Shaban Kirunda Nkutu: A minister who knew that Amin was coming to take his life but never ran—A Man who lost his life so that his people could live. Amin killed him, and buried him twice.

On the morning of January 11^th 1973, Shaban Nkutu, a former minister by this time, was attacked at his office on Scindia road in Jinja. Amin’s troops tried to force him into the car trunk in broad daylight which attracted the attention of the masses, some of whom were his supporters. They put up a fight but later ran off when gunshots were fired. Nkutu was taken away to Jinja Central Police station and later to the dreaded Gaddafi Army Barracks. 

Three days before this, on the 8^th of January 1973, Nkutu had been called into a meeting at a place called Baitambogwe on Jinja-Iganga Rd by some of his cousins and brothers  What they discussed with him was not new. No. It was about the same old recurrent threats that Nkutu had kept getting from the armed forces of General Amin. Nkutu had, however, decided against leaving the country, fearing that Amin would massacre his people, just as he was doing with Obote’s loyalists that were in the country. 

Nkutu had even been offered a chance to step on a private plane by the Madhivani. According to his son, Conrad, the directors of Madhivani group sent their personnel manager to this meeting with instructions to drive him to kakira, hide him and put him on a private plane the next morning,  an opportunity he also turned down. In this meeting with his brothers, he was warned that his life was in danger. Despite the impending doom, he decided to stay put to protect his people and more importantly, his family.  He insisted that he was innocent of any crime, that it was unfair to create so many widows and orphans to save one person—himself. 

Nkutu was not the only minister that was being witch-hunted by the Amin Regime. About seven of ministers in the ousted Obote’s gov’t had already been killed by the time he started receiving these threats.  Most of these were killed after the failed attack on Idi Amin’s government in 1972 by Obote and his loyalists. Amin started killing people he thought had ties with Obote.

Why was Amin going after Nkutu? His close ties with Obote? Probably. Nkutu and Obote had very close ties. They were very close friends right from childhood. They both studied at Busoga College Mwiri. Nkutu proceeded to Kibuli and then to Makerere University College (present-day Makerere University) where he became a teacher. He would later join the Uganda National Congress and then the Uganda People’s Congress. In April 1962, he stood and won the election to represent Busoga South East constituency in the parliament. Shortly after this, he was assigned additional duties by Obote. Nkutu served in various positions in the government. His most notable achievements, however, came when he was the minister of health (1966-67) and Minister of Works, transport and communication (1967-71)

There are not many ministers in Uganda’s history that have managed to achieve half of what Shaban Nkutu achieved in his ministerial career.  From overseeing the building of Twenty-one (21) regional referral hospitals to building a functional health system as health minister. He continued to build the nation as minister of works, transport and communication, laying the foundation for multiple projects. These included;

• The national landline telephone network
• Postal services system
• Regional airfields
• Quality bus and rail transport services
• National housing and construction corporation
• Housing estates across the country, including the Bugolobi and Bukoto housing estates.
• East African airlines
• Pakwach Bridge (West Nile)
• Almost all the tarmac roads built in Uganda after independence, beyond the Entebbe-Kampala axis
• The New Entebbe International Airport
• Soroti Flying School
• Airfields and aerodromes in most of the original 18 districts of Uganda
• International Conference Centre and Nile Hotel (now Serena Hotel and Conference Centre)
• The dual carriage-way from Jinja to Kakira
• Iganga-Tirinyi Road
• The Gulu-Pakwach road
• The Kampala-Mbarara-Ntungamo Highway
• The Ntungamo-Kabale Highway

Nkutu’s work was not limited to the projects above. This is less than half of the full list. He fathered numerous other projects. Actually, he oversaw most of Uganda’s post-independence infrastructural development.

 Nkutu had done his part to try to get away from public life by starting out a quiet private business in his hometown after the coup that saw Obote lose his presidency—but this was not enough.  After the that fateful January day,  Nkutu was not seen again by his family for 32 years.

In the Gaddafi Barracks, Nkutu was shot in the head.  Amin initially directed that he is thrown into the Nile, but the body showed up at the river banks. The locals identified the body as Nkutu almost immediately. Security forces were notified and hurriedly took the body to Jinja Hospital mortuary. He was then taken and Buried in the Mailo Mbiri Cemetery with five other bodies in one grave.  There was a lot of talk and pressure after the death Nkutu that Amin called a presser to explain himself, something he seldom did after extrajudicial deaths. He told the nation that Nkutu had escaped to Tanzania and that there was a huge prize for whoever found him. Everyone knew this was a lie. Everyone new Nkutu was dead. 

Joshua Kibedi, Nkutu’s nephew, who was Uganda’s foreign minister at this time was in Ghana on state duty. On hearing the news of his uncle’s death, he resigned and fled to the United Kingdom. It’s from there that he denounced the Amin regime and accused them of his Uncle’s Murder.

 For the next 32 years, Nkutu’s family hurt from the loss of their loved one, but even more from not being able to give him a dignified send-off—a sendoff he rightfully deserved for his distinguished service to his nation.

In early 2004, by pure coincidence, one of Nkutu’s family members met one of the gravediggers that had buried Nkutu. In October 2004, Nkutu’s remains were exhumed and identified by pathologists; Dr Wabinga and Dr Odida. In February 2005, Nkutu was given a state funeral in his hometown, Busesa.