SWEET & SOUR SIXTIES
‘Makerere, Makerere, We build for the future, The Great Makerere
Great, Great and Mighty, The walls around thee
Great, Great and Mighty,
The gates beside thee.
One day he was an ordinary physician at Mulago Hospital, teaching medical students and seeing an endless stream of patients, the next he was a cabinet minister with all the trappings that came with the title. Dr. Emmanuel Lumu, appointed the first Ugandan Minister of Health at Independence in 1962, felt like he was wearing someone else’s skin. Not that he was unaccustomed to high society. He had his friend Kabaka Edward Mutesa to thank for that privilege. The attention he got as a minister though, was different. Some days he missed his more modest position at the hospital. As a minister, he had to worry, not about the patients under his care, but about the entire country’s health system with all its warts and pimples. There were too many patients for too few hospitals and health workers, the medical school was largely dependent on expatriate staff, Kenya and Tanzania were unhappy that Makerere was not producing enough medical graduates for the whole region, and were threatening to start their own schools, and he had no predecessor to turn to for advice. Dr. H. J. Croot, who had been minister under the colonial government, was unlikely to be helpful as the conditions of work would be vastly different. He was grateful to the technical staff at the ministry who pulled together a few documents to guide his thinking. He quickly put together a team to draft the national health strategy for the newly independent Uganda.7
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The days leading to 9 October, 1962, were memorable to Ugandans for many reasons. The excitement was palpable. It was akin to the expectation of the first serious downpour after a long dry spell, only more intense. All across the country, the independence storm broke forth with loud claps of thunder and lightning. While many rural Ugandans did not fully understand the significance of what was happening in faraway Kampala, with the lowering of the Union Jack and the triumphant ascension of the Ugandan flag, as bold and beautiful as the women that danced to the loud drumming throughout the night, those that had experienced the indignity and scorn of the colonial master up close knew freedom had come. Nowhere, perhaps, was the awareness of the difference between colonial master and servant sharper than within the medical fraternity.
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Nkore worked as a senior clerk at the District Commissioner’s office in Kabale. He had heard a lot about the independence plans. On the morning of 9 October 1962, just as he was preparing to leave the house, his pregnant wife quietly announced that the baby might be arriving the same day. “Really?” Nkore asked, not quite absorbing the full import of the information. The wife could tell that his mind was already out there in the Independence frenzy. Besides, what would he do to help even if he were home? Cane and hat in hand, Nkore was already half out of the door when he asked if she had alerted the midwife.
“Yes, she is aware.”
“Good”, and with that he was gone.
So, while the rest of the country was preoccupied with the Independence preparations and festivities, Mrs. Nkore’s one thought was the imminent arrival of the baby. The friend and self-taught midwife that had helped her to deliver previous babies was on high alert, and had been for days. Both women knew it could not be too long now. By midmorning, however, all discomfort had subsided, and Mrs. Nkore thought she might have misread the signs. She went about her chores without any sign of labor. In the evening though, with hardly any warning, her waters broke. In a couple of hours she gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. Nkore returned long past midnight to find that the baby had arrived in his absence. “Of course the baby must be named ‘Independence’,” he exclaimed, as soon as he heard of the birth. Independence, or Kweetegyeka, in Rukiga. By the time the baby was a month old, nobody but the father used the whole name, considered too weighty for a tiny little baby. Everybody else called her Kweete.
On 16 October 1962, the New Mulago Hospital opened its doors amidst great pomp and fanfare. Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, traveled to Uganda to officiate at the opening. Alderdice, a former Medical Superintendent of (the old) Mulago hospital, writing in the Lancet of August 1963, said this of the new hospital, “A 900-bed hospital has been constructed in Kampala, Uganda, of a standard that compares favorably with teaching hospitals of recent design elsewhere.” With regard to the medical school, he was equally full of praise. “Throughout the course, standards obtaining in the best British medical schools apply. … Library facilities for students and staff are of a very high standard. The Albert Cook library has the best collection in East Africa and very few journals to which a member of staff may wish to refer are not available.”
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At Mulago the intention was to build a 750-bed general hospital (to which was later added a private wing of 130 beds). Once the figure of £2 million for the building, £220,000 for medical equipment, and £80,000 for an extension to the nurses’ home was arrived at and voted by Parliament, the architect and the planning committee were determined to cut their cloth accordingly. Although experience elsewhere in Africa raised serious doubts about the adequacy of the money voted, the hospital was in fact completed and equipped virtually within this figure.
Two factors helped to keep the costs within bounds. The first and more important was the speed with which the hospital was designed and building started: the whole project from the first sketch to completion took less than five years; and this gave less time for prices to rise. The second was the determination of the architect (who controlled expenditure and held the vote book) and the planning committee to keep within the figure set, even though this meant a good deal of give and take.
A. A. Alderdice, M.B. Sydney, M.R.C.P. The New Mulago Hospital. Lancet August 3, 1963.
On 22 February 1966, Health minister Dr. Lumu had a premonition that the Cabinet meeting he was going to attend at State House would not end well. He nonetheless prepared a technical brief about the plans for the new regional hospitals in case he had to give an update. Political tensions had been rising, and allegiances had been shifting back and forth for months. Although the Uganda People’s Congress had managed to build a clear majority in the legislative house, the party was deeply divided, and things were coming to a head. Minister of State Grace Ibingira had abandoned all subtlety as he sought to pull the rug from under Prime Minister Obote. Lumu had been in meetings with the Ibingira group, and they were beginning to feel confident of their advantage both in Parliament and in Cabinet. For his part, the Kabaka of Buganda and President of the republic, Sir Edward Mutesa, was considering pushing Obote out, and creating a new government. It would seem that he had gone so far as to seek the advice of Attorney General Godfrey Binaisa about the legal implications of removing Prime Minister Obote from office. Clearly, all of this plotting was not discrete enough, as Obote’s checkmate move would soon reveal.
Driving through Entebbe town, Lumu noticed that there was unusually tight security. A bigger surprise awaited him at State House. He arrived to find that rather than the usual Cabinet meeting, there were only three other ministers waiting to meet the president: Mathias Ngobi, G.B.K Magezi, and Grace Ibingira. A fifth minister, Balaki Kirya, arrived shortly afterwards. Beyond the brief greetings, nobody spoke. Every man sat quietly with his own thoughts. Obote was seated in his usual spot. Sam Odaka, his personal assistant (aide-de-camp), was the only other person in the room. A soldier came into the room, and Obote asked the ministers to follow him. At the door they were met by soldiers who led them to a waiting van. Some seven hours later they were ushered into Patiko prison in Gulu, and later transferred to Kotido in Karamoja where they were imprisoned without trial. Seated in a remote prison in Karamoja, Dr. Lumu could not have felt more removed from his patients and students at Mulago. The purging of the Cabinet to remove the
