Name William Mukama Role Politician | Died 2002 | |
William Mukama (1951-2002), was a Ugandan teacher and politician and founding member of The Ninth October Movement.[1], a Ugandan Rebel Movement, created in late 1985 to try and recapture state power from the National Resistance Army/ Movement led by Yoweri K Museveni, before it, the government of Tito Okello Lutwa
Mukama was also a member of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), the ruling party and government of Uganda both before and after the Idi Amin dictatorship.
Mukama was born in 1951, and was a native of Mbale District, part of which now forms the new Pallisa District, in Eastern Uganda. Brought up as religious young man, his first and only wish had been to become a priest. His early training in college directed him towards achieving this goal and was changed by forced National Service. As one of the best English and literature graduates, Mukama was drafted as an English teacher in Libya. The young Mukama worked and lived in Libya for approximately seven years at the end of which he had mastered speaking,writing and reading Arabic.
In the early 1980s following the fall of Amin, Mukama returned to Uganda and continued with the teaching profession, quickly becoming deputy head and then head of Namutumba School. Mukama left this position to contest a parliamentary seat for Iganga District in parliamentary elections as the official candidate of The Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) under Apollo Milton Obote. Mukama did not win seat.
Between 1985 and 1989, Mukama, along with Elungat, Captain Namiti, Bright Gabula, and Paulo Muwanga, formed the Ninth October Movement.He was arrested and illegally imprisoned between October 1989 and 1992 by the government of Yoweri Museveni,later getting convicted controversially of treason related charges in 1992 but not treason itself, which would have earned him a death sentence. He died in 2002 under unspecified circumstances.