Milton Obote

Biography

Apollo Milton Obote was born in 1925 in Akokoro in northern Uganda, the son of a Lango clan chief. He attended Busoga College and Makerere University, then worked in Buganda and as a labourer in Kenya, where he became involved in the independence movement.

Back in Uganda in 1956 he joined the Uganda National Congress, entered the colonial legislative council in 1957, and in 1960 led a faction into the new Uganda People's Congress. Allied with the Buganda royalist Kabaka Yekka, he became prime minister at independence in 1962, with the Kabaka, Mutesa II, as ceremonial president from 1963.

In 1966, implicated in a gold-smuggling scandal, Obote suspended the constitution, made himself executive president and sent the army against the Kabaka's palace, driving him into exile. After a 1969 assassination attempt he banned opposition parties and pursued a socialist 'Move to the Left' amid corruption, shortages and repression. Idi Amin overthrew him in January 1971 while he was abroad.

From exile in Tanzania he backed a failed 1972 invasion. After Amin's fall he returned and won the disputed 1980 election, also acting as finance minister. His second government fought Yoweri Museveni's guerrillas in the Bush War at great civilian cost, and army officers deposed him again in July 1985. He died in exile in South Africa in 2005.