The hero of Adjumani

By Harry Sagara in Adjumani A plush compound prostrates in front of me as this double-storied stone house gazes at me, probably wondering what mischief I am up to. This is in Abirichaku (where hunger does not reach) village in Adjumani. On the far side, clusters of small children are running about, engaged in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. An old trailer is parked somewhere and it is busy admiring a Massey Ferguson tractor slotted just beside it. A number of old women ensconced on a mat are busy cracking up in a language I hardly understand. My eyes then stray away and at a distance I watch as a giant gate is thrown open and a silver Landcruiser, number: UG0028G majestically pulls in with Military police personnel fast on its trail. It veers in at great speed before coming to a screeching halt and, suddenly, a policeman jumps out of the front seat and opens one of the back doors. A giant of a man draped in a cream Kaunda suit emerges. He has the gait of a Sumo wrestler. He paces with a spring in his step. The shades on his face give him the appearance of some black Italian of the Mafioso ilk. His handshake is so firm that it would crush a three-year old to death! Suddenly, he pulls off the dark shades from his face and looks up as if signalling something. In a fraction of a second, all the military men are running around and the next thing you know, there is a chair, a table and a flask of tea at the great man’s disposal. He then dumps his body into some rickety rolling yellow seat and listens to what his guests have to say. If you ask me, this is the typical General Moses Ali at his home in Adjumani. Besides being Uganda’s second Deputy Premier and Internal Affairs Minister, Ali is a man with such great repute that he enjoys the status of some celestial deity back in his home town. On accosting him, he turns to give me this annoyingly contemptuous look. I actually feel like a 14-year-old at the mercy of my school headmaster! Speaking of 14 years back, that’s just about the time General (he insists on this rank) Moses Ali began a great trek towards the status he enjoys in society today. At first sight, Moses Ali would scare you off as the baddest fella you’ve ever met, but a stint with him actually unveils a different personality all together, a kind person with a love for his people. He carries great respect. This is evident even here at his home. The women come, kneel down then whisper something. At his home, his arrival sends chills down spines as all the formerly playful children suddenly become quiet and still because the big man is around. Even when he stares at his goats, they scamper away scared! When I arrived in Adjumani during the parliamentary campaigns, I wondered why Ali’s campaign posters addressed him as ‘General’ yet most of us know him as ‘Brigadier’. So, I set out to ask some UNHCR personnel about it. The chap looked at me like I had thrown an insult at him before he answered, “For us here, we know him as a General, and we don’t need to argue about that,” he said. The 62-year old ‘General’ is so much revered by the folks in Adjumani, you don’t just say any nonsense about him and get away with it. He is like a saviour and the people just love him. I ask him why he enjoys such popularity. “I am not popular by accident. I am the man behind the current stability in this region. In 1979 when everyone had run away, I organised the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) and we fought the successive governments until 1985,” he rants while swinging in his chair. Ali then rummages through the cause of the 1985 coup, which saw Bazillio and Tito Okello throw out Milton Obote. He says that Obote’s problems started after the death of the then Army Chief of Staff, Brigadier David Oyite Ojok. “Obote had replaced Ojok with a younger and more junior officer, Smith Opon Acak (RIP), and the Okello’s were not happy. Under normal military promotional ethics, Bazillio and Tito should have resigned as a way of showing their disapproval of the appointment,” he says. Ali, who was in Khartoum at that time, says that although the two Okello’s wanted to take over government, they did not have an army to talk of. He says that they (the Okello’s) went to Nimule in southern Sudan and talked to a certain Major Muhammed, but still failed to raise a substantial army. “It was not until I came in and organised my boys to help the two them. We actually marched through Karuma and by the time we reached Kampala, we found Obote had fled while Museveni and his NRA were nowhere to be seen. They were somewhere in Fort-Portal,” he says. Ali says that subsequently, Tito Okello was enthroned as the President of Uganda and he started negotiations with the then guerrilla Museveni, in Nairobi. What riles the obese General is that whatever Tito discussed with the Museveni, he (Tito) did not let him (Ali) know. There seemed to be some mistrust cropping up. “When we realised that Tito didn’t trust us, we just pulled out of the whole deal and went back to West Nile. Due our pullout, Tito’s government collapsed almost immediately,” he quips, adding; “After Tito was overthrown, we thought we should look for genuine partners who would bring peace for everyone.” Carefully eluding the details of their agreement with Museveni, Ali says that they (he and his army) kissed and hugged with the new government until 1987 when he landed in trouble with the government and served a term in Luzira Maximum Prison for treason. Ali doesn’t reveal what crime he had committed, but according to sources, a number of guns were found in his Adjumani neighbourhood and he was arrested and charged with treason. However, he has this to say about his arrest: “I think my troubles with the current government were due to organisational problems. Some officers did not like the whole idea of us joining hands with the current government. They made us appear like we were hunting the government, but we allowed the law to take its course,” he says matter-of-factly. Ali says the planting of guns in his neighbourhood could not have been ground for his arrest. “By the time they arrested me, I had 23 guns. They said that the guns were not registered, but I mean, I was a rebel fresh from the bush. I came with my guns just like Museveni. There were not any registered guns in the country at that time,” he says. But Ali declined to comment about why his campaign posters addressed him as ‘General’ when everyone thinks he is a Brigadier. He says that that topic has been covered extensively and that there is no new angle to it. He only insists that he is a General (not Brigadier) and that even President Museveni is aware of this rank. A Brigadier is a one-star General, a Lieutenant General is a two-star General while a full General has four stars. Recently, Ali wanted a promotion but the army did not offer it. If he had been elevated to General, he would have a higher rank than the President. Ali takes a deep thought before expounding on the role of an MP. He says that an MP is supposed to support the President’s manifesto: “Its that manifesto that has all the financial backing. Its now up to the MP to follow up what the President has promised in the manifesto,” he says. Ali says that he has done a great deal of lobbying for his people in Adjumani along those lines, besides his personal contributions to the people. He employs a number of people on his farm in Adjumani, has a fuel station in Adjumani town, a rice mill that helps farmers out there, and also sponsors a number of children at Makerere University and Adjumani polytechnic. Mondia Phillip, the deputy LC Five chairman for Adjumani, sings praises for Ali. He says that Adjumani is such a young district, but looks older than its mother district (Moyo) in terms of development. He adds that without Moses Ali’s helping hand, Adjumani would probably be some makeshift town. “Ali has helped us reach the status we currently enjoy. He negotiated for the establishment of Adjumani hospital, then the Laropi ferry on river Nile and we got it.... If we were to talk about all the good things he’s done, it would take us the rest of the week. He is a cultural consultant to some of us. He is a person we cherish,” he says. To ‘General’ Ali, his family and education is a no go area. He is not willing to talk about these. When I put the question to him, he gives me another of those contemptuous looks and quips: “I am writing a book. I will cover all that in the book, so I don’t want to pre-empt anything.” However, a flip through the parliamentary directory unveils that Ali has a certificate of Higher Education in law.