Trace of a Little-Known Hero: Prof.

Kwesiga, Victim of
Idi Amin, now a Brain towards Industrializing Uganda
By Abasi Kalungi, August 17, 2023

The light smile with which Prof. Charles Kwesiga narrates his ordeal throws an
impression of a simple and satisfied senior citizen who has achieved it all. It is
until he recounts deep into his happenstance of early age success that was met
with a taste of death at the hands of Idi Amin in Mutukula, that one pays
undivided attention to this gentleman who Uganda is lucky to have.
Prof. Kwesiga, an Engineer with significant experience as a corporate manager,
management consultant, educator, and entrepreneur, is the reigning Executive
Director of Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI). His career path is an
assortment of a real-life tale, but a story of resilience, brilliance, and defying
death at a time when Amin wanted him departed in 1971.
Time and life have seen him sail through thickets—ironic! Every trial and
tribulation led to a step towards a future he couldn’t ever imagine. After surviving
Amin’s Mutukula executions, he never stopped to escape from pain whenever it
manifested. Nexus Media sheds light on the life of the little-known hero.

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Prof. Kwesiga was a brilliant student who was in Ntare School at the same time
with President Museveni. He was so witty that he sat senior four exams and
excelled while he was still in senior three. He was handpicked to join Obote’s
elite army which saw him fly to Russia after completion of senior four. In his
early 20’s, Charles Guy Kwesiga was among the few Ugandans who had
graduated from the prestigious Russian Military school-Vystrel Academy
majoring in Infantry Company Commander in 1970. Upon completion of the
course, he came to serve his Nation in the Obote I government, and business
was good as he enjoyed power at a youthful age.

His good days as an enthusiastic and brilliant man working in the service of his
country were short-lived when, in January 1971, Idi Amin launched a successful
coup d’état, which consequently led to his arrest in April and remand to Luzira
Upper Prison.
Kwesiga recalls an unusual happening while in prison on Christmas Day of
1971. He narrates how he was treated to tea and roasted ground nuts, but in a
couple of days, he was handed over to Major Malera’s military police, who
transported him and other colleagues to Mutukula Prison at the
Tanzania/Uganda border. For those who have heard Idi Amin’s Mutukula story,
you must be wondering how it is possible that Kwesiga is still alive to tell his
story! Well, he is among the lucky 64 survivors of the 625 detainees who had
been admitted to the bloody torture and execution prison.
Mutukula was a farm prison that had been abandoned by Uganda Prison
Services during the Tanzania-Uganda border clashes and had been taken over
by Amin’s soldiers as an execution ground.
The details of the agony that Prof. Kwesiga went through while under detention
in Mutukula have been deliberately left out of this story due to their disturbing
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nature. However, the now-Executive Director of UIRI recalls extreme conditions
of pain, grief, and sorrow as he and colleagues were subjected to untold torture,
including firing squads, smashing of heads, and daily burying of their friends.
The miraculous day of his release on February 9, 1972, revolved around the
drama of the execution of Mohammed Hassan, former Obote I’s CID Chief, who
had his head clubbed instantaneously following an incidence where he had
survived an execution by grenade bombing that he had walked away safe. Out
of some sort of unusual panic, the surviving 64 prisoners out of the 625 were
freed and transported to Makindye barracks, where they released them, but that
was just the start of the story as Amin later followed each of the survivors in a
bid to kill the Mutukula story.
On being free, Kwesiga learned that his family had done funeral rites for him
since they had prior information of his death. To keep the story within limit, he
managed to beat Amin’s soldiers and fled to Rwanda and later to Kenya.
He worked as an Engineer with the East African Community Airlines but was
later forced to run to the US on a scholarship. Besides, Amin was making
attempts of assassinating him while in Nairobi. On one evening, some strange
men appeared at his flat, looking for a Ugandan who lived there. He survived by
the skills of his Kenyan wife whom he had married, who convinced the men that
the Ugandan man lived in a different flat.
With a scholarship opportunity, Kwesiga proceeded to exile in the US where he
excelled as a scholar and practitioner in the field of Engineering. For more than
thirty years, he lived in the US until he returned in 2004.

He first worked as a Presidential advisor for AGOA and later in 2006, was sent
to Nakawa to resuscitate UIRI. A breakthrough towards a bright industrial
process through specialized training, came on January 15, 2020, Prof. Kwesiga,

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as the Executive Director, launched a 30M USD institution by the help of China
aid. The installment located in Namanve Industrial Park and boosts state of Art
machinery, all at the disposal of the trainees.
Professor Kwesiga’s other extracurricular activities include serving as President
of WAITRO (World Association of Industrial and Technological Research
Organizations), an association of 160 member institutions from 70 countries. He
has since pioneered the building of Uganda Petroleum Institute-Kigumba (UPIK),
as Chairman of a Special Task Force (March 2009–November 2016).
He is a Senior Presidential Advisor (on retainer) for Scientific Innovations,
Uganda Government and a member of Board of Control of the Senior Command
and Staff College Kimaka (SCSC) of Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). He
also serves as a Member and Vice Chairman of the Board for National Enterprises
Corporation (NEC), a business arm of UPDF and he is the serving Chairman
Board of Governors at Ntare School.
Under Prof. Kwesiga’s leadership, UIRI was voted a Centre of Excellence in
Research and Development for the East African Community (EAC).
This is the trace, Prof. Kwesiga’s story and journey through life has every aspect
about living to the end, disobeying death, and having the willpower to win every
challenge. Kwesiga has since transformed his once-jumbled Kabale home into a
paradise where his children come and take vacations. Not withstanding that his
brilliance proceeds him, all his children work in managerial positions across the
globe, including one daughter who is a Professor at Bryant University in the US.