Francis Ayume
A lawyer, Francis Ayume held several influential posts in the Museveni government, before becoming the Speaker of Parliament, following the demise of James Wapakhabulo. He also served as Minister of State in the President’s Office and Attorney General. Ayume died in an accident in 2005 as he returned from his home in Arua.
Agard Didi
Born in 1944, Agard Didi is a lawyer who also held many influential positions, with stints at the Uganda Airlines and in security in the Museveni government. He was also at one time a Member of Parliament for Moyo West and served as State Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of Regional Cooperation. He died of heart attack at his home in Luzira in 2009.
Catherine Mavenjina
Catherine Akumu Mavenjina is a lawyer and politician who hails from Nebbi, in the West Nile region of Uganda. She served as a magistrate before joining elective politics as a Constituent Assembly Delegate (CAD), and participated in the Constitution-making process of the 1995 Constitution. She also served as Minister of State for Public Service, after which she worked as a Resident District Commissioner of Moyo district. She also served as Member of Parliament and was the Chairperson of Uganda Women Parliamentary Association. She is a member of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.
Onegi Obel Senior
Obel was born on April 4 1932 in the West Nile District of Nebbi and attended Ngetta Catholic Primary School in Lira, St. Aloysius College in Nyapea, Nebbi District and Namilyango College.
He attended university in Canada, graduating with aBachelor of Arts in Economics. He transferred to theUniversity of Toronto where he obtained the degree of Masters of Arts, returning to Uganda in 1965.
He was later to join the Ministry of Finance where he worked as Commissioner for Taxation. In 1968, he was appointed Deputy Governor Bank of Uganda and in 1973 he was elevated to Governor of Bank of Uganda, serving in that capacity until 1978.
In 1994, he was elected to the Consentient Assembly that drafted the 1995 Ugandan Constitution.
He died of natural causes in 2008.
Geoffrey Onegi Obel
The son of Onegi Obel Senior, Geoffrey was born in 1955. His most prominent position was Chairman of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), a position that also made him run into trouble with the law.
In 2003, he floated a special purpose vehicle called Premier Developments Limited, a 50-50 joint venture between NSSF Uganda and Mugoya Estates Limited. NSSF’s contribution was 400 acres (160 ha) of land that NSSF acquired from former Prime MinisterAmama Mbabazi and businessman Amos Nzeyi at a value of about US$2.75 million (about Shillings 8billion now). However, the project was cancelled by government and corruption charges were preferred against Onegi Obel and others. The case was dismissed, the prosecutors re-filed it a second time but he was cleared all charges.
Engineer Eric Adriko
Eric Adriko hails from Arua, West Nile, and is a holder of a mechanical engineering degree from Queen Mary College, University of London, graduating in 1966. Later Adriko was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship for a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at the same university under the system called ‘Fast Track Scheme’ which enabled him to do a PhD without having to do a master’s degree.
Upon completion of studies in 1970, he came back home and founded the Faculty of Technology at Makerere University, where he worked until 1972 later joining private business. While in business, he founded Adrikos, a family business that was involved in making gin and wine.
After 1986, Adriko joined politics and was elected to the National Resistance Council representing Vura County. Subsequently, he was appointed Minister for Industry and Technology, and later rising to the post of Second Deputy Prime Minister. He resigned from active politics in 1996 and in 2004 he was appointed the Chancellor of Kyambogo University. A seasoned and keen golfer, Adriko is currently living a low-profile life, serving as the Executive Chairman of Adriko Group.
Dr Henry Opiote
Dr Henry Opiote was a personal physician to former Ugandan president Dr Apollo Milton Obote. He studied medicine at the Chance University, Prague in Czechoslovakia, graduating in 1977. It is said he recently returned from exile in Zambia, where he had stayed since the overthrow of Obote in July, 1985. He lives a low profile life.
Dr Moses Tako Apiliga
Dr. Moses Tako Apiliga, first rose to national fame when he was appointed as the Minister of State for Supplies under Milton Obote’s government from 1980 to 1985.
