The connection between the late Ben Etyang and Museveni

In "The connection between Fox Odoi and Museveni", the other day we left FRONASA leaders, Yoweri Museveni , Odoi Chwale and three others, holed up at the home of one Pius Okoth Magara, in Okwira village, West Budama, in Tororo District.

Museveni and company had the previous day sabotaged the Tororo-Kampala railway line in Kirewa Parish, which caused a major derailment and introduced us to local chief, Mzee Oywelowo, who is the father of President Museveni's legal aide, Fox Odoi.

According to their sabotage plan, after the train had derailed, the rebels were to load sugar, salt, soap, clothes and other items off the train and into a lorry , which was to be stationed at Odoi Chwale's sister's home, and take the contraband to Morikatipe primary school, outside of Tororo township. A well know smuggler and double agent, named Ben Eyang would meet them there.

Etyang was a well-known agent of Idi Amin's State Research Bureau, but he also worked for FRONASA, having been recruited to the rebel group by his childhood friend, Odoi Chwale.

But the get-away lorry had burst a tire and there was no spare. The guerillas were now stranded in Okwira village.

At 7:00 AM, Odoi Chwale sent two of the other three men to report to Etyang about their misadventure. Coincidentally, Etyang had spent the night in Teso, Kenya, at the home of his cousin and fellow smuggler, Stephen Achiya Echakara.

(In 1987, after a "raw deal" between the two cousins, Etyang, with the help of Uganda's High Commissioner to Kenya, Charles Katungi, arranged for Echakara's murder. After an evening at the famous Carnivore Restuarant and Club in Langata, Nairobi, Echakara, who was an Assistant Minister in President Daniel arap Moi's government, was confronted by six armed men and cut into pieces. After Echakara was murdered, Kenya's foreign minister, Zackary Onyonka, expelled Katungi from Kenya. Museveni sent Katungi to Brussels as Ugandas ambassador to the European Union, but he died of Aids shortly thereafter.)

Etyang arrived at the destinated place around 9:00 AM (to receive the contraband), only to learn from his "employees" that Museveni and Odoi Chwale were stranded in Okwira village, in the heart of West Budama. He knew that he could not just drive into Okwira village and rescue his friends. He needed to stop somewhere first.

Etyang, driving his sleak blue Datsun 160, went to Kisoko, the county seat of West Budama, to see his godfather, a man he had relied on for protection throughout all his smuggling career: Saaza Chief Opondo, the father of NRM spokesman, bad boy Ofwono Opondo.

Saaza Chief Opondo was a formidable figure in West Budama. He was a personal friend of former president, Milton Obote, and in 1969, he had played a leading role in convincing a fellow village mate in Mulanda, then Bukedi MP, James Ochola (RIP), to cross from DP to UPC. After he crossed the floor, Ochola was appointed minister for Local Government, a position that enabled him to bring about major developments in West Budama.

Like most men of his generation, Saaza Chief Opondo had many wives and dozens of children. And although his position in society was glamorous, it did not pay him enough to cater for his ever-expanding family. Thus, when a hustler like Ben Etyang knocked with a bagful of money, Mzee Opondo would listen. That way, he had offered protection to some of the worst criminals in society: smugglers, murderers and rapists included.

Etyang was the dean of smugglers in Tororo district during that period. Coffee and cotton smugglers, some coming from as far as Kaliro, Busembatia, Busolwe, and even Bulemezi in Buganda, were made to understand that in order to cross the border to Kenya or make a successful trade, one needed to be in good books with Ben Etyang. He controlled smuggling points from Malaba to Lwakhakha in Bugisu.

Saaza Chief Opondo was readying his county headquarters for a rally to be addressed by the acting Eastern Provincial Governor, Lt. Col. Farouk Minawa, the next day. The governor was coming to assure the people that the train derailment two days earlier was an accident, and not a sign that rebels were operating in West Budama.

Etyang told Mzee Opondo that "Obote's boys" were involved in that train sabotage, and that they were in Okwira village, some four miles away.

Back in Okwira, Museveni and Odoi Chwale were getting uneasy. Odoi inquired around and found that a local resident had a motor scooter. Arrangement was made and the scooter owner, a man named Alecho, agreed to take two (Museveni and Odoi Chwale) Tororo town. But, the scooter broke down at Gwaragwara primary school.

As they awaited repair works on the scooter, Ben Etyang, accompanied by a County Askari, showed up. Etyang took the FRONASA rebels to Mzee Opondo who quickly dispatched them to his official residence for the day.

[ The author is kindly requested to clarify how Mzee Opondos' encounters with the FRONASA saboteurs as narrated in the above 4 parapgraphs fits in with the previous account "The connection between Museveni and Ofwono Opondo" of Mar-09-06 ; where we had Saaza Chief Opondo "sentencing" the rebels Museveni and Odoi Chwale who had just been brought to him by Oloka Omeja -Ed]

At the residence, 16-year old Ofwono Opondo was nursing serious wounds: a deep cut in the forehead, a fractured left arm and a bleeding right elbow. He would not tell the visitors how he got injured! That night, Mzee Opondo gave his rebel comrades shs. 10,000 each. Ben Etyang drove them to Tororo town.

During the 1980 general elections, Ben Etyang was the paymaster for DP candidates in Tororo district. After Etyang died in a suspicious accident in Mabira forest in the early 90s, Museveni became romantically involved with his widow, a young woman called Felicity Etyang, who today is Assistant to the President for (Domestic) Protocol. And in keeping with his tradition, Museveni has a nine-year old daughter with Felicity.