Who is Fox Odoi? What is his connection to Museveni?

During the recent presidential election campaign, the legal officer of State House, Fox Odoi, was photographed on the front page of the "Daily Monitor" holding an (AK-47) assault rifle and three or four men on the ground, surrounded by threatening LDUs and Odoi in the background wearing a yellow T-shirt.

As usual, there was a publc outcry for Odoi to be brought to justice and as usual there was the usual lukewarm response from State House. Soon, that incident will be forgotten and Odoi will continue with his life and his political connection to State House.

Most of us know that State House is a home of Bahima with blood or other connections to the First Family.

So when you see someone with a surname starting with "O" so close to the Museveni State House, eyebrows are raised but in uncertain directions.

Many people have wondered to themselves at what makes Fox Odoi so close to Museveni and yet he is from a tribe (Mudama) in Tororo so far away from Museveni's ethnocentric view of politics.

The answer is about to be given to you and it is strange but true. It also shows us further intriguing insight into Museveni's secret guerrilla history.

Fox Odoi comes from a village in Kirewa parish, Tororo District. His father was a Mutongole chief named Mzee Oywelowo.

In 1976, the FRONASA rebel leader Yoweri Museveni and another rebel leader called Odoi Chwale, (no relation to Fox Odoi) led a sabotage mission on the main Tororo-Kampala railway line in Kirewa sub-parish, Tororo District.

That sabotage, which caused five train cars to derail with tonnes of sugar, salt, paraffin and other consigments, happened near Odoi Chwale's sister's marital home, within the village under Mzee Oywelowo's leadership.

The plan had called for the sabotage and looting of all the consignments and then loading them onto a lorry that was to be parked at Odoi Chwale's sister's compound.

As fate would have it, the lorry punctured a tire that morning as it was being parked, and there was no spare tire. Due to lack of communication, Odoi Chwale's in-law could not warn him and his group in time, and so, the sabotage went on.

When it was sabotaged, the train signaled the nearby Nagongera station, which in turn, radioed Rubongi Air and Seaborne battalion in Tororo township for assistance. Less than an hour after the derailment, dozens of soldiers had descended on the hapless village. Dozens more had cordoned off the whole parish and its environs.

Knowing that their exit routes had possibly been sealed off, Museveni, Odoi Chwale and three others, asked Mzee Oywelowo, at gun point, for help. He agreed but also asked them "to look after my children should something happen to me."

He gave them some rag-tag clothes and helped them sneak through backyard roads at night to his brother in law, a primary school teacher, the late Paul Olowo Nyonga, in Okwira village, some five miles away.

The poor teacher, however, didn't have enough room in his modest house. Besides, he was in the middle of an emergency too, his wife was in labor, and would later that night deliver a baby boy. That baby, Peter Nyonga, is today one of Museveni's Co-Chefs.

Still eager to his help his in-law, teacher Olowo Nyonga took Museveni and company to his cousin, the late Pius Okoth Magara's home, a short distance away.

Okoth Magara away, but they found his two sisters: Maria, the mother of the long-serving Director of Labor, Claudus Olweny, and Mary Owor, the current RDC Kaberamaido, wife of Prof. Owor and mother to lawyer, Maureen Owor, who was the lead counsel in the Julia Sebutinde Commission of Inquiry.

After the fall of Idi Amin, Odoi Chwale, a Dar-es salaam trained lawyer, became the Director of Military Intelligence with Museveni as Defence Minister.

During the 1980 general elections, Odoi Chwale stood on a DP ticket in what is Budama district today, and, though heavily backed by Mzee Oywelowo and the Catholic family of Pius Okoth Magara, he lost to UPC's Osindek Wang'wor.

Odoi Chwale was killed in 1984 when he tried to lead a rebel attack on Rubongi Barracks. Shortly before he died, Mzee Oywelowo told his son, Fox Odoi, that if Museveni ever came to power to go to him and introduce himself.

And that's exactly what Fox Odoi did after graduating from Makerere University.

His first five attempts to see the president were thwarted by unsmilling presidential guards, until one senior officer, Jim Muhwezi (who later became the Director-General of the Internal Security Organisation) overheard him pleading with the soldiers at State House gate one day:
"Please just let me see the president. My uncle, Odoi Chwale, left me with an important message for His Excellency...before he was killed..."
Muhwezi reportedly interjected, "Did you say Odoi Chwale?"
"Yes, sir...he was killed..."
"I know he was killed. I knew him. We were comrades", and the gate to State House was thus opened for Fox Odoi.

Though he knew that the two Odois were unrelated, Museveni marvelled at Fox Odoi's wily tale of losing his "uncle."

He reportedly told Muhwezi, "This kid is good. He told you a wonderful tale and you bought it...I'll hire him."

Museveni assigned Fox Odoi to represent his interest in the disposal of government assets at the start of the privatization programs. There, Fox Odoi minted billions of shillings for himself and his boss.

This put him at loggerheads with the Privatisation Unit Director, William Okecho, a former executive at the Uganda Coffee Marketing Board.

Though reportedly quite intelligent, Fox Odoi is not the person Museveni seeks legal advice from. Museveni's "real" legal advisor in every matter - political, commericial or tribal is another lawyer named Justus Karuhanga, a Muhima who was reportedly raised by Museveni after his father died in 1988.

Officially, Karuhanga reports to Odoi, but we know who has Museveni's ears.

The clash at the PU over how much Fox Odoi and Museveni should make out of sale of government assets helps explain why Fox Odoi and Museveni streneously opposed Okecho's nomination as NRM candidate for Budama North in last month's elections.

They managed to have rig the primary elections for the againg, wheel-chaired, Labor State minister, Henry Obbo, instead. But Okecho stood his ground and ran as an independent, beating Obbo by a mile.

Next time, we will bring you the history between Museveni and Ofwono Opondo (the kleptomaniac)