President Yoweri Museveni will celebrate his 80th birthday on September 15, 2024.However, unlike most people whose birthdate is a given – celebrated annually without question, Museveni’s quest to pinpoint the exact day of his birth has been a journey intertwined with rural life and historical events.
In his autobiography Sowing the Mustard Seed, Museveni recounts the thorough process of piecing together his birthday using memories of his mother, Esteeri Kokundeka, and accounts from villagers. From cattle vaccinations to crop cycles, Museveni’s pursuit to uncover his true birthdate showcases a unique struggle, culminating in the confirmation that he was born in September 1944.
In the early years, Museveni did not bother knowing his birthday.
“In any case, we had real life-threatening challenges such as extra-judicial killings and looting of people’s properties among others. We had no time to worry about details such as dates of birth. It was in 1979, after the defeat of Amin, that I started seeking to know the exact date of my birth. I went to the New Mbarara Hospital to inquire but the records were not there,” Museveni says in his book.
In 1981, Museveni again, launched a new armed struggle, which took another five years resulting in his National Resistance Army (NRA) rebel group capturing power.Even after the NRA captured power and Museveni became president in 1986, he says his government faced enormous of challenges such as the Lakwena War, Kony, ADF, Karimojong cattle-rustlers among others.
However, at some stage, he became curious and asked his mother, Esteeri Kokundeka, exactly when he was born.
Mass vaccination
She said: “It was like three months before the ekikatu (the mass cattle vaccination) of Ishara-matu” (when the cattle’s ears were notched). Then, the next question was: “When did the mass vaccination of cattle take place?”
Fortunately, one of the veterinary guards that took part in that vaccination, Serugyendo (a Mufumbira from Kisoro), was still alive. He was a godsend. When I invited him to Rwakitura, he was unequivocal. The cattle vaccination in the Ntungamo area took place between the 24th and the 28th of November, 1944. Aha! Since Esteeri had told me that it was “like three months” before the cattle vaccination when I was born, I worked it out to be around August, 1944.’”
As luck would have it, Museveni says there was an old lady named Tophus Bwankuunku, who kept telling somebody he knew that she knew when Museveni was born.
“In spite of my busy schedule, I managed to ring her once. After the usual greetings, I asked her how she knew when I was born. She told me that she and her husband lived in the parish (omuruka) next to ours; that would be a distance of about eight miles away,” Museveni’s book reads in part.
“However, her sister-in-law (omuramukazi) was married in the village next to ours, Ruyojwa (two miles away or less). She had undertaken okwangana (when a woman temporarily withdraws from her husband’s home on account of some disagreements and goes back to her father’s or brother’s homestead). When she arrived at their home in Rwenchweera, she told them that by the time she left, Kaguta’s wife had been taken to the hospital to deliver, “Naatsiga batwaara muka-Kaguta omu irwariro (hospital) kuzaara (to deliver),” Museveni added.
“Then, after a few days, information came that Kaguta’s wife (muka-Kaguta) had delivered and the month was September 1944, not August. “How can you be so sure about the exact month after so many years?” She told me that she had planted her enkoore (cow peas) and by the time the news came, she had started eating the mugobe (the tender leaves of the cow peas that are cooked and eaten as a precursor to eating the cow peas themselves),” he emphasised.
“The matter was now concluded because the planting is done in August and the leaves are normally ready for harvesting by the middle of September. This now was scientific and unimpeachable. The month in which I was born was definitely September, 1944. Omukaikuru (old lady) Bwankuunku’s information of September coincided with Maama Esteeri’s information of “about three months” before the mass cattle vaccination of 1944,” Museveni wrote.
“If you bear in mind that, according to Serugyendo, the cattle vaccination was between the 24th and 28th of November, 1944, you can see that, more or less, the month of November was nearing its end. Therefore, we should count it as one month; then the whole of October as month two; and half of September would be the third month. Omukaikuru Bwankuunku’s scientific information of when the omugobe of the cow peas was beginning to be ready, falls in with the about “three months” of Maama Esteeri. I could, accordingly, declare the 15th of September as the most probable birthday,” the book reads.
In this way, Museveni says he was able to, somehow, pacify the curiosity of his daughters and grandchildren that always want to know his birthday.“It is now concluded by the efforts of the protracted research – partly historical and partly scientific – that the birthday of Yoweri Museveni is about the 15th of September, 1944.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING; CHIMP REPORTS
