, one Kaduma from Tanganyika, polled 72 votes, while I polled 291 votes, about 47 per cent, and was declared duly elected.
When I finished university, I took up a job as a government economist with the Planning Commission, based in Entebbe. My elder brother Sam was already working as a civil servant, also based in Entebbe. For the period I worked in government, I lived with him. I soon bought a second-hand car, an Austin Minor, from a British expatriate friend, Brian Van Arcade, for about Shs4,000. I had already learnt how to drive and had a driving permit. I was, therefore, able to get around easily, and with my monthly salary of about Shs1,200, I was comfortable.

1966 and the road to exile
The UPC party, where I was national organising secretary, and government were both transformed into different organisations overnight. The President, Sir Edward Muteesa, had been overthrown and forced to flee into exile, ministers and some army officers had been arrested, the Constitution had been suspended and a de-facto state of emergency was brought into force.

The work of the UPC Secretariat came to an end. The secretary-general, Grace Ibingira, and four other ministers (Dr Lumu, Magezi, Balaki Kirya, Mathias Ngobi), all key members of the UPC Central Executive, had been arrested.
Thus my brief adventure into politics at an early age – I was under 28 years of age – came to an abrupt and premature end. I vacated my residence at No. 10 Upper Kololo Terrace, Kampala, handed over my official car, a Peugeot, to an Indian by the name of Shafique Arain, a loyal protégé and financier of Obote, and disappeared from public view, both for security reasons and also to consider options for my next move.

I was aware of my other responsibilities concerning the people who had been arrested by Obote and their many followers who now considered me to be one of their main contacts and who were scattered around the country like sheep without a shepherd.
I paid a visit to my old teacher, Basil Bataringaya. He had been one of the DP MPs, who crossed over to UPC, and had been rewarded by Obote by being appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. I needed to hear what he had to say about the arrest of his Cabinet colleagues. Although I had been told of his shock and concern at their arrest, when I met him, he was full of condemnation for the arrested ministers, accusing them of treason.
I travelled to Busoga to see Sir William Nadiope who, up to the time of the crisis, was the Vice President of Uganda. He was in a state of shock and appeared to be fearful of what might happen to him. He could not do much and it was clear to me that it would be best to leave him alone.

Then I had my immediate family, especially my older brother Baingana, who was recently married to Muriel, a sister of Ibingira, one of the detained ministers. Then there was my girl-friend, Sheba, another sister of Ibingira, later to become my wife, who was at that time a student-teacher at Gayaza High School, having finished her A-Level exams, and preparing to go to Cambridge University, UK, for her degree course. I remember how, knowing my predicament, she contributed some money out of her meagre resources to help me flee the country.
With all these considerations, I had to plan my next move with caution, not just for my sake, but for the sake of all these people. Confronting Obote head-on was not an option. Given the ruthlessness he had recently applied during the crisis, one needed a cool re-assessment of the political situation, to re-organise. It was a blessing that I was not behind bars myself, since many more had been rounded up and Obote’s dragnet was widening.

I responded to a job advertisement for a public relations officer of the East African Development Bank but was not successful, although I was informally told I had been the best candidate. Later I was interviewed for one of the assistant secretary posts in the East African Community in Nairobi; this time I was successful. I lost no time in moving to Nairobi. I was immediately deployed as Secretary for The East African Industrial Board.

Going the family way
When I left Uganda in 1966 with only a small bag of essentials, I could never have guessed that I would return to East Africa with a wife, Sheba, and our baby daughter, Eva-Marie. Neither could I have known how much both would warm my heart and restore my spirit, because now there was so much more to live for than just politics and work.
Sheba was the daughter of Alfred Katebarirwe, of the royal Bahinda clan of Ankole, and Evangeline Kaizirekwera; she was the younger sister of Grace Ibingira and Maj Katabarwa Rutaasyangabo. Both her parents were deceased by the time I got to know her. Although I got to know Sheba first, my older brother Sam Baingana and her older sister Muriel were married before us, in 1964.

Prior to finishing her A-level, Sheba had applied for admission to Cambridge University and sat for a special admission exam, passed it and had been admitted to Girton College, Cambridge, to read English Literature on a full Uganda government scholarship. So by the time her A-Level exam results were out, she already knew she was going to Cambridge.
It appeared, therefore, that we were going to be separated for at least three years, or longer, if she chose to continue with further studies after her first degree.

Happy times. Rukikaire and Sheba walk down the aisle in Brussels, Belgium, on June 29, 1968. COURTESY PHOTO

The wedding
However, when I unexpectedly landed a good job in Brussels so close to the UK, and became financially stable, we started to believe that a change of plan was possible for us. Therefore, in Sheba’s summer vacation, after two years at Cambridge, we got married on June 29, 1968.
As was required under Belgian law, we first had the civil ceremony performed by a town official in Tervuren where I was registered as a resident, then we solemnised our holy matrimony at an Anglican Church in Brussels.

My sister Robina, then a student in London, flew over to be Sheba’s lady of honour, and Prince Patrick Ruhinda, Sheba’s cousin who had just finished at Cambridge, also flew over and walked her to the altar. My friend Ngethe Njoroge, then Deputy Ambassador in Bonn, was my best man. A group of East African Community officials flew over from Nairobi on complementary air tickets; they included Ezra Kyomukama, Stephen Nagenda, Joy Masozera, and Vicky Kakoko.

We hosted our guests to a small reception at a downtown hotel, among them colleagues and friends from the EEC, including Mr Schiffler, the head of the East Africa Desk.
We took a trip to Paris for a one-week honeymoon, after which Sheba had to return to Cambridge for the final year of her degree course. She then settled in Brussels with me.
Two years after our marriage, Sheba gave birth to our first child, Eva-Marie, at the Edith Cavell Clinic in Brussels. Shortly after, we headed for Arusha, the headquarters of the East African Community, on transfer.


In Part II, Rukikaire meets Museveni while in exile, then returns to Uganda after Idi Amin overthrows the Obote government.