Why Ugandans feared Lt Col Abdallah Nasur in the 1970s

On Tuesday, the country received the sad news about the passing on of Lt Col Abdul Abdallah Nasur,  the former governor of the central province under former Ugandan President Idi Amin.

According to his daughter, Zenar Nasur, Lt Col Nasur died the previous night at Nakasero Hospital after battling pneumonia for a long period. He was buried yesterday at Nakatonya village in Bombo town council, Luweero district.

Nasur was among the few remaining Nubian elders who served under Amin’s government.

His name has always been in the books of the notorious iron fist men that have ever served in government. Ugandans have always known him on the bad side of life despite his denial of being involved in many acts of torture and killings during Gen Idi Amin’s regime.

However, a question would be how did Nasur’s name get involved in such allegations? For example making people eat slippers, or killing people? Here is how Lt Col Nasur’s name got into the bad book of Ugandans  and named among the notorious leaders in the 1970s.

First of all, Abdallah Nasur was born in 1946 in Nakatonya, Bombo, Luweero district to Aljab Manguru and Abdu Abdallah Urada. He attended the Bombo Islamic School, earning “roughly” a high school education.

In 1964, Nasur joined the Uganda Army, he was a good sportsman, and because of this, he became a football coach within the army team and was promoted from the rank of private to sergeant.

When Gen Idi Amin took power following the coup in January 1971,Nassur was at that time serving as the chief sports officer and sports trainer at Kasijjagirwa Barracks in Masaka. That year he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant.

After completing a series of short courses, he was attached to the Ministry of Education and given charge of gymnastics training.

In 1974, Gen Amin promoted him to the rank of captain and made him the army’s top sports officer. After one year, Gen Amin again appointed him Governor of Central Province and was also promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Lt Col Nasur was a no nonsense person and a tough one, when he took the office of Governor of Central Province he replaced the head of the Federation of Uganda Football Associations, despite having no legal authority to do so. Not only that; he went ahead and declared himself a disciplinary officer of the Uganda national football team and instituted a team code of conduct.

Due to his toughness, Gen Amin liked him and placed him in charge of the Economic Crimes Tribunal, which was tasked with combatting smuggling and economic malpractice. Several books of those that survived say that when Lt Col Nasur attained such powers he became too violent and is personally responsible for many of the deaths that occurred around Kampala and Entebbe.

As governor, Nasur played a leading role in Amin’s “Keep Uganda Clean” initiative, which involved removing trash and beautifying Kampala’s streets. He appointed a committee to encourage the public to sanitise the city and oversaw a network of undercover detectives that monitored littering.

He regularly toured the city to ensure it was clean, and in May 1975 he had all illegal housing in the Nakawa neighbourhood demolished. Lt Col Nasur also decreed a prohibition on the wearing of slippers, as Kampala residents often wore them to bathe outside or use a toilet, and he associated them with dirt.

According to reports, this adversely impacted the urban poor, who did not afford other types of footwear. This generated allegations that Nasur’s subordinates would force people caught wearing slippers to eat them, or beat and incarcerate them.

Nasur later denounced these charges as “baseless”. Nevertheless, he garnered a negative reputation for his strict enforcement of the cleanliness campaign. Even his boss Gen Amin criticized him saying “It is wrong on the part of the governor who was misbehaving to the extent of flattening people’s cars and beating women wearing slippers”.

Because of this, in January 1976 Amin transferred Nasur, making him Governor of Karamoja Province and replaced him with Samuel Odong, however after eight months Gen Amin removed Odong and reappointed Nasur as Governor of Central Province.

Shortly after re-assuming his office, Nasur organized eight cleanliness zones in Kampala. He then led officials in conducting “spot checks” around the city, evicting residents of unkempt houses, seizing untidy businesses, and closing down disorganized markets. These actions dispossessed numerous citizens of their belongings. Nasur believed that unmarried women increased crime and prostitution and publicly suggested that they should leave urban areas and engage in agricultural production in the countryside.

In an attempt to reduce crime, he banned the brewing and consumption of alcohol in certain parts of Kampala. He also closed down several shops and restaurants in Katwe, accusing their owners of overcharging for goods.

In 1977 he forced out the chairman of the National Council of Sports and took his place. In this capacity he banned the Express football club after it had defeated an army team in a game, accusing its members of subversion.

The following year he ejected Denis Obua from the national football team for drinking before the 1978 African Cup of Nations. By the time Gen Amin’s government was toppled, Lt Col Nasur was still the Governor of Central Province. On 16 June 1979, he was charged with the murder of the Mayor of Masaka, Francis Walugembe. Walugembe had been killed in Masaka on 21 September 1972.

However, he was pardoned by President Yoweri Museveni on 10 September 2001 and was set free.