Can we save Nakasero fort?

 

According to historical accounts, this fort was created in 1900 when Captain Frederick Lugard, who headed the Imperial British East African Company established a fort there after leaving his old fort (Fort Lugard) in Old Kampala.

 

George Laghu, a researcher, notes that the garrison had two cannon guns to defend the city in case of attack. This fort helped Lugard’s army to establish a stronghold over Kampala. It had a high rise wall surrounding it, with circular slots through which the guns would be aimed at enemy forces. 

 

The fort was also later a prison.

Laghu has a tale about how the hill got its name: “At the garrison, African soldiers made colourful parades. In the afternoons, their wives, who stayed in the lowlands, ascended the hill with baskets taking food for their husbands.

 

In the drought of 1938-40 the garrison became a food distribution centre. People would go with baskets to get food. And so it came to be known as the hill that people ascended with a basket (akasero),” he says.

 

Before its gradual destruction, the garrison served as a Quarter Master stores for the Uganda Police.

 

Nakasero Fort is one of the most important historical landmarks in Uganda. “It is one of the few remaining symbols of the military presence of British rule in this country,” says Vivian Craddock Williams, the deputy chairman of the Historical Buildings Conservation Trust. Craddock avers that this fort carries an important educational value as well. 

 

“Imagine if students were to be taken up there to witness this important part of their history and to learn from it.”

“This fort would also be a tourist attraction,” says Dr. Phillip Kwesiga of Makerere University College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology.

But the once powerful fort is nearly completely gone and the little that remains of it — the wall that used to protect the fort — is endangered. 

 

“First, part of the wall was knocked down to create space for the construction of Hilton Hotel,” says Craddock. He says it took the intervention of Eng. John Nasasira, the then works minister to save what now remains of the grand fort.

 

The remaining wall has now completely been closed from public view by the imposing hotel whose construction is ongoing.

 

“You will have to seek permission from management to access this facility,” the soldier at the gate told me when I tried to access the fort.

 

Rose Mary Nkaale Mwanja, the commissioner for museums and monuments, says this fort is one of the historical sites that they would love to protect, but she too has been denied access.