Apiliga studien human medicine at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.
A strong UPC apparatchik, Dr Apiliga also served as Principal Special Adviser to Obote on foreign affairs. In 2006 he tried his hand at politics again, contesting against former Ambassador to China and Internal Security Organisation boss Ambassador Philip Idro, for the Moyo west constituency.
Jovino Ayumu Akaki
He is a politician and teacher who resigned his teaching job and joined politics in 1996 as a Member of Parliament for MaruzI County, Apac district.
He was appointed State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities. In 2006 Ayumu Akaki lost the seat to David Ebong Abong.
Prof Shem Masaba
A professor of Zoology, Shem Masaba was the first minister of veterinary and animal industries under the NRM/A government in 1986.
He served for only a year, leaving the Cabinet in 1987 after he criticised fellow ministers for being ‘corrupt’.
“All ministers must be corrupt because they all lived a good life, which could not be financed from their official salary,” Prof Masaba said on the floor of Parliament, eliciting fervent protest from his colleagues who called for his resignation, citing the ‘collective responsibility’ mockery. He then retreated to Makerere before retiring to private work including opening a secondary school in Kapchorwa District.
Wanjusi Wasieba
He joined politics in 1994 when he was elected to the Constituent Assembly to represent Bubulo West. In the same year he was appointed Sate Minister for works. In 1996 he was elected Member of Parliament for Bubulo until he was replaced by the late Kamana Wesonga after of Wanjusi’s nomination was canceled over ‘lack of academic qualifications’. He then went back to school, enrolling Kampala University.
When the former Speaker of Parliament and MP for Mbale Municipality James Francis Wamboga Wapakhabulo passed on in 2004, Wasieba replaced him as MP. In the 2006 elections Wasieba lost the municipality seat to Ambassador Jack Wamai, but was later on appointed the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) for Bududa district.
In 2010 he resigned his position as RDC Bududa, but lost to Tonny Kipoi in the NRM primaries for Bubulo West in Manafwa district and is currently at his home village of Bugobero.
Jack Maumbe Mukwana
Jack Maumbe Mukwana first rose to national prominence in 1986, when he was appointed the Deputy Minister of Information and Broadcasting. When he left cabinet, he was posted to Tororo as RDC.
However, before that Maumbe’s name was to surface in theMustard Seed, a book written by president Museveni, detailing his political experiences before he assumed power in 1986.
In the book, Museveni talks about a narrow escape from the jaws of death in Mbale, where he had taken refuge in Maumbe’s house in Malukhu Estates.
Today Maumbe Mukwana lives a low-profile life but his wife, a teacher by profession, is now an RDC.
Engineer Abner Nagwale
Engineer Abner Nangwale was born in Bukigai, in present-dayBududa, in 1932 and served as the Minister of Works in the administration of Milton Obote from 1980 until July 1985.
He was elected as an MP of the Parliament for Manjiya County.
Eng Nangwale died at his home in Bududa in January 2013, aged 79.
Seth Edward Mungati Nakhamwa
Edward Seth Mungati is a valuation surveyor who started out as a graduate trainee valuer in London County Council, UK. Born in 1937 in Mbale, Uganda, he worked through the ranks, to become Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Works and Housing, quitting in 1981 to start the East African Consulting Surveyors and Valuers, where he is currently the Managing Director.
Perez Musamali
Perez Musamali was the head of the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) in Mbale and contested on the party’s ticket and lost in the 1980 elections. Musamali was said to be a close ally of Yoweri Museveni during the bush war days, at times reportedly playing host to the then guerilla leader at his home in Buwabwala. He has since passed on.
Aggrey Awori Siryoyi
Born in 1939, Aggrey Awori is a seasoned politician and one time diehard UPC supporter, Aggrey Awori Siryoyi has contested at highest levels in Uganda, for the presidency in 2001.
In 2007 he defected from the UPC and joined the NRM and in a surprise move, and in 2009 he was appointed the Minister for Information and Communications Technology, serving in that capacity until 2011 when he was dropped from the cabinet and replaced by Ruhakana Rugunda.
