The worst case scenario was on January 22, 1973 at 4:30pm at the late Jack Maumbe Mukhwana’s house (plot) 49 in Mbale town, when Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada’s Soldiers in a cordon and search operation surrounded Maumbe’s said home, targeting now President Yoweri Museveni and his then revolutionary colleagues, Martin Mwesiga and Mpiima Walid Kazimoto from which courtyard, the latter two were shot and killed in cold blood.
Following that nasty incident, an innocent, youthful secondary school student known as Namirundu also related to the Maumbes was suspected as being an accomplice, arrested and a couple of days later he was subjected to a scary Firing Squad at Mbale Cricket ground throwing the entire town in panic.
Strangely, it took Amin’s military physicians, a total of six minutes to confirm the death of Young Namirundu because even after the rain of bullets, the student remanded shaking his blind folded head minutes after the shooting.
Bagishu genuinely learnt later that Marshal Amin’s spies (intelligence) were spot-on, for many Bagishu such as the late Joshua Wakhooli, Masaba Natolo, Eriya Watyekyele, Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere, Perez Musamali, Mukuwa Wanzala, Jack Maumbe Mukhwana etc. Clandestinely together with Mr. Museveni were involved in subversive activities against Amin’s government as early as 1972 hence the Firing Squad’s justification.
The question at hand presently is why the whole of Bugishu has remained a ghetto to date yet the president was with much hospitality and courtesy nurtured by the elders of wisdom in Bugishu area?.
Again, in Mid-Seventies Bagishu took serious risks again under the influence of now President Museveni and other run-aways then living in Tanzania donated/ smuggled all the Arabica coffee (then nick named black gold) into the Republic of Kenya for re-export to foreign markets denying Amin’s government the much needed FOREX, bringing the regime on its knees and accelerating the war by refugees (Fronasa, Save Uganda Movement – SUM) and the Kikosi Maalum of Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces (TPDF) to over throw Amin’s brutal government in 1979. This was again a big contributing factor by the Ghetto people of Bugishu.
In 1987, a rebel out –fit was plotted by the former Chief Of Staff, the late Brigadier Smith Opon Acak, Lt. Col. John Ogole, Maj. Charles Mityero, Richard Matsanga and others in Mountain Elgon to topple President Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) but the Ghetto supporters, actually civilians from Bududa captured Brig. Smith Acak while attempting to escape through Bubulo-Nabumali –Mbale Road and handed to then government (NRA) soldiers at Bugema Barracks.
The Bududa civilians above and all Bugishu Ghetto Youth deserve the development(Financial) boost in the same way other ghetto youth in Kamwokya, Namuwongo, Nakulabye, Katwe, Nsambya, Nakawa, Lubaga, and elsewhere are doing.
Nabendeh Wamoto S.P (0776-658433)
simonwamoto@yahoo.co.uk