Museveni renovates fallen Obote minister's home

President Yoweri Museveni has directed the immediate renovation of the home of the late David Anyoti.

He was the Minister for Information and Broadcasting in the Apollo Milton Obote II government (1980-1985), and a specially nominated Member of Parliament who passed away in Kenya last week.

National Resistance Movement (NRM) vice chairman in charge of Eastern Uganda Mike Mukula confirmed that the President had not only offered to renovate the home but also worked on the road and also directed the government to meet full transport costs and tickets for the family members.

"The late Anyoti studied with President Museveni at the Dar es salaam University where he pursued a Bachelor's Degree in Law.  When we informed him that Anyoti had passed on and that he would be buried in Kenya, he was saddened and personally spoke to the widow and convinced her to allow her husband be buried at his home. The President said Obote was buried here even when he died in Zambia. The family requested the President to renovate the deceased's home and he directed renovation works to start immediately," Mukula said.

Mukula noted that the government had offered to pay for the transportation of the body to Entebbe and then contracted A-Plus funeral services to make arrangements for the movement of the body to Soroti, construction of the grave and also offered to pay tickets for all the family members.

Mukula noted that Anyoti fled the country in 1986 after the NRM took power and that his house was an abandoned place and it would have been embarrassing to bury somebody in an abandoned place since the house had been used by rebels during the insurgency in Teso in the early 80's and 90's and remained wasting away.

"Hitler Eregu and Commander Sam Otai were using it as a command post. When the war ended, the place was completely desolate, had overgrown grass and what government did was to try and rescue it by renovating. It didn't even have a roof. It had been built in the late 50's," Mukula added.

He also noted that the road to Lale in Soroti district was being worked on and the deceased's body would arrive Thursday for burial on Sunday.

Asked whether the deceased had tried to make attempts to come back, Mukula noted that Anyoti never made effort.

"I am however trying to reach out to our other sons and daughters who fled to come back home. We have the likes of Ekurapa who was a guild President at Makerere University but fled the country and went to Canada. I have engaged him and I want him to return home and enjoy the peace this Government has ushered," Mukula stated.

David Mafabi the Senior Presidential Advisor/Special Duties noted that David Anyoti was the son to James Anyoti, who was Minister of State for National Service (1968-1971) in the Obote I Government.

"Born 1947, Dr. Anyoti was (I think) the youngest cabinet minister in the Obote II Government. He was an African Patriot, a distinguished legal scholar and lawyer - educated in Tanzania and the United States," Mafabi said.

Eulogising Anyoti, Mafabi noted that, he first him in 1983 at Makerere University - at a meeting of the Uganda-Korea Friendship Association - when he was a Minister in Government.

"I was doing my final undergraduate year (I was 22) in Makerere. I was very impressed by his strong and clear anti-imperialist views, and his position that the African people had to continue the struggle for complete African liberation. After the meeting, as I walked him to his car, he invited me to go and visit him at the Ministry," Mafabi said.

Mafabi stated that as fate would have had it, "that very year sat and passed a Public Service Commission interview conducted by the late Canon John Bikangaga himself, and was appointed an Information Officer with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. I at the same time, also received a scholarship from Bulgaria, to undertake a 1 year Post Graduate course in National Economy Management at the Academy for Social Sciences and Management in Sofia, Bulgaria. When I called on the Minister, he helped to expedite my study leave. I remain eternally grateful to him and to his memory - I left for Bulgaria, returning home in July 1984. Dr. Anyoti immediately had me transferred me from the Press Section to his Office to head the Foreign News Desk," Mafabi further added.

He noted that that transfer started a close comradeship and friendship with Dr. Anyoti, "which lasted up to 1997 - when we disagreed fundamentally on the necessary course of the Ugandan and African revolutions, and related questions of Strategy and Tactics. We last met and talked in Nairobi in 1997. One of my deepest regrets is that he has passed on without us meeting again to take stock of the issues that divided us in 1997. My other very deep regret is that I have not lived to see him work again with his compatriot Yoweri K. Museveni," Mafabi added.