Gus: A commander who never was
Jul 20, 2006
Retired Major Augustine (Gus) Karugaba, who passed away at Mulago Hospital on July 1, 2006, was, as the saying goes, a jack of all trades.
By Jenkins Kiwanuka
Retired Major Augustine (Gus) Karugaba, who passed away at Mulago Hospital on July 1, 2006, was, as the saying goes, a jack of all trades.
Popularly known as Gus or Major, Karugaba trained with the Brothers of Christian Instruction at Kisubi; studied for priesthood at Kitabi Seminary; served as a fully commissioned officer with the King’s African Rifles (KAR) and the Uganda Army and studied law at Makerere University, becoming an advocate of the High Court of Uganda. Finally, he joined the Uganda Civil Service and retired at the rank of Permanent Secretary.
I first knew Gus in 1962 when he acted as ADC to the Duke of Kent who, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, handed over the Instruments of Power to the late Apollo Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda, at the country’s independence celebrations.
Incidentally, some people mistook Gus for the non-commissioned officer who hoisted the Uganda flag at the independence ceremony at Kololo.
“That was a big role too,†he humbly explained when I raised the subject, “but there is no way I could have played two roles at the same time and at the same ceremony.â€
The first Ugandan to train at Britain’s prestigious Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Gus survived almost all his fellow commissioned officers of equivalent academic standing who were recruited shortly before independence. Several of them were murdered during Idi Amin’s brutal regime.
At the time of Gus’s enlistment, Uganda was still a British protectorate and the KAR was led by British officers. With independence rapidly approaching, the colonial establishment needed indigenous officers to run the army after the British had left.
It follows, therefore, that if Uganda’s post-independence political leaders had not opted for their own tribesmen or soldiers from West Nile, Eastern and Northern Uganda to lead the army, Gus (a Mukiga) would have been the natural choice in assuming that leadership. In that sense, Karugaba could be described as the commander who was never to be.
How Gus survived Amin remains a mystery, because he told me of the various attempts that he and his compatriots made to get rid of the dictator and how he once sought refuge at a church in Masoli, off Gayaza Road, after Amin had learnt of their impending plot against him. To borrow Elly Kayanja’s expression, the other plotters were thereafter gradually ‘put out of action’.
Born in 1937 to the late Fabiano Batora and Maritina Buhaburwa of Rwampara in Ankole, now Mbarara District, Gus was laid to rest at Temangalo in Wakiso District on July 3.
Social sciences professor Tarsis Kabwegyere, a lifetime friend who eulogised him, thought Gus was a good man, and the rest of the congregation that packed Christ the King Church in Kampala appeared to agree. Even Gus’s photograph on the funeral programme was befittingly inscribed with the words: “A friend to allâ€.
He never served with the current army, but elements of the UPDF were at hand to extend him full military honours at his burial. We were told he assisted the liberation army after the capture of Kampala in 1986.
Once, when my Mercedes got a puncture near Fairway Hotel in Kampala, Gus, then a captain, came with another officer to my aid. They changed my tyre, but before I could thank them, they had sped away.
As fate would have it, I was one of the last people to talk to Gus before he died. Without knowing that he was sick, I had asked two people, including his son Phillip, about him that day. Then, at about 5:00 pm while I was looking for a sick relative at Mulago Hospital, I chanced upon Gus outside the Casualty Clinic.
I was told he had suffered a relapse of pneumonia and had been brought for re-admission. I opened the car door and called his name, but although he looked at me and talked incomprehensibly, he was in too much agony that I do not think he recognised me. He died shortly thereafter.
Sad as Gus’s passing has been, Phillip, the only son among four sisters, brought a happy ending to it when he told the congregation at the funeral service that he had always prayed to God to give him a brother.
He then lifted a pre-school boy and introduced him as the brother he had longed for, adding that God had been kind enough to answer his prayers before his father departed. May Gus’s Soul Rest in Peace.
Retired Major Augustine (Gus) Karugaba, who passed away at Mulago Hospital on July 1, 2006, was, as the saying goes, a jack of all trades.
Popularly known as Gus or Major, Karugaba trained with the Brothers of Christian Instruction at Kisubi; studied for priesthood at Kitabi Seminary; served as a fully commissioned officer with the King’s African Rifles (KAR) and the Uganda Army and studied law at Makerere University, becoming an advocate of the High Court of Uganda. Finally, he joined the Uganda Civil Service and retired at the rank of Permanent Secretary.
I first knew Gus in 1962 when he acted as ADC to the Duke of Kent who, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, handed over the Instruments of Power to the late Apollo Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda, at the country’s independence celebrations.
Incidentally, some people mistook Gus for the non-commissioned officer who hoisted the Uganda flag at the independence ceremony at Kololo.
“That was a big role too,†he humbly explained when I raised the subject, “but there is no way I could have played two roles at the same time and at the same ceremony.â€
The first Ugandan to train at Britain’s prestigious Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Gus survived almost all his fellow commissioned officers of equivalent academic standing who were recruited shortly before independence. Several of them were murdered during Idi Amin’s brutal regime.
At the time of Gus’s enlistment, Uganda was still a British protectorate and the KAR was led by British officers. With independence rapidly approaching, the colonial establishment needed indigenous officers to run the army after the British had left.
It follows, therefore, that if Uganda’s post-independence political leaders had not opted for their own tribesmen or soldiers from West Nile, Eastern and Northern Uganda to lead the army, Gus (a Mukiga) would have been the natural choice in assuming that leadership. In that sense, Karugaba could be described as the commander who was never to be.
How Gus survived Amin remains a mystery, because he told me of the various attempts that he and his compatriots made to get rid of the dictator and how he once sought refuge at a church in Masoli, off Gayaza Road, after Amin had learnt of their impending plot against him. To borrow Elly Kayanja’s expression, the other plotters were thereafter gradually ‘put out of action’.
Born in 1937 to the late Fabiano Batora and Maritina Buhaburwa of Rwampara in Ankole, now Mbarara District, Gus was laid to rest at Temangalo in Wakiso District on July 3.
Social sciences professor Tarsis Kabwegyere, a lifetime friend who eulogised him, thought Gus was a good man, and the rest of the congregation that packed Christ the King Church in Kampala appeared to agree. Even Gus’s photograph on the funeral programme was befittingly inscribed with the words: “A friend to allâ€.
He never served with the current army, but elements of the UPDF were at hand to extend him full military honours at his burial. We were told he assisted the liberation army after the capture of Kampala in 1986.
Once, when my Mercedes got a puncture near Fairway Hotel in Kampala, Gus, then a captain, came with another officer to my aid. They changed my tyre, but before I could thank them, they had sped away.
As fate would have it, I was one of the last people to talk to Gus before he died. Without knowing that he was sick, I had asked two people, including his son Phillip, about him that day. Then, at about 5:00 pm while I was looking for a sick relative at Mulago Hospital, I chanced upon Gus outside the Casualty Clinic.
I was told he had suffered a relapse of pneumonia and had been brought for re-admission. I opened the car door and called his name, but although he looked at me and talked incomprehensibly, he was in too much agony that I do not think he recognised me. He died shortly thereafter.
Sad as Gus’s passing has been, Phillip, the only son among four sisters, brought a happy ending to it when he told the congregation at the funeral service that he had always prayed to God to give him a brother.
He then lifted a pre-school boy and introduced him as the brother he had longed for, adding that God had been kind enough to answer his prayers before his father departed. May Gus’s Soul Rest in Peace.