TITLE: The Odyssey of the Nubi: From soldiers of the British Empire to Full Citizens in Uganda
AUTHOR: Moses Ali
PUBLISHER: Jescho Publishing House
REVIEWER: Mbugua Ngunjiri
AVAILABILITY: Nuria Bookstores
Uganda, as a country, has had a chequered history marked by leadership struggles informed by much bloodletting. For Kenyans, the much they know about the journey of Uganda to what it is today, is limited to the personalities that have been occupied leadership positions and to an extent, the communities they came from.
These individuals include, Edward Mutesa, Milton Obote, Idi Amin and current president Yoweri Museveni. While the communities where these leaders hail from are known, there is, however, one Ugandan community that has largely escaped the attention of Kenyans, probably due to the fact that none of them has ever scaled to top leadership position in that country.
The Nubi community has however played a larger-than-life role in the history of Uganda, even preceding the advent of colonialism. For the right or wrong reasons, the Nubi community in Uganda have featured centrally in shaping the history of the East African Nation.
The history of the Nubi in Uganda is as colourful and as chequered as that of the country. Above all else, theirs has been a story full of trials, tribulation and betrayal. It is not until Museveni came into power through a protracted bush war, that the Nubi found peace and recognition.
Moses Ali, a retired general in the Ugandan army, has put together a book that traces the roots of the Nubi, from Sudan, during the pre-colonial times, their role in midwifing the both the colonial and post-colonial Uganda sates, to the present.
The Odyssey of the Nubi: From soldiers of the British Empire to Full Citizens in Uganda, is a recommended read for anyone keen on knowing the other side of the Uganda away from the mutesas, obotes, Amins and Musevenis.
General Ali’s book gives a different – one might argue, refreshing – perspective of Uganda. When Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe famously said that ‘until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter’, he must have had the unsung contribution of the Nubi in the making of Uganda, in mind.
One story that has been told over and over again is the contribution of Rwandan refugees, who joined Museveni in liberating Uganda from the chokehold of Obote II and Tito Okello and their murderous band of soldiers. The story of the Rwandan refugees would have remained in the footnotes of history, had those soldiers not fought their way into power in Rwanda.
The story of the Rwandan refugees, mainly Tutsis, led by Paul Kagame, would not be as celebrated as it is today, had they not brought down the genocidal regime of Juvenal Habyarimana. Similarly, the story of the Nubi’s contribution to Museveni’s liberation of Uganda, would not be known had Gen Ali elected not to write this book.
It is therefore safe to say that the Nubi, through Gen Ali, are the proverbial lions that learnt to write and therefore managed to celebrate their contribution in shaping modern Uganda into what it is today.
When Obote, propped up by Tanzania’s president, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, came back for a second stint as Ugandan president, he embarked on a negative campaign that sought to exterminate the Nubi, whose soldiers he blamed for backing up Idi Amin, when he ousted him (Obote) in a military coup in 1972.
Many Nubi’s lost their lives, while others fled to exile, in the hands of Obote’s troops, after he came back to power, via an election in 1980, which Gen Ali dismisses as a sham in his book. The author, who at one time was a finance minister in Amin’s regime, fled into exile in Sudan when Obote came back to power.
He writes that Amin sacked him and had sent assassins to finish him off
When Obote took his revenge campaign to West Nile, the homeland of the Nubi in Uganda, Gen Ali and others, who had served in Amin’s army, decided to push back when they formed UNRF (Uganda National Rescue Front), thereby creating a safe haven for their kinsmen in the region.
Museveni was at the same time, also waging war against Obote. Much later, Museveni and his National Resistance Army formed a pact with UNRF, which ushered them into power. The book explains that the Nubi in UNRF, courtesy of having career soldiers within its ranks, had the potential to capture state power in Uganda, only that it was hindered by internal wrangles.
General Ali currently occupies the office of second deputy prime minister as well as deputy leader of government in Uganda.
As book’s title suggests, the Nubi have struggled with the issue of citizenship in subsequent Ugandan governments. They finally achieved their citizenship dream with the enactment of the 1995 constitution.
When the book was launched in Kenya on Friday May 11, the Alliance Française library was filled with members of the Nubi community based in Kenya. The deliberations, inevitably, touched on the citizen status of the Nubi in Kenya.
Like their Ugandan counterparts, the Nubi of Kenya arrived as soldiers with the British imperialists, helping them establish the Kenyan colony. As a way of appreciation, the colonialists allocated the Nubi about 4,000 acres in present day Kibra. Out of the original 4,000 acres, the Kenyan government gave them title deed to 288 acres only, following years of agitation.
The Nubi of Kenya have made a petition to President William Ruto, who promised to look into the issue of getting them recognised as an ethnic community in Kenya. They are now awaiting a positive presidential announcement on December 12, during Jamhuri Day celebrations.