While history paints a different picture of the feared army officer of his time between 1964 and 1979, members of his Nubian community and Uganda’s army have described Col (rtd) Abdallah Nasur as a symbol of unity.
At 81 when he breathed his last at Victoria Hospital in Kampala on Wednesday, Col Nasur, the former Governor of Central Province in the Idi Amin regime, had survived the gallows. Forty-two years ago, he had been sentenced to death in October 1981 for murdering the mayor of Masaka, Francis Walugembe.
Walugembe was killed in Masaka on September 21, 1972. After the fall of Amin in April 1979, the former governor fled to Kenya where local authorities arrested him in Kakamega. On June 16, 1979, he was extradited to Uganda and charged with Walugembe’s murder.
Nasur spent years on death row until September 2001 when he was pardoned by President Museveni under the Presidential Prerogative of Mercy. He would then retreat from public view, living a private life in his home town of Bombo, Luweero District.
Born in 1946 at Nakatonya Village, Bombo, Nasur, according to one of his uncles (himself a retired soldier and elder), Ramathan Poloto, 84, was a misunderstood man.
“I was a warrant officer in the Uganda Army between 1971 and 1979 when the government was overthrown. I closely worked with Nasur Abdallah and went into exile with him in Kakamega (Kenya) in 1971 where he got arrested and deported the same year. He was a strict officer and disciplinarian,” Poloto said.
Nasur was a businessman, and loved his Nubian culture and community. He owned a bus company in the 1970s and was a link between the Nubian and the Buganda Kingdom community. He was one of the leaders who pushed for the upgrading of Bombo Town to a municipality, before it was again downgraded to a town council in the early 1990s, Poloto revealed.
When the Amin government fell, many of his officials and soldiers fled. The previously close-knit Nubian community, many of whose members served under Amin, was dispersed. Several had been arrested and Nubians in Uganda felt lost. But when Nasur was pardoned, a feeling of revival swept through their ranks.
Nubians gained confidence in the government, Mr Ismail Karim, the general secretary of Uganda Nubian Consultative Forum, told this publication.
“Nasur Abdallah has been a strong pillar of the Nubian community. We have always sought advice and guidance from him as an elder.
The Nubians cherish unity and hard work. Nasur stood for unity and hard work. He embraced the Nubian culture and always encouraged the youth to work hard and remain united,” he said.
Mr Abdallah Ssebi Karim, 88, another elder and former Uganda Airforce officer (1973 and 1979) sounds almost revisionist in his recollections about the colonel.
Nasur as governor left a trail of pain in his wake. There have been horror stories recounted by those who lived in Kampala during Amin’s reign of terror which paint a picture of Nasur as one of the regime’s more ruthless henchmen.
But Ssebi Karim remembers it differently, saying: “My brother Nasur has gone to rest. God gave him wisdom and he served Ugandans selflessly.
I worked with Nasur Abdallah. He was my senior by rank but we both served in the government as soldiers. He was a strict disciplinarian. This at times brought him problems with people that disliked his methods of work”.
