Mr Nicholas Sengoba
On a rainy morning, 45 years ago, Lt Col David Oyite Ojok went on Uganda’s only radio station; Radio Uganda and eloquently made a statement.
“Fellow countrymen, I am Lt Col David Oyite Ojok. I bring you good news. On behalf of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF,) we have today Wednesday, 11th April, 1979, captured the Ugandan capital of Kampala, from today the racist, fascist, and illegal regime of dictator Idi Amin is no longer in power.”
Field Marshal Idi Amin had received his comeuppance after being in power for eight years. Literary the same people who, on the January 25, 1971, flooded the streets to welcome Idi Amin, after he overthrew Apollo Milton Obote; came out in large numbers and looted the city bare, in a show of ‘good riddance.’
Amin was no stranger to Milton Obote. As his Army Commander he had been what Prof Ali Mazrui called ‘the president’s walking stick,’ when defining the position of the military in the state. On May 24, 1966, Idi Amin on the orders of then Prime Minister Obote, led the storming of the Lubiri (Palace) in Mengo and exiled the first President of Uganda and King of Buganda, Sir Edward Muteesa II.
In 1978-79 the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, lent his ‘walking stick’; the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces (TPDF) to Ugandan exiles who made up the UNLF and scattered Amin and his henchmen.
The subsequent and short-lived, chaotic regimes of Prof Yusuf Kironde Lule, (April 13,1979 – June 20, 1979) and Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa (June 20, 1979 – May 12, 1980) were propped up and guided on a short leash by the UNLA.
The mask fell off the face when the Military Commission headed by the late Paulo Muwanga and deputised by Yoweri Museveni, took over. Muwanga allegedly used his influence in the military to superintend the election that brought Milton Obote to power for his second helping. It is that election that led Yoweri Museveni to militarily contest what he termed ‘a rigged election’ in the jungles of Luweero for 5 years - and not legally in the courts of law.
Meanwhile Obote during this time also relied heavily on the military, leaning on shoulders of the likes of Maj Gen David Oyite Ojok. He famously taunted the leader of the opposition; Democratic Party President, the late Paul Ssemogerere, by asking him to show the world ‘his’ generals.
Those generals who included Gen Tito Okello Lutwa and Lt Gen Bazillio Okello eventually took the walking stick away on July 27, 1985. Obote died in exile where on his return to Uganda in 1980, he had vowed never to go back.
The Okellos also went away like they came, by the barrel of the gun when the NRM guerrillas of Yoweri Museveni took over on January 26, 1986 -to date.
Amin’s legacy was as large as he was. The most important point that he brought to the body politic of Uganda is the importance of the president ‘owning’ the army and being all over the place like a bad rash.
Amin created the notion that the military and soldiering are the ‘paramount’ profession. You are nothing if you are not a soldier or don’t prominently have them in your camp. He who holds the army is much better off than the one who has the votes of the masses. They can lean on the army for stability or use it to strike at anyone in their way.
Secondly to secure the army with confidence, one has to fashion it around themselves, their interests, and whims. Amin padded his army with his tribe mates the Kakwa, or other related and favoured nationalities like the Nubians; most of whom were semi-literate. They held most command-and-control positions. The same applied to administrative positions and corporate jobs.
The army was privileged with overreaching powers that helped them cow Ugandans. They could grab whatever they wanted, from cars, property, and land to women, and get away with it. They acquired economic resources most Ugandans only dreamt about in the times of the scarcity, caused by the economic embargo on the country.
In this way, they controlled who would have basic privileges like salt and sugar and have access to scarce foreign exchange. People learnt that to survive in Uganda you, had to either be nice and friendly to ‘Amin’s people,’ work quietly with or under them and never criticize them. So, no one could confidently identify the weaknesses therein for correction and improvement they simply cheered it on. That is how regimes and institutions start decaying.
In fact, you did well as a sycophant. Some went as far as converting to Islam. They took on names like Moses, or Isaac, which are also used by Christians -just in case they needed to revert. The army owed their allegiance to him. They had to protect ‘their thing’ from aggressors who included the rest of Ugandans. They became the state and the state was them.
It was ‘Amin’s people’ against the rest of the world. If you criticised them you were accused of working against the country for imperialist, Zionist and foreign interests. If it meant killing, they did so and that explains some of the murders and disappearances of the 70s.
Some say that other killings were acts of sabotage intended to stir up the people against the regime. In other words, the people no longer felt ownership in the country and worked to weaken it further. Such a country cannot genuinely endure and be viable in the true sense of the word.
If one looks at Uganda 45 years after Amin, they may hold valid debates about many things. These include the composition of the army, police, prisons, and intelligence services. They may focus on their influence, powers and privileges in politics plus their contribution to the perpetuation of the regime in power.
Also, the makeup of the administration of the State and corporate jobs. How this has affected the proper functioning of the state plus service delivery to the country as opposed to enriching and empowering individuals while weakening others.
Then how most presumably influential people have been rendered powerless and resorted to playing it safe by second-guessing the President and ‘his people’. Noticeable is the way they come out to say and do what they think is his bidding, even if it may not be deemed to be rational.
The scariest of them all is how it creates a dishonest two-faced society. One that by day praises and seems to support the regime - out of fear. Yet deep down, in the night and in inboxes, many boil with anger and frustration because they feel the state and country are against them and serve a small clique.
This is like the group which in 1979 danced and looted as Amin and ‘his people’ beat a hasty retreat. The far-reaching repercussions of the army rearing its often-ugly head into politics is a lesson that Uganda does not seem to have learnt or have forgotten 45 years after Amin fell.
X : @nsengoba