Earlier in 1996, he had contested for the Samia Bugwe South constituency and won, joining Parliament.
Awori belongs to one of East Africa’s most renowned families, with his brother Arthur Moody Awori a retired prominent politician in neighbouring Kenya, who rose to the position of Vice President.
Early in his life, Aggrey Awori attended Harvard University in the US, where he studied Political Economics. After Independence in 1962, he became the first Director of Television at the then Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He also served as Uganda’s Ambassador to the US between 1980 and 1985 after which he was transferred to Belgium by the Tito Okello regime in the same year, before being dropped by Museveni in 1987.
An alumni of Nabumali High School and Kings College Buddo, Aggrey Awori was also an outstanding athlete, who represented Uganda at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics in Rome and Tokyo, respectively.
Boloki Chango Machyo W’Obanda
The late Boloki Chango Machyo W’Obanda was an academic and political activist right from his days as a student in the United Kingdom. He was also incorruptible, blending in very well with the Museveni government’s policies of zero tolerance to corruption. Chango, as he was commonly referred to by many, served as the political head in the ministries of Rehabilitation and, Water and Natural Resources under the Museveni government.
He was also at one time the National Political Commissar of the NRM and at the time of his death in died in 2013, the 86 year-old Chango Machyo was a Senior Presidential Advisor on Political Affairs.
Gabriel Opio
Between 1993 and 1996, he served as a member of the National Resistance Council representing Samia-Bugwe constituency of the then Tororo district. In 1996, he was elected to the Ugandan Parliament, representing Samia-Bugwe South in the newly created Busia District. In 1999, he was appointed State Minister for Finance, responsible for Planning and Investments, serving in that position until 2001 when he lost his parliamentary seat to Simon Mayende.
Between 2002 and 2006, prior to his appointment to the Gender portfolio, Opio served in various capacities, including as Director of National Water Sewerage Corporation, Director of Centenary Bank, and Commissioner of the Uganda AIDS Commission.
In the national election cycle of 2011, he lost his parliamentary seat of Samia-Bugwe South to Julius Maganda, an independent political candidate who is the incumbent MP for the constituency.
Balaki Kirya
Kirya was born in 1924 in Petete in Bukedi currently Pallisa district. He served as a soldier in the King’s African Rifles (KAR) before joining politics under the Uganda National Congress, where he was in charge of the Mbale branch. Kirya, one time an MP representing Bukedi, was also one of the architects of the UPC/Kabaka Yekka Alliance and was rewarded with the cabinet post of Minister without Portfolio immediately after Independence. Two years later Obote appointed him Minister for Water and Mineral Resources but the two were to fall out, with Kirya later being arrested and detained in Luzira prison without trial.
In 1971 he when Amin came to power, Kiirya was released but fled to exile in Kenya when Amin started killing some of Obote’s former ministers.
Unfortunate for Kirya, he was abducted from exile in 1982, and Obote again imprisoned him on allegations of involvement in rebel activities. He was charged with treason and was in prison until the Okellos captured power in July 1985
And when Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) captured power in January 1986, Kirya was appointed security minister in the Office of the President in March 1986. He died in the mid 90s was buried in his home village.
Ambassador Francis Butagira
Born in 1942, Ambassador Francis Butagira is a lawyer, politician and diplomat, who studied at Ntare School before joining Dar es salaam University for a degree in law. After graduation he served as a magistrate and was High Court Judge between 1974 and 1979, prior to becoming a member of the National Consultative Council (NCC) from 1979 to 1980. He was Speaker of Parliament between 1980 to 1985 and also served as the Chairman of the Legal and Security Affairs committee in the National Assembly between 1989 to 1996.
Butagira also served as President of the European Economic Community and the African Caribbean and Pacific (EEC/ACP) group of States, and has held several other diplomatic accreditation. His last posting was as Uganda’s Ambassador to Germany between 2009 and 2012.
