{UAH} Birth of Ahmed Mbayo

I was incredibly excited to join Makerere University in 1972.

To its students, Makerere was a kind of hallowed ground but it was impossible to not notice Amin's state operatives at every corner. At social events, the students loved to talk about Pan-Africanism and a transformed Africa, but I learned not to say much in order to determine whom I could trust.

My activities for FRONASA had begun prior to Makerere and I decided to use the Guild as a platform to spread a politics of resistance. During my first year I was elected to the Guild Representative Council and campaigned for one Olara Otunnu to become its President. Due to State harassment, Otunnu soon fled the country.

The next year (1973), I competed for the Guild Presidency but members took a collective decision to shut the guild down in protest at the prevailing political conditions which were fast deteriorating. Teachers and students were leaving campus; some were even abducted and never seen again. Together with a few other students who were also members of FRONASA, I decided to focus all my energies on taking down the regime.

Once the decision was taken, I left Campus and moved to Kitante with my new wife Jacqueline in 1974. The State soon received reports of an "enemy" living in that area but found it difficult to locate me; for at this time I had taken on a new persona: as Ahmed Mbayo.''

~~~ AMAMA MBABAZI

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H.OGWAPITI
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that  we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic  and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

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