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I have not thought much of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Liberation Day for a while, mainly because it is mostly just another day among Uganda’s crowded public holidays calendar, and who needs another public holiday in this matooke republic?

And really, the same stories have been told every year for the last almost 40 years. And the youth who might learn something from them are busy on TikTok ogling each other’s bodies.

But on Tuesday someone mentioned that a long weekend is coming, and another repeated that oft-repeated claim that the National Resistance Army (NRA) actually took over Kampala on January 25, but because they did not want it to be on the same day as Idi Amin’s ‘Liberation Day’, someone within the NRM circles changed it to January 26.

But I was in Kampala when that takeover happened, and I categorically told them that it was really the 26th. And then we started exchanging stories, and the memories all came roaring back.

The war had been going on for what seemed like forever, so we were kind of used to it. Of course, the insecurity was intense, but Makerere University campus was an oasis where we could forget the war existed. It was the only place one could hang out past dusk, so anyone who wanted to have a party would have to hold it on campus. So there were plenty of parties, and as Makerere kids, we had an open invitation to all of them.

And I think there was a tacit agreement between the warring parties that Makerere was off limits, except when it was time for guild elections to be held, when a whole battalion of Special Forces soldiers (remember them?) would camp at the main gate till the elections were over and the Uganda People’s Congress candidate had won.

It was only after the July 1985 coup, when the Okellos overthrew Obote, that things started to get dicey. Word soon got around that the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) was losing the war to the NRA, and so discipline among government soldiers started deteriorating.

The roadblocks around Wandegeya were manned largely by child soldiers, who looked frightened, and a few unfortunate people lost their lives as a result.

As the war got closer to Kampala, life outside Makerere became increasingly dangerous, and almost every day ‘refugees’ from Wandegeya and its environs would come to stay at our home (my dad was then the warden of Mitchell Hall).

And life more or less shut down outside Makerere, but to us young lads it was a lot of fun. Without much to do, we would go to the top of Mary Stuart Hall and watch whatever fighting we could see, especially around Lubigi. We would go for lunch, and then hurry back, not to miss the ‘movie’.

But then the bullets started hitting the walls behind us, and we could hear the bullets whizzing past. It is said if you can hear that bee-like sound of a passing bullet, it came within centimetres of hitting you.

By the morning of January 25, that was happening almost without stopping, so we decided it was much too dangerous, and we went back to our respective homes. By evening, the fighting had died down, so of course we came out to see what was happening. Had the army guys fled?

I remember going to check on my friend Daudi Mutazindwa, who lived in the Lumumba Hall flats. While outside his flat, we saw our first NRA soldiers, young lads peering at us from the bushes near the famous ‘Kilometre’. We gave them cigarettes and they left.

I went back home and told everyone that it seemed the army guys had fled, and the war was over. But people fleeing from Wandegeya told us that the Government had deployed soldiers from the former Uganda National Army, one of the militias made up of soldiers from West Nile. They had a fearsome reputation, and everyone was afraid of them. We were afraid they would defeat the NRA guys.

The next morning around 5:00am, the firing started again, and would go on for most of the morning. Around 10:00am, we saw UNLA soldiers running past Mitchell Hall, that was when we knew they were losing. They did not seem to care about the students gawking at them, and many dropped their guns and plenty of ammunition as they ran.

By midday, the NRA guys had arrived, and we all came out, knowing the six-year war was ending. But the artillery gun at Summit View was still in UNLA’s hands, and we could see the flashes when it was fired. When they started targeting Mitchell Hall, we ducked back inside.

But it soon stopped firing, and we knew it had been captured, and it really was over. That evening, at around 4:00pm, we took a walk around both campus and Wandegeya, to see what was up. Near the faculty of education, we saw the body of a UNLA soldier who had been wounded and had tried to crawl to safety. When he failed, he shot himself in the head. That was my first time to see human brains.

That soldier’s body would remain there for another two days, although by the first morning, the gun had disappeared. We had no idea who took it, or the other guns dropped around Mitchell.

That night, January 26, 1986, we heard the voice of Yoweri Museveni for the first time. I think he was addressing members of the diplomatic corps, and he apologised for his attendants, who were ‘bush boys’ and did not know how to treat diplomats.

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