Dr Alfred James Obita stands under the tree where he used to wait for his guests at his Chezz Joseph Club on Impala House in Kampala in the 1980s. Inset is LRA rebel leader, Joseph Kony. PHOTO/ DUSMAN OKEE/ FILE
On the third day, the LRA command had decided Dr Alfred James Obita should be executed. However, the execution was delayed by three more days. Khartoum senior officials had asked that it be delayed to allow them to witness the execution. Obita was kept in the dark about this verdict until the night of the intended execution. At 6am, a military parade was gathered and more than 1,000 LRA fighters assembled under a tree behind the top Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commanders and the Sudanese Generals. “I was led to the execution tree by the army, with the LRA Champlain, Rev Opuk, in the lead. He blessed me and said maybe God wanted to meet me early for some reason. As they put the hood on my head, I requested Kony to allow me be shot without a hood. He obliged as the priest left as the firing squad command of three shooters took position,” Obita recalls, his voice cracking with emotion.
Close shave
In dead silence, the commander ordered his men to load the weapons. As he raised the sticks a few seconds to the fire order, Kony rose up. In a loud hoarse voice, the LRA leader shouted: “Stop! stop! Untie this man immediately. The holy spirit has told me this man is innocent.” Obita sighed with relief. “[Kony] came to me and said, ‘Obita, you are a free man’ […] the Sudanese Generals banged tables and left in disbelief and disappointment.” The Sudanese Generals didn’t even bid Kony farewell. It was this very day that marked a shift in the relationship between LRA and Khartoum. Obita said he doesn’t know what became of him, but his heart had told him that Kony would not execute him.
It is this day that began the disintegration of LRA, especially with those who disagreed with Kony’s decision that day. Infuriated by this setup, the Khartoum government could not organise Obita’s flight back to London. Consequently, he spent several days languishing in Garamba Forest until Riek Machar embarked on the peace agreement again. With the ebbs and flows of the peace process until it was signed in the absence of Kony himself, albeit with his “blessings”, Sudan remained aloof. In fact, several times, Khartoum tried to sabotage it. After the signing, the relationship with Nairobi was improved upon which Obita, together with three LRA commanders, they relocated back to Uganda where they officially received and were given their amnesty certificate.
Returning to Uganda
Upon return to Uganda in 2007, Obita is said to have sold two plots of land he owned at Muyenga Tank Hill in Kampala that spanned nearly four acres. He also re-activated his company, Bit-Bit International, and started supplying the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) with foodstuffs during the 2011 business boom. This was when South Sudan gained independence. However, war broke out between Machar and the South Sudan government, where Ugandan traders lost their money and property. The man who had been entrusted to take care of Obita’s Muyenga land reportedly started selling it in bits. He allegedly claimed the land owner, Dr Obita, had been executed by Kony.
He claimed the “new” Dr Obita was an imposter During all his stay in exile, Uganda Commercial Bank, where Obita had saved his $2 million (Shs7b), had already been sold to Stanbic Bank. The new owners said back then that they did not have any record of Alfred James Obita. In 2007, Dr Obita missed a step at Garden City shopping mall in Kampala and fell. Initially, he had taken the incident lightly. However, two days after, while in Bweyale en route to Kitgum, he developed a headache. Upon reaching Gulu, he was put on treatment. His doctors were positive that their patient would turn the corner.
Back from the ‘dead’
A fortnight later, though, Obita was discovered to have developed a clot. This was after he had convulsed. While being rushed to Nsambya hospital in Kampala, on the way at Nakasongola, Obita completely lost consciousness.
The ambulance team, however, remained hopeful. And, as it approached the hospital gate, Obita got up, sat and demanded to know where he was. The way he got up made nurses panic and the driver almost lost control. The nine doctors who had already been arranged to receive him, saw a man walk by himself out of the ambulance.
Upon conducting a second scan, it was revealed that Obita was lucky to be alive. The clot was too big to have been contained. It became a case study. By 8pm, Obita’s health deteriorated too fast and the lead doctor decided that he would be operated at 6am after a night-long administering of a hot drip. The doctor excused himself to take a small nap in preparation for the 6am operation, but he unfortunately blacked out.
Cheating death, again
By 6.40am, Obita was pronounced dead by the doctor on duty. He was properly wrapped in the bed sheets and taken off the hospital bed. As they prepared to take him to the mortuary, something happened.
The discussion with the mortuary team had also begun. Back home in Kitgum, mourners gathered, and the family started preparing where the grave would be dug, plus engaging the grave diggers.
“I had a Kenyan friend called Grace Nyamungu, who was on her way to Kenya, but midway, the Holy Spirit told her to rush to Nsambya. Indeed, when she arrived, she found Obita “dead” while the doctor who was to perform the surgery but was delayed, was lamenting, ‘I am so sorry. It’s my fault,’” says Vicky Ogik, Obita’s daughter.
Nyamungu is said to have prayed for Obita. After a few minutes, the wrapped body, miraculously, started moving. This sent all the nurses and other patients running for dear life, recalls Ogik. The doctors immediately rushed Obita to the theatre upon, which he was operated. By evening, Obita was up, talking to doctors and cracking jokes. This attracted other doctors to come and study the doctor’s file.
Obita remembers doctors calling him totally strange. Because of the earlier developments, notwithstanding his stable condition, he was still admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU).
Power of prayer
Two days after, Obita started developing convulsions. He would feel some kind of boil in either his left or right leg or arm. He would feel as if his eyes and whole body would turn into that of an animal. However, doctors worked very hard until he became fine. He was later discharged. In 2008, six months after being discharged, Obita became paralysed and couldn’t walk. He was rushed to Mulago hospital in Kampala and was diagnosed with tuberculosis in an advanced stage.
He was put on a wheelchair and told this would most likely be his new normal life. While at Mulago, and one day, some White doctor missionary came, prayed with him and gave him a second wheel chair for interchanging back at home, as he was due for the discharge.
Two days before the discharge, Obita woke up from his hospital bed and began walking across the ward, to chants from other patients. Obita did not carry the wheel chairs home. He just walked home, straight into his company business.
Three years later, one day, as he left Tropical Bank, Obita developed stomach complications and was rushed to Rubaga hospital, where it was found that his intestines had intertwined. They needed an urgent operation, which later turned out a success. While recovering, he developed an urge to eat a pineapple.
A relative served him with one, only for his stomach to start swelling a day later. A hospital scan later revealed that a pineapple piece has stuck at the exact point where the doctors had dissected and joined. A second surgery was arranged, but not after telling Obita that it was gravely risky. Obita called his lawyers, revised his will in the presence of his daughter Ogik, who was urgently needed in Southern Sudan.
“I cried, hugged him,” Ogik remembers. Four days after the surgery, Obita once again walked out of the hospital to re-unite with his family. Today, Obita is a very jolly man. He walks by himself. His bitterness toward the government has dissipated. He is also still trying to recover his land at Muyenga.
