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My boss was a workaholic, not an alcoholic, says Rubaihayo | ||||
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Prof. Patrick Rubaihayo was deputy minister of agriculture and forestry under the Obote II government from 1981-1985. He talks to Gaaki Kigambo about serving President Milton Obote in this continuing series marking 20 years since Obote's second ouster by the military I am a 65-year-old congressman. I am a professor of plant breeding and genetics, working mainly on biotechnology in the department of crop science at Makerere University. I attended Kabwohe Primary School, Mbarara High School, Butobere College, Ntare School, and Makerere University. Afterwards I went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus in the United States.
Once I went to school, I never had a stop. Every year, I was changing class until I finished my PhD. So I finished when I was still a very young man. From there I came here in this department in 1971. Apart from about five years when I was in active politics in government, I have spent all my years in this department. I became a minister just before Christmas of 1980, [general elections having been held on December 10]. Then President-elect Milton Obote sent for me and I went to meet him at President's Office, then in the Ministry of Finance building. He said: I have considered you for appointment to this office [of state minister for agriculture and forestry], would you be available? I accepted. I had already been elected member of Parliament for Mbarara Central. Parliament had not yet opened. I was excited about the appointment. I had gone into politics to utilise the power there and now I was being given what I had exactly looked for. Naturally, any human being would be excited. Before I went into politics, and being appointed minister, I was an associate professor at Makerere University. Because I was state minister [Mr Samwiri Mugwisa being the substantive minister], I was more of a technical person. This was also because I was into agricultural research. So I handled much of the technical stuff like research mainly because the ministry itself is more technical, while [Mugwisa] handled the other ministerial responsibilities. Tackling problems I was also in charge of forestry for it had also been neglected. With forestry, there was the issue of encroachment because Idi Amin encouraged people to go and cultivate without being concerned about environmental issues. |
Luweero war
About the Luweero war [and the attendant widespread killing of civilians], I really do not know who should be blamed but I think it is unfair to blame the Obote government. But since they were the government of the day maybe you can blame them.
Obote did not go to Luweero to fight the people there.
He was forced to go to fight rebels we used to call them bandits under Museveni who left this town, went to Kabamba to hijack army facilities and failed and then from there went to Mubende and then to Luweero which had his own Bahima people, [who are cattle-keepers]. Because Luweero is in a cattle corridor, it has a lot of Bahima. Museveni utilised that because now he was among his own people.
So, this man goes into Luweero, because it is near the capital, so that he could come and capture power. Anybody in government cannot accept that. I am sure even Museveni cannot accept that. That is what happened. Now, when you say it is blamed on Obote and not Museveni, I do not understand because it is the latter who instigated, started and executed the war. These people, the government army, were fighting back.
People need to understand this: when in 1979 the bakombozi came into this country they were in three groups. There was one group called Kikosi Maalum under Tito Okello. There were the Tanzanian forces alongside them and they came through Mutukula, Masaka. Then there was another group, Fronasa, under Museveni also with Tanzanians. After entering through Mutukula, they took the southwestern route and opened up in Mbarara.
When he got there, he recruited heavily and boosted his Fronasa group into a huge force, trained and equipped it. From there, they trekked through Fort Portal and another section came through Kabamba and went to Luweero, so they knew the place very well because not only did they have their relatives there, they had gone through it during that war.
The third and smaller group under the likes of Maj. Gen. [Zed] Maruru, Mr Ateker Ejalu came on water through Kenya, Busia but it was small really.
Now, when the UNLA, then the government army, was formed, Museveni had a huge component of that army. He knew that when he went to the bush he would have a big following which he could call on including his own brother Salim Saleh, who then was a second lieutenant and people like the late Chefe Ali.
When the army was formed, we had no officers in almost all security organs. The idea was to recruit graduates into these forces and people were recruited and so, Museveni encouraged [his people] to join because he had his own programmes, I think.
[As defence minister and vice chairman of the Military Commission, Museveni] had control to the extent that about 120 cadets who went to Munduli [in Tanzania] for training, about 96 of them were from his unit, his group he had recruited in Ankole.
He trained them and I am sure he must have told them why they were recruited and trained. A big section of the army went to the bush. This is the whole thing about Luweero. Now to put the blame on someone who did not think, plan and execute it, I cannot understand.
Museveni should tell us what happened [about the killings in Luweero] because he was there. Of course, Obote's soldiers also killed because once you send soldiers to war what do you expect?
Obote was almost like a reawakened person, more or less born again. He was always pro-people, saying we could not do certain things. Soldiers were actually annoyed. They asked for bigger guns and he refused, saying they could not be used in the Luweero war.
The man Obote
He was jovial, and to me, an honest man. I remember going to the USAID [offices] after the coup. They were sponsoring me [for a trip] to the United States, and I heard the Americans discussing that Obote was a very good man, especially in the areas of finance, the best minister of finance the country will see in a very long time, though he was a poor President in terms of co-ordinating.
However, I doubt he was a poor President though he had a problem of taking decisions on the war because of fear for civilians. Do not forget that Obote has a soft heart for Baganda, whom he thought were people inhabiting Luweero, because they are his in-laws. This caused problems between him and the soldiers because they were questioning why they could not use the better arms they had to protect themselves from the enemy.
I am told that Obote was a drunkard.
I do not know who was supplying this information. I saw this man at least three or four days a week because we used to meet in the evenings to discuss work. There was no time to waste. I never saw him take a single beer, a whisky. He would take, but not all the time, wine at around 10 O'clock after dinner.
Whenever it was budget day, he would spend a night in the office, taking a short break towards morning to freshen up and would be back. Our budgets never leaked because they were made that night.
He was a hard-working man, a workaholic. He always would come to office at about 9 a.m. and stay at the earliest up to 10 O'clock in the night. Sometimes he would come even on weekends. I cannot see how you can be a drunkard and work so hard. That is the Obote I know. I used to go to his house. Whenever he had visitors he would call some of us to his house.
I know Museveni works late, because I have been to State House, but I think the people he has put around him, the ministers, do not support him enough. They are not friends with the President. They are just his workers. I do not think that anyone of them can now just wake up and go to State House and be allowed to enter if he is not on appointment.
In our case, you would wake up and go to Obote's house, if he was there, without any prior appointment, even just for a chat. I do not think it is so now with Museveni. Therefore, if they themselves do not put in effort, everything is left to Museveni let it be a person in need of a licence, another who wants to go to Europe. There seems to be nobody who can take a personal initiative and maybe report that I have done this or should I go and do this. But for us, we had free access to the President and even when we were chatting about other things, suggestions would be made and responsibilities assigned and as such work would be done.
Then, nobody ever contemplated corruption. I do not think that it rang in anybody's mind to grab money for personal use. That is why after the fall of the government, I came back and they investigated and wrote reports about us twice, first under Tito Okello, then the present government and both found us with nothing.
Obote was free with us because he wanted us but I do not think Museveni needs these people. He has got his army and friends. The others are there because the Constitution says so and he puts them there and forgets them and that is another problem. There are so many people appointed and are never followed so after some time they become uncertain. Since they have never seen the one who appointed them it is possible they can be dropped any time, so, I think, they resort to making the best use of their positions [by doing dubious things].
Thanks,
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