Former minister Wakholi is arrested at Mutukula border

Former minister Joshua Wakholi was in September 1972 arrested by the Uganda Army officers from the frontline in Rakai near the Mutukula border with Tanzania. He was taken prisoner of war and was never seen again.

Until 1971 when Idi Amin became president, Wakholi, 46, was the Bugisu South-West constituency Member of Parliament and minister of Public Service in the government led by President Milton Obote.
On January 25, 1971, soldiers at the Malire Barracks in Lubiri near Mengo, Kampala, mutinied and toppled Obote and made Amin president.

The mutinying soldiers ousted Obote after hundreds of officers from Lango sub-region in northern Uganda where Obote came from had been slaughtered at Malire Barracks by soldiers from West Nile sub-region where Amin came from.
After the coup, several of Obote’s former ministers fled Uganda and joined Obote in exile in Tanzania and plotted a return to power.

Before Wakholi escaped to Tanzania, he had been arrested on March 2, 1971, from his home in Mbale District on president Amin’s orders and detained at the Makindye military prison where he stayed for two-and-half months before being pardoned by Amin.
After being set free, Wakholi returned to his home in Mbale and a year later, in March 1972, he escaped to Tanzania through Kenya.

Intelligence before invasion
On September 16, 1972, then little known Uganda People’s Liberation Front (UPLF), fighting to reinstate former president Obote, invaded Uganda from Tanzania.

Whereas Amin’s detractors belittled him and his army, they dreaded and respected his intelligence agencies. As a matter of fact, Amin’s spies had infiltrated the Tanzanian government and got intelligence of the pending attack by the rebels from Tanzania.

One of the UPLF rebel contacts in Kampala was Mr Leonard Kigonya, then commissioner of the Uganda Prisons.
A week before the invasion, Amin had Kigonya arrested and after retired in public interest. On the day Amin relieved Kigonya of his duties, the president told journalists at his command post Kololo in Kampala that he had decided not have Kigonya tried in the military tribunal and executed by firing squad because of Kigonya’s good past record.

Amin told journalists that Kigonya had been giving intelligence to rebels who were plotting to attack Luzira prison, but did not tell the government.
Instead, he was boasting that the Uganda government had few days in power. While Kigonya was retired in public interest, months later, he did survive Amin and his henchmen.

Tanzanians who knew of the plot to invade were then president Julius Nyerere, prime minister Rashid Kawawa, Defence minister Edward Sokoine and director of national service and later director of intelligence Lawrence Gama, who was also Nyerere’s brother-In-law.

From intelligence archives first made public in the Voice of Uganda newspaper of November 7, 1972, Mr Gama coordinated the planned attack with the rebels.

Wakholi disappears
UPLF commanders made errors and as a result, hundreds of their fighters were either killed or captured, including Alex Ojera, the former Obote regime minister of Information, Broadcasting and Tourism.
Wakholi was in the group that attacked Uganda from Mutukula and advanced as far as Kalisizo in Rakai District.

After being captured, Wakholi’s hands were tied behind his back and he was bundled onto a jeep that then sped off  to Kampala. It is not clear if Wakholi ever arrived in Kampala.
Unlike Ojera who was brought before Amin bare-chest and with no shoes, Wakholi was never seen again.

But Wakholi’s statement recorded during interrogation was published in the newspapers on September 23, 1972.
The document gave account of events that occurred in and around the Uganda/Tanzania border less than 72 hours before the rebels attacked:

“Our convoy started from the Kaboyo National Service Camp at 10pm. We were already three hours late so we didn’t expect to get to our targets on time. The total convoy was about 1,200 soldiers in all. We were divided into five groups.

“Group one was commanded by former Captain Oyira. This group was to attack Mbarara Barracks. Group two led by former Captain Orach had a company which was to attack Masaka Barracks. Group three had a company under the command of Captain Bazilio Olara Okello which was to attack the Malire garrison at Lubiri in Kampala.

“Group four had one company commanded by former Captain Ogwang. This was to attack Mbuya Military Barracks, also in Kampala. Group five was the artillery regiment for support. It was commanded by the former Lt Col Langoya, but its members were distributed among other companies.

“Colonel Tito [Okello Lutwa] was in the general command and [Lt Col] Oyite-Ojok was second in command. Captain Nyeko was the third in command,” Wakholi’s statement read. A company in the British military formation has about 210 soldiers.
A statement also mentions Wakholi making a plea to president Amin.

“I would like to appeal to the president of Uganda to forget his quarrels with his brother Nyerere and try to solve the problems. The General should call on his religious feelings and forgive every one of us who were involved in this atrocity.

“Before it is too late, His Excellency should contact other sister countries of independent Africa to use their good offices to solve this Uganda-Tanzania problems. In closing my statement, I would like to appeal to the personal and religious feelings of His Excellency the president to have mercy upon my poor soul that made the greatest crime against my country. I will be very grateful to him if he would spare my life for the sake of my people. I was a complete fool in joining Obote blindly without thinking about my family.”

What happened to Wakholi?
Wakholi was reportedly injured during the fight. On September 24, 1972, while receiving the Libyan troops in Uganda at Entebbe airport, president Amin said one of the former ministers in Obote’s government had been injured and captured during the fight at Mutukula border area.
 
The Uganda Argus of September 25, 1972, quoted Amin as having said while addressing the Libyan troops that: “…fighting is still going on. And this afternoon, at Mutukula, Mr Wakholi a former minister of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs in the former Obote regime was captured alive and was seriously wounded and is being brought to Kampala but it is not known if he can reach Kampala.”

When Sunday Monitor asked some of the former Uganda Army soldiers who fought UPLF rebels in Rakai and Kyotera about Wakholi, not one could recall anything about him, although all of them recalled the arrest of Ojera.
It was Maj Nusur Ezaga from Yumbe District who handed over Ojera to Amin, according to photo evidence.