The Lutwa-Obote fallout

UGANDA HISTORY

One afternoon in 1984, Lt. Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa walked from Room 216 of Nile Mansions (now Serena Kampala Hotel) and proceeded to parliamentary buildings, where he met President Milton Obote. 

Lutwa was clad in military uniform with epaulettes expressive of him as the army commander of the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). After he exchanged pleasantries with Obote (commander-in-chief), Lutwa requested him to approve his retirement from the army. Lutwa wished to retire to his ancestral home of Namukora, Kitgum district. At the time, Lutwa had served the army for 44 years; having joined the King's African Rifles (KAR) on May 16, 1940, when Uganda was still a British protectorate. 

While Lutwa was pleading for his retirement, he as well requested for a retirement package consisting of three things; $500,000, a Tata lorry and a bus. As he named the three items, Obote picked his cherished F-301 biro pen manufactured by Zebra Pen Corporation and wrote them on a piece of paper that had a crossword puzzle designed by Erabu. Consequently, Obote said: "Commander, you want a package of $0.5m. Oh my heavens! I do not know whether I, Milton, shall ever own that sum in life." 

Obote further regretted that his government did not have funds to cater for such contingencies. He explained that the money available had been budgeted for army operations against the National Resistance Army (NRA) of Yoweri Museveni. Obote, therefore, asked Lutwa to keep around in the army. 

Lutwa irked

Generally, Lutwa was upset by Obote's response. To prove this, Lutwa boringly saluted Obote on his departure. Yet earlier, during his arrival in Obote's office, Lutwa had saluted him enthusiastically to the extent that Obote wittily said: "Commander, your salute tells it all that Museveni's days in the bush are numbered." 

After departing from Obote's office, Lutwa met Bazillio Olara Okello in a residence on Nakasero hill. An annoyed Lutwa wondered how Obote could fail to secure funds for his retirement requirements, yet the same UPC government regularly afforded importing for Obote his favourite wine (Mateus Rosé) from Portuguese winery, Sogrape Vinhos that was founded by Fernando van Zeller Guedes in 1942. 

Additionally, Lutwa and Bazillio expressed anger at the August 1984 decision by Obote of endorsing Col. Smith Opon Acak as the army chief of staff. Following that appointment, Acak was as well promoted to brigadier. Lutwa had hoped that his blue-eyed boy, Bazillio, would become the army chief of staff, following the death of Maj. Gen. David Oyite Ojok in a helicopter crash on December 2, 1983 at Kasozi village in Nakasongola. 

Aware of their lukewarm attitude towards his appointment, Acak did not accord them respect during his tenure. Actually, Lutwa one day bitterly complained in the presence of Obote and Acak that "whenever I go abroad, the commander of the army is highly respected. Why are some officers here not according me the same respect?" 

Consequently, Lutwa would sometimes sit on vital security information crucial for the Obote II regime survival. For instance, he remained lukewarm when NRA rebels were tracked at Kyamusu village ahead of the second attack on Kabamba barracks commanded by Salim Saleh. 

Additionally, Lutwa did not propose a counter-strategy against Museveni's media campaign of September 1984 that was aimed at frustrating UK defence support to UNLA at Jinja and also the US economic and humanitarian assistance which the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, had promised the UPC government. In a bid to sabotage that support, Museveni said: "If you put a stone in an incubator, nothing will happen even if you leave it there for 100 years."

Obote sides with Acak 

During the Acak-Lutwa feud, Obote conspicuously sided with Acak. For instance, Obote would accord Acak immediate audience whenever Acak wanted to discuss anything with him. Conversely, Obote would sometimes keep Lutwa waiting in the lounge. 

For instance, in January 1985 after NRA attacked Kabamba barracks, thereby taking about 600 rifles, Lutwa contacted Obote's secretary, Rose Akora, to schedule a meeting between him and Obote the following day at 10:00am. Indeed, Lutwa was prompt for that set meeting. He was, however, shocked that Obote made him wait till 4:00pm. After those six hours of waiting; Lutwa protested and walked away while angrily saying: "Too much alcohol will cause this country a serious problem." 

Fate in exile 

It is pertinent to note that Lutwa and Obote had had disagreements earlier when they were in exile after Idi Amin overthrew Obote's first regime on January 25, 1971. Obote's first regime was overthrown when Lutwa was a colonel and also commanding officer for Masaka Barracks. When they went into exile in Tanzania in 1971; their host, president Julius Nyerere, offered Obote accommodation at Msasani while Lutwa lived at Upanga in Dar es Salaam. Nyerere further directed his one time minister of state for security, Bhoke Munanka, to facilitate Obote. 

Though that welfare was handy, it was never enough to meet all the requirements of Obote's allies that kept seeking asylum in Tanzania as Amin amplified the purge in Uganda. Cognisant of their several financial challenges, Obote's blue-eyed boys: Oyite, John Opor and Tom Odong Oduka got involved in agriculture. They grew maize and also engaged in poultry farming while selling their eggs to shops on Zanaki Street. (Note: Zanaki Street was named after Nyerere's tribe). On the other hand, Bazillio went to Kigwa in Tabora region; where he engaged in charcoal burning and Tobacco growing. 

