Africa-Press – Uganda. “ I am going to make a few remarks and then read his (President Museveni) message.
I have learnt that there is a lot of speculation about what could have killed [Lt Gen] Paul [Lokech]. I want to put you at ease that a postmortem was done, and a report was handed over to the family, and I am not at liberty to disclose that report, unless I have the permission of his family and the police.
I would like the police to ensure that this report, together with the deceased’s family, is put out at the disposal of the public because people want to know.
That concern is legitimate and the people’s queries put to rest. However, I would like to reiterate that when I was seated here, I was with My Lord, the Chief Justice, and the Right Honourale Speaker (Jacob Oulanyah) and the Right Honorable [NRM party] Secretary General [Richard Todwong]. I am proud to say that I have known the Chief Justice from when we were CA [Constituent Assembly] delegates. I have known the Right Honourale Speaker for a very long time. I have [also] known the Right Honourale NRM Secretary General for a sensible time, and I participated in their molding.
Surely, it defeats me for anybody to imagine, by any stretch of imagination, that we could have taken time to invest in these individuals who when we got in contact with, showed they had the potential to carry on our legacy, and then destroy them.
I can’t say there might not be people or a group of people who want to replace them and, therefore, are interested in destroying them, but I am saying those of us who raised them, cannot be the same people who destroy them.
Then why did we invest in them? Why did we invest in getting Jacob [Oulanyah] and my Lord Chief Justice [Owiny-Dollo] from simple to essence of prominence and then destroy them, especially at the time when some of us are beginning to see the evening of our lives?
Who do you think will protect me when I am no longer Minister of Internal Affairs? [ will it be ] The people I don’t know or the people I have raised?
So, countrymen, yes, much as we are entitled to be inquisitive about the unknown phenomenon [cause of death], let’s also be philosophical about our approach to life.
Uganda was here without us, Uganda was here with us, Uganda will be here long after we are gone, and there is enough room for everybody to make a contribution.
In this regard, I am going to talk about my friend Gen Paul Lokech.
How I knew Gen Lokech
I got to know Gen Lokech when he was a captain and we were in [DR] Congo, I got to know him because he got lost in the forests long enough to have his batteries run out and we couldn’t communicate.
I admired him for his ability to quickly think because we were searching for them with a helicopter and in the Congo, the trees were very tall. We were searching for them and we could not see them. But he had a cunning ability to say ‘let’s go where the helicopter comes from, these people are looking for us, and they cannot find us, let go there, everybody.’
And, indeed, when he did that, he set out through the forests and came to the road and came back to Uganda.
When I met him, I used to tease him: ‘what were you eating all those days because there was no food.’
And from then, Lokech and I knew each other as ‘ndekonangai’, the Lingala word for ‘my brother’.
I found Gen Lokech a very gifted individual, very unique, and perhaps once in a country, a man like him comes alone in 50 years.
And we modern beings squander talents like [Gen] Lokech as if we have an oversupply of their type.
I can’t say we can’t replace him, but by resentment, we may not easily get his replacement.
Since I became Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen Lokech never came to my office, he would always come to my home. Now, what is funny is that Lokech would come home and brief me about matters of the police without books, without a file.
Lokech would come and talk about issues in Ngomoromno, Kampala, in Puranga, in Kasese, in Arua and he would mention names then I would wonder how this man remembers all these details.
He is not reading it, but he would scan the whole country from a police perspective like a vulture. Everything was in his head and I am now wondering how the police are going to retrieve all those files in his head now that he is gone.
Nothing written, nothing put down, but he had facts at his fingertips.
Transcribed by Tobbias Jolly Owiny
