{UAH} MANY DO NOT KNOW IDI AMIN'S MOTHER.

Picture (attached): My grand mother Aliya Aate Amin (RIP), the mother of His Excellency the late President Idi Amin Dada, barely a couple of years before she passed away. Here she was carrying her grandchildren (my elder brother Ali and my elder sister Maryam). While my grandfather was tall and slender, my father probably got the heavyweight build from my grandmother.

Truth is she past away the year I was born so I have only heard great stories about her from my father and his elder brother Ramathan Amin (RIP). The two were her only children, though they had an elder sister who passed away very young.

My grandmother had alot of knowledge about herbal medicine at a time when western medicine was not available in Africa as it is today. Living in the British colonial barracks with my grandfather who served in the Uganda police, she helped treat alot of the officers and neighbours for all types of ailments. Africans those days went for herbal treatment just as we go to the dispensary, pharmacy or clinic today. It was the normal treatment that everyone was turned to when sick...until western medicine progressively spread across Africa.

Soon word reached the Buganda royal family about her skills and knowledge in herbal medicine, and she started treating members of the royal family and their entourage.

In those days it was reportedly just word of mouth that went around if a particular herbalist's medicine had successfully treated a patient, and more people would just start trickling in for help with their different ailments.

She was so good at her herbal medicinal skills and probably saved a few royal lives because the Buganda King donated to her a huge plot of land. I suspect they also wanted her to grow all the plants that she needed on that expanse so that she could have all that she needed for their ailments nearby.

The problem with politics is that my father was hated so much that they started insulting, abusing and slandering my innocent grandmother as well for no reason whatsoever. This was so painful especially that she not only passed away before my father ever became president, she had also actually devoted her life to helping Ugandans in the only simple way she knew best, and that is with her herbal medecine knowledge. One of my biggest regrets is that I was not around to write down all that knowledge. Who knows if she could have known the best herbs that treat covid-19 symptoms or HIV/AIDS for example. But without anything in writing to pass on, there is generally no way today to even conduct scientific research and clinical trials of invaluable African herbal medecine knowledge and related treatments plus it's effectiveness.

It is indeed unfortunate that slander is the price she has also paid, even in death, in the hatred-filled arena of Uganda's politics, combined with the unchecked rage of disgruntled former colonial masters whose political and economic control over Uganda had been deeply and abruptly severed when she was not even around anymore. It is only my grandfather who lived to see his son become President of Uganda before he passed away peacefully five years later in 1976. But angry people overseas wrote about my grandmother as if they ever knew who she was, or had ever sat down with her to talk about her life-saving work, or what she stood for in her community.

I remember when I was at my fathers bedside at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital of the Saudi Ministry of Defense in 2003, the last person my father talked about fondly before he passed away was my grandmother.

Meanwhile, at a time when owning a car and taking a photo were both a very big deal for the average African (compared to today where everyone, even those in African villages, have a camera on every cellphone), this picture was taken at my grandmothers home on the land in Bugerere gifted to her by the Buganda Royals. And the brand new vehicle in the background (I believe it is a British-made Anglia, very popular in those Ugandan independence years) is President Idi Amin's first ever privately-owned vehicle ever. He loved my grandmother so much that as a young man in the military he drove his brand new car all the way to her house to show it to her, and took this souvenir picture that turned out to be the only one ever taken of my grandmother.

Signed: Mr. Hussein Lumumba Amin

Kampala, Uganda.

Sunday 21st Feb, 2021

--
Disclaimer:Everyone posting to this Forum bears the sole responsibility for any legal consequences of his or her postings, and hence statements and facts must be presented responsibly. Your continued membership signifies that you agree to this disclaimer and pledge to abide by our Rules and Guidelines.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ugandans at Heart (UAH) Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ugandans-at-heart/CAGtzWLqPCJYqHxJsgU_EkGq7L8hkHk%2Byh45HYrGid2X0ed5uhQ%40mail.gmail.com.