Actually, Paulo Muwanga one time left his Bromley residence in the UK and visited Tanzania, where he found Bazillio busy cutting logs for his charcoal burning business. The cash loaded Muwanga, who had a few years before felt the actual value of some Uganda's Paris Embassy properties, opened before Bazillio an American made brown Samsonite briefcase that was full of varying currencies. Muwanga asked a delighted Bazillio the currency he wanted. Bazillio pointed at Tanzanian currency aware that the huge forest from which he was burning charcoal had no foreign exchange market — at the time Tanzania had not liberalised its economy. 

Lutwa laments 

When Lutwa later met Bazillio at Kigwa; he expressed displeasure over Obote's failure to prevail over Oyite and his associates to give him some money from their agricultural proceeds. 

Lutwa disclosed how he was financially struggling, yet he had a family to look after. He lamented that in spite of his much love for beef; he often afforded half a kilogramme of it. He, in fact, commended his wife Esther Adye (R.I.P) for always cutting that half kilogramme of meat into several smaller pieces to enable each family member get at least a piece. 

Lutwa recalled another incident in which a colleague conversant with his financial woes donated to him 2kg of beef. When Lutwa took it home, his wife shed tears of joy while audibly asking her husband who the Good Samaritan was. As a routine, she sparingly used those two kilogramme for four days as sauce by cooking half a kilogramme each day. 

While telling all that to a touched Bazillio; Lutwa narrated another incident in which he asked that very friend who bought him the 2kg of beef to also give him only sh20 (Tanzanian shillings) to enable his child, Henry Okello Oryem (now minister), go to school at Bukoba. Indeed, when Lutwa got that money; he spent sh15 for Oryem's transport fare and sh5 catered for Oryem's welfare at school. 

Lutwa thus wondered why Obote was not bailing him out, yet his (Obote) pals were known to spend much for their leisure at Africana beach, Bahari beach and Kunduki beach (all found in Tanzania).

Despair exploited

Indeed, it is over Lutwa and Bazillio's despair that Ateker Ejalu and Akena p'Ojok, who had some money with them, managed to convince them to co-operate with Save Uganda Movement (SUM) exile group in what was later a largely sabotaged abortive attack against Amin in 1978. 

In the process, about 110 militias drowned in Lake Victoria out of about 300 fighters that had been mobilised for the invasion. Their weapons had been mobilised from Tabora. Obote had not blessed that invasion. 

He hence faulted Lutwa and Bazillio for ‘stealing' his combatants from their refugee camps for that invasion. Some of the fighters Obote alluded to were those trained at Owiny Kibul in Sudan in 1972 through a combined effort with Bazillio. Those militias were in 1974 relocated to Tanzania after Amin and Sudanese president Gafaar Nimeiry reached an understanding. 

Following the aforesaid abortive attack, Obote sweet-talked Lutwa. He was hence part of the Kikosi Maalum group loyal to Obote that participated in the 1979 liberation war that eventually removed Amin from power on April 11, 1979.

Overthrowing Obote

When Obote returned into power after the December 1980 elections, he maintained Lutwa as the army commander. With their differences as highlighted above, Lutwa and Bazillio orchestrated a coup against Obote on July 27, 1985. Muwanga, who was Obote's vice-president and defence minister, blessed that coup. 

In fact, on taking over power, Lutwa appointed Muwanga as the executive prime minister. Muwanga's term of office was, however, short-lived since he was replaced by Abraham Waliggo. Muwanga was not happy with his sacking hence telling his family: 

"These fools will not stay long in power." Along the way, Lutwa and Bazillio partly disagreed over the choice of person to hand over power to at the height of the failed Nairobi peacetalks with NRA. Lutwa preferred the then foreign minister Ambassador Olara Otunnu, while Bazillio wanted Dr. Henry Obonyo, his fellow Democratic Party member and Catholic. Obonyo was the super minister of the time, given the other ministerial positions he was holding in acting capacity besides that of health. 

When their junta was overthrown on January 26, 1986; Bazillio fled into exile in Sudan, where he died of diabetes on January 9, 1990. He was buried at Omdurman cemetery. In February 2015, his remains were returned to Uganda on Kenya Airways flight number KQ416. 

He was reburied on February 14, 2015, at his ancestral home in Madi Opei, Lamwo district. In fact, Dr Obonyo came from his exile in London to attend the re-burial of the remains.

On the other hand, Lutwa died on June 3, 1996; three years after he had returned from exile. He was buried in Kitgum. 

Obonyo, whom Bazillio wanted to become president, died in January 2016 in a road accident along with his wife Kevina, 73, and daughters; Eliza, 46, and Marjorie, 39. 

The accident occurred after they had returned from South London, where they spent 30 years. They hired a Super Custom van, UAU 249K driven by Denis Gashumba to take them to their home village in Madi Opei in Lamwo district. Unfortunately, it overturned near St. Thomas Moore Minakulu in Bobi sub-county, Gulu district.

First published in Sunday Vision, September 4, 2016. Vision Group Resource Centre