How Oyite-Ojok escaped death after 1971 coup

Oyite-Ojok steals a gun from a sleeping soldier as he sneaks out of the Parliament building. ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANNY BARONGO

The January 25, 1971 coup which toppled Uganda’s second president, Milton Obote, left Maj David Oyite-Ojok trapped inside the Parliament building for two days.
The then 29-year-old Major and two other officers – Lt Col Tito Okello Lutwa and Inspector General of Police (IGP) Erinayo Oryema – were on the evening of January 24, inside the IGP’s office on the Second Floor of the Parliament building commanding the arrest of army commander, Maj Gen Idi Amin, from his residence in Kololo, an upscale city suburb.
The plan was to call all senior army officers from West Nile to the Senior Officers Mess at Basiima House near Lubiri Barracks and lock them inside. This was intended to deny Amin any support during his arrest. The plan backfired when the soldiers from West Nile overpowered Lt Col Okwang and his forces, who were tasked to ensure the officers converge, and killed them.
Lt Col Okwanga had been ordered by Lt Col Tito Okello, Maj Oyite-Ojok and Mr Oryema to execute the mission.

When Okwanga was captured and tortured, he revealed that the two commanders had ordered him to lock up all senior officers from West Nile; and that the two were in the IGP’s office at Parliament. The soldiers, who inadvertently, in their own words, started the coup in an attempt to rescue Amin, told this reporter last year in West Nile that Lt Col Okwanga died of torture wounds at Mulago hospital where he had been taken having confessed and asked for mercy.

Capture or kill Oyite-Ojok
Now Maj Oyite-Ojok and Lt Col Tito Okello were wanted dead or alive – though not on orders of Amin since at the time, he was not aware of the attempt to arrest him. From Lubiri barracks, enraged soldiers, with information that the two were inside the IGP’s office, went for their heads at the Parliament building. For two days, Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello remained hidden inside the Parliament building.
Meanwhile, when it became apparent that the arrest of Amin had aborted, Oryema, it is said, locked Maj Oyite-Ojok and Lt Col Tito Okello in his office and went out to assess the situation and also plan their escape from death.
Indeed, on the morning of January 25, jubilant Amin with Oryema appeared together with soldiers at Radio Uganda.

A week earlier, before Obote left for the Commonwealth conference in Singapore, he had left an order to arrest Amin. The mission was to be led by minister for Internal Affairs, Basil Bataringanya, who wanted to use police. The army was known to be divided along the West Nile and Acholi-Langi tribal lines and so Obote feared its effect. Amin came from West Nile, while Obote came from Lango sub-region in northern Uganda.

Kyemba’s side of the story
Henry Kyemba was the principle private secretary to president Obote. He was in Singapore with Obote when the coup happened. When he returned to Uganda in early February, 1971, Amin retained him as his principle private secretary. Last week at his home in Jinja Town, this reporter asked him if he ever recalled that Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello were trapped in the Parliament building on the day of the coup, he answered: “I heard so when I returned; I think a week or so after the coup had happened. I remember Oyite-Ojok’s car was still in the parking yard of Parliament”.
Asked what make it was, he responded: “I don’t remember the make, but what I remember is that it was riddled with bullets. And it stayed there for a long time before it was removed”.

Having suffered the bitter life of exile, Oyite-Ojok who would rise to the rank of Major General, told the Uganda Times that, “…my conviction is that no Ugandan should ever go to exile again. All Ugandans must stay in Uganda and nobody should be a threat to other Ugandans. Yes, never again should anybody create conditions which drive other Ugandans into exile.”
He died in December 1983 in a military helicopter crash in Luweero, fighting the National Resistance Army rebels led by President Museveni.

From the Horse’s mouth

Oyite-Ojok narrates own story. Maj Oyite-Ojok, who, together with Lt Col Tito Okello, had somehow escaped from the Parliament building and joined Obote in exile in Tanzania, returned in 1979 after the fall of Amin’s regime. In the newly-established army, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), Oyite-Ojok was made Lt Col and appointed Chief-of-Staff.
On November 25, 1979, he spoke to the Uganda Times newspaper about the events on the eve of the coup and his ordeal.

He said: “I was against the coup even before it took place and I am still against it today”. Speaking on how he attempted to avert it, he said: “On January 24, in the evening, I was with two other colleagues in the office of the Inspector General of Police [at the Parliament building] trying to stop it [coup] when the soldiers stormed the Parliament looking for us”.
Unaware of which room he was hiding, he said while inside the IGP’s office, he heard soldiers calling his name and in fact several times reached the door but went back without touching it.
He spent the whole day of January 25, inside the IGP’s office.

At around 2am on January 26, 1971, he quietly opened the door and sneaked out. He had just walked a short distance when he saw a soldier but he was dead asleep. He picked the gun of the sleeping soldier and went away with it out of the Parliament building.
The Parliament premises were not fenced as is today.

So from the IGP’s office, he walked south, crossed Jinja Road and went towards the railway station, where he met three soldiers and awake. But a miracle happened. Although they recognised him, they did not kill him in spite of being under strict orders to kill him on sight. They instead let him go. From there, he walked to his friend’s home in Kololo, where he stayed for a while as plans were being made for him to escape to Tanzania.

Although he does not mention, the friend’s name, it is believed to be Henry Maitum, who with others, helped him escape from Kampala to Mbarara Town in south-western Uganda. From Kampala to Mbarara, he travelled during the day on a truck. Luckily, the security only got intelligence that he was in Mbarara when he had crossed into Tanzania. As usual, the owner of the lodge and workers where he spent the night were roughed up, although they did not know whom they had hosted.
Although Oyite-Ojok’s story indicates that he escaped alone from the Parliament building and without anybody assisting him, others say Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello were helped by Oryema to move from the Parliament building and that he gave them protection until they both left Uganda.